Commentary on the Diamond Sutra: The Superiority of Unconditioned Merit, Eleven

Original text: 须菩提。如恒河中所有沙数。如是沙等恒河。于意云何。是诸恒河沙。宁为多不。须菩提言。甚多。世尊。但诸恒河尚多无数。何况其沙。

Explanation: Subhūti, suppose there were as many Ganges Rivers as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River. What do you think—are the grains of sand in all those Ganges Rivers numerous? Subhūti said: Extremely numerous, World-Honored One. Even those Ganges Rivers themselves are already countless, let alone the sand grains in them.

Original text: 须菩提。我今实言告汝。若有善男子。善女人。以七宝满尔所恒河沙数、三千大千世界。以用布施。得福多不。须菩提言。甚多。世尊。佛告须菩提。若善男子。善女人。于此经中。乃至受持四句偈等。为他人说。而此福德。胜前福德。

Explanation: Subhūti, I now tell you truthfully: if there are good men and good women who fill as many three-thousandfold great thousand worlds as the number of sand grains in all those Ganges Rivers with the seven treasures and use them for giving (dāna), would the merit they attain be numerous? Subhūti said: Extremely numerous, World-Honored One. The Buddha told Subhūti: if good men and good women, within this Diamond Sutra, receive and hold even the entire Diamond Sutra or as little as a four-line verse, and expound it for others, the merit they attain far surpasses the merit of giving the seven treasures.

The earlier part of this chapter is easy to understand, but the latter part—that the merit of receiving and holding the Diamond Sutra and expounding it for others surpasses the merit of giving the seven treasures—is not easy to understand. So let us look at why this is so. The merit of giving the seven treasures is all conditioned merit (puṇya); such merit can be consumed and enjoyed to its end, and the vast majority of it is enjoyed within worldly dharmas. When one lacks the aspiration for the Path and lacks wisdom, great merit can easily lead to committing great evil karma, and one will then undergo the retribution of that great evil karma.

Take, for example, the demon king Pāpīyas: while he was a human, he cultivated immense merit, and after death he was born in the highest heaven of the desire realm—Paranirmitavaśavartin—as its heavenly lord, ruling over the beings of the desire realm. He always wishes for the beings under his control to increase in number and is unwilling for them to decrease. If a practitioner of the Path attains the first dhyāna, he comes to obstruct them; even when the Buddha is expounding the Dharma, he goes to create obstacles, because he does not want beings to escape the desire realm and break free from his control. In the Dharma-ending age, in order to destroy the Dharma, he often takes on various appearances and infiltrates Buddhism to sabotage the Dharma, speaking the true Dharma as false and the false Dharma as true. Beings cannot discern this, and practicing in accordance with it, none can attain liberation—all remain under the demon king's control. When Pāpīyas' demonic merit is exhausted, he will fall into hell to undergo evil retribution. Therefore, having merit without wisdom and without the Path is not a good thing either.

Now, if one recites the Diamond Sutra and awakens to the vajra mind (Vajracitta), that merit is boundless and vast, and one can obtain immeasurable majesty and benefit. First, one eliminates the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and severs the three fetters, never falling into the three evil destinies to suffer, and attains the merit and benefit of liberation. Second, one's wisdom becomes ever deeper and sharper, and with wisdom comes more and greater merit. Third, one possesses the precepts of meditative concentration (samādhi) and the precepts of the Path, and no longer commits evil bodily, verbal, and mental actions; suffering feelings diminish ever more, the wholesome dharmas one cultivates grow ever more numerous, and happy feelings grow ever greater—boundless happiness among gods and humans.

Fourth, one's lifespan grows ever longer. If one is a bodhisattva in the heavens practicing the bodhisattva path, the lifespan ranges from thousands to tens of thousands of years, and in other Buddha lands the lifespan is also extremely long. When one cultivates to the eighth bhūmi as a bodhisattva, one can sever segmented birth-and-death, and one's lifespan is no longer segment by segment, one period at a time; the lifespan can be endless. Fifth, one can alter the structure of the seeds of the four great elements at will, and can manifest all material things at will—the necessities of beings' lives, the seven treasures and a hundred treasures, mountains, rivers, and the great earth, even a great thousand world. Sixth, one can attain profound dhyāna and meditative concentration, manifest immeasurable supernatural powers and samādhi, and split into countless bodies to liberate immeasurable beings. Seventh, one can transform supremely splendid material wealth to vastly benefit the multitude, and can even transform a three-thousandfold great thousand world, practicing the bodhisattva path to benefit and bring joy to beings. Eighth, one ultimately accomplishes the Buddha Way, perfects bodhi, and becomes the Honored One of the three realms, with inexhaustible merit and wisdom.

After receiving and holding the Diamond Sutra and attaining awakening, one's wisdom grows ever more vast, and one gains the ability to expound the Buddha-Dharma for others so that they too can attain awakening. The merit of the Dharma-giving itself is very great, and when beings benefit, the merit becomes even greater. Throughout the three immeasurable kalpas of accomplishing the Buddha Way, by liberating beings from the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death, and forming karmic connections with immeasurable beings, one will in the future have numerous disciples who follow and learn, and one can thereby establish one's own Buddha land. The establishment of a land must be composed of disciples at various levels; without disciples one cannot establish a land, still less accomplish the Buddha Way. Only by leading disciples in cultivation, and only when the disciples have achieved accomplishment, can one's own cultivation advance to the next stage and attain a higher fruit. Therefore, the merit of receiving, holding, and reciting the Diamond Sutra and awakening to the vajra mind is immeasurably vast.

The vajra mind is also an unconditioned mind, without mental activity pertaining to the three realms, doing nothing. Precisely because it does nothing, it can do everything and accomplish all dharmas. The merit contained within the unconditioned mind is immense and can never be erased; no one can destroy it, and no one can take it away. How surpassingly excellent this unconditioned merit is, words cannot express—it far surpasses the conditioned merit of giving the seven treasures; it is incomparable and unspeakable.