Explanation of the Diamond Sutra. Why Can One Not See the Tathāgata by Means of Bodily Marks?

The Tathāgata is the intrinsic virtue of the nature, is suchness (tathatā), is the Dharmakāya; He has no bodily form, and thus cannot be seen by means of bodily form. Whether the bodily form of sentient beings or the bodily form of the Tathāgata, none of them is real, neither arising nor ceasing, never changing or transforming; it is provisionally named "bodily form." Therefore a body endowed with form represents neither sentient beings nor the Tathāgata. If one takes the bodily form to be sentient beings and the bodily form to be the Tathāgata, then when the bodily form perishes, the sentient being vanishes, and the Tathāgata also disappears. Yet the Tathāgata is eternally unchanging and never perishes.

The Tathāgata is also the intrinsic virtue of a Buddha, the tathatā mind-substance of permanence, bliss, self, and purity; He is formless, without the characteristics of a physical body; therefore, if one takes the bodily form as the Tathāgata, one cannot see the Tathāgata. To see the Tathāgata, one must, through the bodily form, perceive the intrinsic virtue and see the formless true substance. The formless is real; that endowed with form is false — a provisional name given to a false appearance, provisionally called "bodily form." Then how does this bodily form come about? Through the Buddha's cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, the retributive body of thirty-two marks and eighty minor marks was brought about by His accumulated wisdom, merit, and virtue; it was manifested by the Buddha's tathatā undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna); it is an arising-and-ceasing substance that comes from non-existence into being, and is therefore false and illusory.

Then how can one see the Tathāgata, see the true Buddha? The Buddha gave a four-line verse as the answer: All marks are false and illusory; if one sees that all marks are no-marks, then one sees the Tathāgata. The answer is the result; the process of arriving at the answer is Chan investigation; the prerequisites are the full possession of precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom, the perfection of the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, and even more so the full possession of the Small Vehicle's thirty-seven factors of enlightenment — because if the Small Vehicle cannot realize it, the Great Vehicle even less can.

"All marks" refers to all marks whatsoever: the mark of self, the mark of person, the mark of sentient being, the mark of life span, the marks of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), marks of events, marks of objects, marks of mind, marks of dharmas — without exception all are no-marks, all are false and illusory, produced and conjured forth by the vajra mind (vajra-citta). If one wishes to see the Tathāgata, to see the vajra prajñā mind of ultimate reality, one must, through Chan investigation, inquire into all marks: what in essence these marks really are, why all these marks exist, and why they arise and cease. When the investigation is thorough and one realizes the vajra prajñā mind, one will know that these marks are all empty and without self-nature, that none of them is the mark of the substance itself, and that all are the functions of the vajra mind.

It is like the wind blowing and a tree swaying: the tree itself cannot sway; the swaying phenomenon is not the tree's own phenomenon but the force of the wind's action. Thus when the mark of the wind blowing appears and the wind is realized, the mark of the tree swaying is broken through. Likewise, within all marks one can realize the formless vajra mind and the wondrous tathatā nature, thereby breaking through all marks and realizing that all marks are no-marks — this is the profound meaning of the Buddha's words, "if one sees that all marks are no-marks, then one sees the Tathāgata." If one sees all marks as being all marks, that is an ordinary person with the flesh eye; if one sees that all marks are not all marks, yet are named all marks, that is a sage bodhisattva. Although all marks are provisionally named "all marks," the false appearances still exist, the illusory functions still exist, and cannot be entirely obliterated; therefore all marks are no-marks, yet not no-no-marks — free from the four propositions, cut off from the hundred negations.

Original text: 凡所有相。皆是虚妄。若见诸相非相。即见如来。

Explanation: All marks in the world, without exception, are false and illusory; if within all marks one sees a dharma that is without marks, one has seen the self-nature Tathāgata. (This is said from the level of prajñā; if from the level of Yogācāra, when one sees that all marks are no longer all marks, that none of them has marks, one has seen the self-nature Tathāgata.)

All marks include the forms seen by the eye: the universe and empty space, mountains, rivers, and the great earth, flowers, grass, trees, birds, beasts, and people; the sounds heard by the ear: sounds of humans and animals, sounds of the universe, sounds of rivers, sounds of the myriad things; the various fragrant, foul, sour, and putrid smells smelled by the nose; the sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy tastes tasted by the tongue; the tangible objects felt by the body — hunger and thirst, cold and heat, soft and hard, soreness and numbness, fatigue, lightness and ease, vexation, fullness, swelling, and pain; as well as all the dharma-marks discriminated by the mind, such as wholesome and unwholesome, true and false, good and bad (kuśala-akuśala, satya-mithyā, śubha-aśubha). To sentient beings, these six sense-object marks all seem real and appear to have real functions; but in terms of ultimate reality, these marks are all false and illusory, all born and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha.

Within the tathāgatagarbha are the four great element seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. Combined together in certain proportions and structures, they conjure up the material universe of insentient objects, Mount Sumeru, heavenly palaces, the four great continents, the four great oceans, minerals and plants, and so on; the physical bodies of sentient beings are also transformed and born by the tathāgatagarbha. Because the manas carries afflictive habits and attachments from beginningless kalpas and refuses to extinguish itself, always wanting a physical body to use, after death there is the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava); seeing the union of the future life's parents, it rushes toward them and participates in it. One who is to be born as a male develops craving and attachment toward the mother of the next life; one who is to be born as a female develops craving and attachment toward the future father; at the final instant of the parents' union, a mind of joy arises, and the manas and the tathāgatagarbha are seized and held within the father's sperm and the mother's blood, forming a fertilized egg and entering the mother's body. The tathāgatagarbha absorbs nutritive elements from the mother's body and constantly transforms the fertilized egg, changing every seven days, producing the head, the limbs, the five sense faculties, and the five internal organs and six viscera; after four or five months, the mind consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, and body consciousness arise. When body and mind are mature, the tathāgatagarbha blows the karmic wind, and the fetus emerges head-downward from the mother's body as an infant; then, through drinking milk and eating food, the tathāgatagarbha absorbs the nutritive elements in the food and drink to transform the physical body. Thus the physical body is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha.

When sentient beings' eyes see form, they think they truly see form; in fact, sentient beings have never seen the external form. What the eye faculty contacts is only a false appearance, a shadow. If the external form really stuck onto the eye faculty, one could not see that external form. If the eye could truly contact form, then when the eye sees a sharp knife, the tip touching the eye would surely pierce the eyeball; when the eye sees fire, the fire touching the eye would surely burn the eyeball; when the eye sees sand, the sand touching the eye would surely get into and blind the eye. The eye faculty and form cannot actually make contact; form must be at a certain distance from the eye faculty in order to transmit the four great element particles of the form sense-object. Only when the tathāgatagarbha, through the eye faculty, contacts the external form and transforms it into an identical shadow can it be seen; if the form stuck to the eye faculty with no spatial distance in between, the form could not be seen. The nose, tongue, and body faculties, however, can directly contact the external scent objects, taste objects, and tangible objects, requiring no particular distance or space, and the three corresponding consciousnesses can then be generated to discern scents, tastes, and tangibles.

The shadow seen by the eye consciousness differs from the matter of the external form; it is not the actual thing, and only thus can it be transmitted through the retina and the conducting nerves to the supreme faculty (indriya) at the back of the brain that governs vision, where the tathāgatagarbha produces the eye consciousness; the eye consciousness then discerns the form sense-object. This form seems identical to the external form but is in fact merely a similar shadow, which sentient beings take to be real. Likewise with the ear, nose, and tongue faculties: none of them can contact external sounds, scents, or tastes; in every case it is the tathāgatagarbha that makes the contact and then manifests them. Whatever is born is false and illusorily transformed — such is the principle that all dharmas are created by the mind alone. In short, all marks without exception are false and illusory. If, among the various marks of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, one can find a tathāgatagarbha that has no mark and is not a mark, that is seeing the Tathāgata — seeing the mind, realizing enlightenment, and beholding ultimate reality.

Since all the various marks are born and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, the operation of all the various marks cannot be separated from the tathāgatagarbha. When seeing marks, a person of wisdom can discover the ultimate reality that is together with the marks. Who is it that discovers the ultimate-reality vajra mind? It is the deluded mind; enlightenment is the deluded mind realizing the true mind. Within all the illusory marks of the operating five aggregates and eighteen realms, the vajra mind can be realized. For example, in raising hands and moving feet, in greeting and seeing off, in recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti) and bowing to the Buddha, in hitting people and scolding people — the vajra mind is operating together in all of them. The Sixth Patriarch said: 若见性，轮刀上阵也见 — this is precisely this principle.

The Vimalakīrti Sūtra says: 菩萨举足下足都从道场来. The Tang dynasty layman Pang said: 搬柴及运水，神通并妙用. Deshan used his staff to strike people in order to reveal this principle to students; Linji used the great shout to point it out to students; Zhaozhou said: 吃茶去; Yongming the Chan master told his disciples: 拜佛去. These Chan masters all used zen repartee and skillful means to point things out to students; when merit and conditions are complete, one will awaken to ultimate reality and clarify the great matter. A disciple came to his master and said: 自某甲到此已三年了，从不见师父为我开示佛法. The master said: 我什么地方没开示？你递水来我就喝，你送饭来我就吃，你问讯我就和南，什么处没开示佛法？ The disciple pondered after hearing this; the master said: 要见就见，思个什么？ The disciple immediately awakened.

One Chan master had a disciple who was always getting hit and scolded. One day the disciple finally could not bear it any longer and said to the master: "Why are you always either hitting or scolding me?" Hearing this, the master pointed his finger at him and said: "You dare slander me?" and raised his hand as if to strike. The disciple cried out for help, and the master covered his mouth with his hand; the disciple thereupon greatly awakened. How well this Chan master knew how to teach! Hundreds and thousands of meditative concentrations (samādhi) are right therein. A disciple asked his master about the Buddha-dharma, and the master said: "Go plant the fields." This foolish disciple did not understand, but really went to plant the fields; after finishing the planting he still did not understand, so he went again to ask about the Buddha-dharma, and the master said: "Go sweep the courtyard." The foolish disciple went and swept the courtyard; sweeping and sweeping, suddenly he swept his way to understanding — so that is how it is! He was enlightened; the courtyard was not swept in vain. Within sweeping there are mysteries; everywhere there are mysteries — it depends on the person knowing how to investigate, applying the mind correctly and finding the right path. In our daily life, everywhere there is the figure of the tathāgatagarbha, manifesting a mark that is not a mark; finding it is seeing the Tathāgata.