眾生無邊誓願度
煩惱無盡誓願斷
法門無量誓願學
佛道無上誓願成

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Dharma Teachings

09 Feb 2019    Saturday     1st Teach Total 1245

The Verse on the Transmission of the Dharma by the Sixteenth Patriarch Rāhulata

Original text: 于法实无证,不取也不离;法非有无相,内外云何起。

Explanation: With respect to all dharmas, the true suchness of one's own mind neither cultivates nor realizes anything, because He has no ignorance, and thus there is no liberation that is not attained through cultivation. Toward all dharmas of the three realms as well as toward His own self, He has never grasped or clung, nor has He ever departed. The mark of true suchness is neither existent nor non-existent: say He exists, yet He is formless and without mark, invisible and intangible; say He does not exist, yet He has real functions that can be employed, truly gives birth to all dharmas, and contains infinite seeds of dharmas—so He cannot be said not to exist. He is the real mark (dharmatā); the real mark is truly existent. Only He is truly existent; everything else is emptiness and illusion. Because true suchness is formless and without mark, there is no inside or outside: within, He is empty and void; without, He has no form—yet He stores the myriad dharmas. If you do not realize Him, then no matter how exhaustively you think and ponder, it will all remain utterly incomprehensible.

——Master Sheng-Ru's Teachings
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