Explanation of the Diamond Sutra: Even the Mark of the Buddha's Dharma Must Be Abandoned

All Buddhas and all the dharmas of attaining buddhahood arise from the vajra mind (Vajracitta); therefore, the dharma that sentient beings call the Buddha-dharma is also not the Buddha-dharma (it is merely named the Buddha-dharma). First, let us speak of the Buddhas: the Buddhas are those who become Buddhas later. The thirty-two marks of the five-aggregate body are produced and manifested by one's own undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna); the wisdom of equality (ādarśajñāna), the wisdom of wonderful observation, and the wisdom of accomplishing what is to be done are manifested by one's own undefiled consciousness. It is the undefiled consciousness that, moment by moment, uses the seven intrinsically existing great seeds (earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, consciousness) to give birth to and sustain the Buddha's five aggregates and seven consciousnesses; only thus can the Buddhas exist in the present. The dharmas by which the Buddhas attain buddhahood are dharmas that did not exist before and came into being afterward; they are experiential dharmas accumulated and summarized through the Buddhas' practice over three countless great kalpas; they are dharmas arising from causes and conditions, not fixed dharmas, and they too are given birth to and sustained by the Buddha's undefiled consciousness.

Therefore, the Buddha-dharma as called by sentient beings is not a dharma that exists from the beginning, not a true dharma that is unborn and unceasing; it was only later given the name "Buddha-dharma," a provisional name for the Buddha-dharma. Although the Buddha-dharma is empty and without self-nature, it is also not not-the-Buddha-dharma, because these dharmas after all have the function of attaining buddhahood and have existence in the phenomenal realm; they are not dharmas of empty nothingness where nothing is seen.

After the dharma-marks of all the Buddhas and of all the dharmas by which the Buddhas attain buddhahood have been refuted, apart from the vajra mind and the true suchness and Buddha-nature, what other dharma truly exists, a dharma that cannot be changed and cannot be refuted? There is none. When the dharma-marks of even the most supreme and unsurpassable dharmas can be refuted, then in the world there is no dharma-mark that cannot be refuted. The world is then truly empty, void, and desolate, not worth sentient beings' pursuit, seeking, and grasping. Let everyone's mind rest, let it cease—there is no need to engage in further futile fabrication, because no matter how one fabricates, it is all empty and illusory, of no use whatsoever.