Diamond Sutra Commentary: The Ultimate Non-Self, Chapter Seventeen

In this chapter, the World-Honored One teaches ultimate non-self, telling Subhūti that after bodhisattvas give rise to the vast and profound bodhi mind and extensively deliver immeasurable sentient beings, they must extinguish the notion of self and the notion of sentient beings—without the mark of self and without the mark of sentient beings—and gradually become without self in the mind until reaching ultimate non-self. Because in the realm of ultimate reality there truly is no self—neither personal self nor dharmic self exists—both must be completely extinguished. Only then does one accord with the profound bodhi mind; having subdued the self, the mind becomes pure, and only then do the buddhas confer the prediction of future buddhahood upon such a person. Even after attaining buddhahood, the mind remains without self and empty—there is no dharma-mark of attaining buddhahood, no dharma-mark of delivering sentient beings, no dharma-mark of any kind whatsoever.

Bodhisattvas Delivering Sentient Beings Should Have the Three Wheels in Emptiness

Original text: 尔时须菩提白佛言。世尊。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。云何应住。云何降伏其心。

Explanation: Subhūti asked the Buddha: World-Honored One, when good men and good women give rise to anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi mind, how should they abide, and how should they subdue their minds?

This was Subhūti asking the World-Honored One on behalf of sentient beings: after bodhisattvas give rise to the Mahāyāna bodhi mind, how should they settle and abide in this mind? Which mind is this mind? It refers to the sixth and seventh consciousnesses that are capable of giving rise to the bodhi mind, not to the true mind tathāgatagarbha, which does not give rise to the bodhi mind. The tathāgatagarbha gives rise to no mind at all; He has no mental activity, no wishes, and no desire to become a buddha—His mental activity abides nowhere. With Subhūti's wisdom, he would not ask the World-Honored One how the tathāgatagarbha should abide and be maintained; moreover, the World-Honored One had already expounded the nature of the vajra prajñā mind as abiding nowhere. Subhūti was asking: the deluded mind that is capable of giving rise to the bodhi mind—having given rise to pure great vows, should it still, as before, abide in the worldly dharmas of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects, abide in the five aggregates, and give rise to the mind for the sake of these worldly dharmas? After giving rise to the Mahāyāna bodhi mind, one should no longer, as before, attach to the marks of all worldly dharmas, and one's afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion should no longer blaze fiercely; one should subdue this mind—so how should it be subdued?

Original text: 佛告须菩提。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。当生如是心。我应灭度一切众生。灭度一切众生已。而无有一众生。实灭度者。

Explanation: The Buddha told Subhūti: when good men and good women give rise to anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi mind, they should give rise to this thought: I should deliver and liberate all sentient beings; after all sentient beings have been delivered and liberated, I know within that in fact I have not delivered and liberated a single sentient being.

Here, "delivering and liberating" (miandu) has two meanings. The first meaning is that after sentient beings realize the non-self of the five aggregates, they will gradually exhaust self-grasping, cultivate to the fourth fruit, attain nirvāṇa without remainder, and obtain liberation. After nirvāṇa without remainder, the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses are all extinguished, the dharmas of the eighteen realms all vanish, the appearances of the world of the three realms all disappear, and only the indestructible vajra mind tathāgatagarbha, which neither arises nor ceases, remains, abiding in a state of utter nothingness—quiescent and doing nothing. That sentient being has then vanished and perished; this is called delivering and liberating.

The being has perished—so why is it called "delivering"? Because this sentient being, who previously transmigrated through the six realms committing evil karma and suffered immeasurable, boundless afflictions, now that the manas has extinguished the one thought of ignorance (ekacitta-avidyā), no longer creates the karma of birth-and-death transmigration, and certainly will no longer transmigrate through the world of the three realms according to karma, undergoing the suffering of birth and death. From then on, he no longer has birth and death, no longer has suffering to undergo, and there is no longer any so-called "him." The true him—the tathāgatagarbha—creates no karma, has no birth and death, and certainly does not undergo suffering; He is purely quiescent and non-active. Therefore, "delivering" means crossing over the suffering of birth and death, crossing beyond the transmigration of the six realms.

"Delivering and liberating" also has another meaning: after a bodhisattva teaches sentient beings to realize the mind of ultimate reality, the tathāgatagarbha, the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses gradually extinguishes ignorance, afflictions, and afflictive habits; all eight consciousnesses transform into wisdom, becoming the ultimately perfect unsurpassed honored one, no longer a sentient being. In this way, that sentient being has been delivered and liberated, becoming completely and fully a buddha of the fruition stage, no longer merely a buddha in principle. Such delivery and liberation of sentient beings is ultimate delivery and liberation, the best and most perfect delivery and liberation—consummately good and beautiful, without a trace of regret.

In this way, all sentient beings are delivered and liberated—immeasurable, boundless sentient beings are all delivered and liberated—and yet afterward the mind has no such thought of having delivered and liberated all sentient beings; rather, one feels that one has not delivered and liberated a single sentient being, that not a single sentient being has been delivered. This is strange—why say that not a single sentient being has been delivered, when clearly all sentient beings have been delivered?