Commentary on the Diamond Sutra: Division Six - The Rarity of True Faith

Original Text: Subhuti addressed the Buddha, saying: "World-Honored One, could it be that there are sentient beings who, upon hearing such words and sections, will give rise to genuine belief?" The Buddha told Subhuti: "Do not speak thus. After the Tathagata's parinirvana, in the latter five hundred years, there will be those who uphold precepts and cultivate blessings. For these sections, they will be able to give rise to faith, taking them as true. You should know that such a person has not merely planted good roots with one buddha, two buddhas, three, four, or five buddhas. They have already planted various good roots at the places of immeasurable thousands and tens of thousands of buddhas."

Explanation: Subhuti said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, could it truly be that there are sentient beings who, upon hearing such teachings and sections, are able to genuinely believe and accept them?" The Buddha told Subhuti: "Do not speak like this. In the last five hundred years after the Tathagata's parinirvana, there will be people who uphold precepts and cultivate blessings, able to give rise to pure faith in these doctrinal sections, considering these doctrinal sections to be true and credible. You should know that this person has not merely planted good roots with one buddha, two buddhas, three, four, or five buddhas, but has already planted good roots at the places of immeasurable tens of thousands of buddhas."

In the previous section, the World-Honored One taught: "All phenomena with characteristics are illusory. If one sees all characteristics as non-characteristics, then one sees the Tathagata." After hearing this, Subhuti gave rise to doubt, wondering whether sentient beings hearing such profound sections and principles could truly believe and accept them. This question was very timely. Because sentient beings have different capacities—sharp or dull—and different blessings and wisdom, their acceptance of the Dharma differs. Sentient beings with meager blessings and dull faculties find it difficult to believe and accept the true great Dharma, often giving rise to doubt and slander. This has happened since ancient times; at the Dharma Flower Assembly, did not five thousand disciples disbelieve and reject the Mahayana, leaving the assembly? This is also a normal phenomenon. Throughout the ages, there have been those who disbelieve the Dharma of true reality and slander the Dharma. Because sentient beings have not severed the bonds, they constantly give rise to false views such as self-view, view-clinging, doubt-view, and so forth. Lacking right knowledge and vision, slandering the Dharma and disbelief are inevitable.

Self-view is the knowledge and view that takes the five aggregates and eighteen elements as the self, believing this "I" to be real, and the functions and actions of the five aggregates to be real. View-clinging is when sentient beings primarily adhere to their own knowledge and views, regardless of correctness, and do not accept others even when they are right. Furthermore, because sentient beings have not realized the mind of true reality, their various views and knowledge regarding worldly and transcendental matters are all erroneous, deviant, and incorrect, like the sixty-two views of non-Buddhists. Doubt-view is when sentient beings cannot make correct judgments or cognitions regarding correct Dharma principles and good teachers, harboring doubts and knots in their minds. Because these knots tightly bind sentient beings, they cannot free themselves from ignorance. Additionally, sentient beings lack sufficient blessings and causes and conditions, inevitably slandering the Dharma and the Three Jewels, especially in the Dharma Ending Age.

The World-Honored One's True Dharma lasts one thousand years, the Semblance Dharma one thousand years, and the Dharma Ending Age ten thousand years. The latter five hundred years after the Tathagata's parinirvana likely refers to the five hundred years just before the extinction in the Dharma Ending Age. At that time, those who uphold precepts and cultivate blessings will be very rare. If there are any, they must be people with profound good roots and blessings. Seeing the Diamond Sutra's sections explaining the refutation of the Tathagata's bodily form and the refutation of all dharmic characteristics, they can believe without doubt, praising the Tathagata's teaching as true. Such a person is certainly rare and hard to encounter. Anyone who believes and accepts the sections and principles within the Diamond Sutra is a person of right faith.

Achieving right faith is extremely difficult. On the Bodhisattva path of practice, one has already passed through the ten faiths stage of cultivation, entered the ten abodes stage of cultivating blessings, upholding precepts, cultivating patience, cultivating concentration, and cultivating wisdom. The four preliminary practices—warmth, summit, patience, and supreme worldly dharmas—are perfectly completed. The provisions for enlightenment are also complete. All false appearances are eliminated, and one realizes true reality. This requires passing through tens of kalpas, hundreds of kalpas, thousands of kalpas, or even longer kalpas to immerse oneself in the Buddha Dharma, thereby attaining right view. During this period, one must have inevitably encountered and made offerings to countless buddhas, having already listened to sutras, heard the Dharma, planted various good roots, and accumulated various blessings at the places of immeasurable tens of thousands of buddhas. This cannot be accomplished in a short kalpa. Countless sentient beings resolve to cultivate the path, but only a very few reach this stage. Therefore, seeing that most people are still in the initial learning stage should not be surprising. Cultivating the Buddha path is extremely difficult. Only because of endless kalpas upon endless kalpas of revolving in birth and death, with ignorance deeply rooted and good roots shallow, is it like accumulated hard ice that cannot be melted by a few days of sunlight.

Original Text: "Those sentient beings who, upon hearing these sections, give rise to pure faith even for a single thought—Subhuti, the Tathagata fully knows and fully sees them. All these sentient beings attain immeasurable blessings such as these."

Explanation: Sentient beings who hear such sections and give rise to pure faith even for a single thought—the Tathagata knows them all and can see that these sentient beings have obtained immeasurable, boundless blessings.

The Buddha is also known as one who possesses All-Knowing Wisdom, perfectly complete in blessings and wisdom. He fully knows all worldly and transcendental dharmas. He knows all the seeds and functions contained within the Tathagatagarbha; not a single dharma is unknown, hence called All-Knowing Wisdom. This wisdom is so subtle that if it rains simultaneously in the worlds of the ten directions, the Buddha knows the exact number of raindrops. One world contains ten billion great continents, ten billion great oceans, ten billion Mount Sumerus, ten billion six heavens of the desire realm, ten billion first dhyana heavens, and countless heavens beyond the second dhyana. How many celestial bodies are there in the ten directions? How vast is the scope? The Buddha knows the number of raindrops falling everywhere. The Buddha's wisdom is even subtler: all sentient beings in the ten directions give rise to a single thought, and the Buddha knows them all. Yet sentient beings are often unaware even of their own thoughts. After reciting the Buddha's name or sutras for a long time, they suddenly realize they have been distracted all along. The mental faculty clings to whatever it encounters, the mind is like a monkey or a galloping horse, very difficult to subdue.

How many sentient beings are there in the ten directions? On our planet Earth alone, there are about seven billion humans. How many animals are there? Innumerable. If a fish spawns, it might produce thousands or tens of thousands. In one square meter of soil, there are countless ants; various insects and bacteria are beyond counting. Bacteria grow everywhere; every inch of our skin is covered with bacteria. The nine orifices and the tears, sweat, and other secretions that flow out are all bacteria. Peel back the skin, and the muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, blood, brain matter, and internal organs are all filled with bacteria—nowhere is without them.

The Buddhist sutras explain that these bacteria have three heads and six arms, are multicolored, and have strange shapes, fighting and devouring each other. If the quantity and types become unbalanced, we get sick; skin diseases are like this. Therefore, when using medicine to kill bacteria, some beneficial bacteria are also killed, leading to other illnesses. Ghost and spirit beings are everywhere—remote mountains, desolate wilderness, riverbanks, forest edges, crossroads—even on a single blade of grass, there are beings without blessings attached. In the Shurangama Sutra, the World-Honored One said: "A pure bhikshu walking along a forked path does not tread on living grass, much less pull it out by hand." Beings without blessings take a single blade of grass as their home, clinging to it. If one tramples or pulls it by hand, that destroys the beings' home. Add to this the beings in the hell realms, the asura beings, non-human beings—the number of beings in a small world alone is so vast. How many more must there be in a great chiliocosm, or the great chiliocosms of the ten directions?

So many sentient beings—each one gives rise to a thought, and the Buddha knows them all. Therefore, the Buddha knows which sentient being's conditions have ripened, whose good roots have matured, and will arrange the appropriate causes and conditions for them to be liberated. Thus, if anyone hears the sections of the Diamond Sutra and gives rise to a single thought of pure faith, the Tathagata certainly knows and sees them fully. For every sentient being, since beginningless kalpas, in which realm they were born, what karmic actions they performed, what karmic results they experienced, how many good roots they planted, how many blessings they accumulated, when they can enter the path and attain enlightenment—the Buddha knows it all.

Original Text: "Why is that? It is because all these sentient beings have no further notion of self, person, sentient being, or life span. They have no notion of dharma nor any notion of no-dharma."

Explanation: Why is this said? It is because these sentient beings can avoid clinging to the Tathagata's bodily form, knowing that all phenomena with characteristics are illusory. They long ago have no notion of self, person, sentient being, or life span. First, they eliminated these four notions; further, they eliminated all notions of dharmic characteristics, cultivating their minds to have no notion of dharma nor any notion of no-dharma.

Dharma is divided into conditioned dharmas and unconditioned dharmas, dependently originated dharmas and non-dependently originated dharmas. The five aggregates are dharmas, the eighteen elements are dharmas, the three realms are all dharmas, and suchness is also a dharma. Anything that can be cognized is a dharma, whether visible or invisible; existence is dharma. There are true dharmas and false dharmas, arising-ceasing dharmas and non-arising-ceasing dharmas, dharmas formed by causes and conditions and dharmas innate and not formed by causes and conditions. From various angles and aspects, there are distinctions.

Dharma includes conditioned dharmas and unconditioned dharmas. Conditioned dharmas are empty, illusory; unconditioned dharmas are dharmas that exist inherently, true dharmas, indestructible dharmas. Any dharma that directly leads to Buddhahood is the ultimate dharma. The dharma of realizing the mind and seeing the nature, the dharma of suchness, is the ultimate dharma. The methods to attain the ultimate dharma are expedient means. The notion of dharma is existence; the notion of no-dharma is emptiness. Sentient beings who can give rise to a single thought of pure faith upon hearing the sections in the Diamond Sutra have not only eliminated the four notions but have also eliminated the notion of dharma and the notion of no-dharma.

Original Text: "Why is that? If these sentient beings grasp at characteristics in their minds, they are attached to self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they grasp at the characteristic of dharma, they are attached to self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they grasp at the characteristic of no-dharma, they are attached to self, person, sentient being, and life span. Therefore, one should not grasp at dharma, nor should one grasp at no-dharma."

Explanation: Why is this said? Because if these sentient beings grasp at characteristics in their minds, they are attached to the four notions of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they grasp at the characteristic of dharma, they are attached to the four notions of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they grasp at the characteristic of no-dharma, they are attached to the four notions of self, person, sentient being, and life span. Therefore, one should not grasp at dharma, nor should one grasp at no-dharma.

If sentient beings grasp at characteristics in their minds, regardless of what characteristic they grasp, because there is an "I" grasping the characteristic, they are attached to the four notions. If sentient beings grasp at the characteristic of existence (dharma), because there is an "I" grasping the characteristic, they are attached to the four notions. If sentient beings grasp at the characteristic of non-existence (no-dharma), because there is an "I" grasping the characteristic of non-existence, they are attached to the four notions. Regardless of whether sentient beings grasp at the characteristic of existence or non-existence, there is an "I" grasping the characteristic, so in both cases, they are attached to the four notions.

The characteristic of dharma is the characteristic of existence within the three realms. The three realms exist based on sentient beings' cognition; only with an "I" can one cognize the dharmic characteristics of the three realms. Therefore, if one grasps at dharmic characteristics, believing all dharmas have characteristics of existence, one is attached to the four notions of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If one grasps at the characteristic of no-dharma, believing all dharmas are empty, non-existent, without dharmic characteristics, one is equally attached to the four notions.