Commentary on the Diamond Sutra: Non-Receiving and Non-Craving, Twenty-Eight

In this chapter, the World-Honored One, through describing the merit attained by bodhisattvas who give away the seven treasures, offers a detailed and subtle description of the nature of the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha. As for the merit attained through the bodhisattvas' practice of the perfection of giving with the five aggregates, the tathāgatagarbha abides entirely in neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā); He does not enjoy even the slightest bit of it, nor does He care whether it is merit or not, calamity or not, and He does not even know of merit or calamity. Moreover, because the tathāgatagarbha has no mental factor of greed, He does not crave merit or any other dharma whatsoever; toward all dharmas He is without desire and without seeking, neither delighting nor wearying. After enlightenment, when a bodhisattva breaks through appearances and the mind is empty, he likewise will not give rise to greedy mental activity toward merit or any dharma at all—neither delighting nor wearying, he maintains the neutral feeling of the middle way. This is the true mental activity of a bodhisattva.

Original text: 须菩提。若菩萨以满恒河沙等世界七宝。持用布施。若复有人。知一切法无我。得成于忍。此菩萨胜前菩萨。所得功德。

Explanation: The World-Honored One said to Subhūti: If there is a bodhisattva who uses the seven treasures filling worlds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges to practice giving, and if there is another bodhisattva who realizes that among all dharmas, mundane and supramundane, there is no self, and thereby accomplishes patience—then the merit attained by the bodhisattva who has attained the wisdom of patience far surpasses the merit attained by the bodhisattva who gives the seven treasures.

The World-Honored One has already spoken many times about the merit attained by bodhisattvas who give the seven treasures; that merit is immeasurable and boundless, beyond reckoning. When a bodhisattva practices giving, there is not only merit, but merit (puṇya) can also arise from it. Because merit increases, the mind-ground can be purified, the mental nature can be made pliant, meditative concentration can be advanced, wisdom can be increased, the path-cultivation can be furthered, and one can obtain genuine experiential benefit of merit oneself—this is the retribution obtained by a bodhisattva through the giving of wealth. The other bodhisattva, however, has already cultivated to the point of attaining patience, deeply realizing within that all dharmas are without self, and has therefore realized the wisdom of the patience of non-arising.

Patience that all dharmas are without self—of what degree is this patience? Patience includes the small vehicle's patience of non-arising, realized through the elimination of self-view, that the five aggregates are without self, as well as the Great Vehicle's patience of non-arising and patience of the non-arising of dharmas. The small vehicle's patience of non-arising is divided into the four fruits and four stages of approach. The patience of those approaching the first fruit, although not yet the patience of truly eliminating self-view, still involves the mind consciousness accepting that the five aggregates are illusory and unreal, and diligently and energetically engaging in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), heading toward the true elimination of self-view. At this point, what remains lacking is the manas's acceptance of the principle that the five aggregates are without self; this requires the manas to continually engage in contemplative practice and investigation within meditative concentration. Once the manas understands, that is the true elimination of self-view, and one then becomes a srotāpanna.

After becoming a srotāpanna, one must still engage in deep and subtle contemplative practice regarding the principle that the five aggregates are without self. This is the process by which the mind consciousness and the manas attain deeper wisdom of the patience of non-arising, the process of gradually gaining meditative power and eliminating afflictions, and even more the process by which the manas slowly eliminates its attachment to the self of the five aggregates. In this process, both the mind consciousness and the manas need to continually be patient, patient at ever deeper levels, until the manas completely eliminates its grasping at the self of the person. This is the patience of non-arising attained by small vehicle practitioners.

The Great Vehicle's patience of non-arising is what bodhisattvas attain after realizing the eighth consciousness. Bodhisattvas must not only be patient with the principle that the five aggregates are without self, but must also be patient with the principle that the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, is neither arising nor ceasing; they must deeply accept the non-arising of the eighth consciousness, accept its dual nature of emptiness and existence, accept its nature of neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam), accept all the middle-way characteristics of the eighth consciousness, and accept all aspects of the eighth consciousness's nature in every respect. Then the bodhisattva's mind becomes increasingly pure, meditative power increasingly strengthened, afflictions increasingly slight, and wisdom increasingly deep and subtle. The experiential benefit of merit within his own mind becomes increasingly vast, and the bodhisattva's stages gradually advance from the seventh abiding stage to the ten conduct stages and the ten dedication stages—from breaking through the first barrier, to breaking through the second barrier, and then to breaking through the final barrier, with both meditative concentration and wisdom becoming deeper and subtler.

However, this is still patience within the scope of the person-without-self of the five aggregates; the scope is not yet vast enough, and the perfection of patience is not yet profound enough. One must reach the patience of the non-arising of dharmas of bodhisattvas at the first bhūmi and above, for only then is the scope of patience vaster and the wisdom of patience deeper and broader. The patience of the non-arising of dharmas of bhūmi bodhisattvas is the patience that all dharmas are without self; this is not only realizing the selflessness of the person, but at the same time realizing the selflessness of dharmas. Their wisdom of the selflessness of dharmas and the wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas increase stage by stage, becoming ever deeper and more wondrous.

Because bhūmi bodhisattvas can directly observe the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha within the five aggregates, and can directly observe the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha upon the myriad dharmas of the eighteen realms, they profoundly know how the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to the five aggregates and how it gives birth to the myriad dharmas of the eighteen realms. Bodhisattvas will observe, upon all dharmas, the modes of activity of the tathāgatagarbha's functioning, knowing that every dharma is generated by the tathāgatagarbha employing its mental factors to output seeds. There is no dharma that can, apart from the tathāgatagarbha, have its own arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing; it is only because of the tathāgatagarbha that all dharma-marks can be produced, that all dharma-marks can remain for a time, that all dharma-marks can gradually mutate, and that all dharma-marks can disperse and vanish. Apart from the tathāgatagarbha, there is no dharma-mark that can arise, abide, mutate, or cease. Therefore all dharma-marks are themselves illusory and unreal, like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows, like flowers in the sky, utterly unobtainable—their essence is all the tathāgatagarbha. Since all dharmas are not real, lack any self-nature, and are all of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, they are of course without self.

Here, "all dharmas" includes all dharmas, mundane and supramundane—everything manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, born subsequently, existing within the world of the three realms, including all dharmas of past lives, all dharmas of future lives, and all dharmas of the present life, including all dharmas of the worlds of the ten directions—all of these are without self. Specifically, all dharmas include material form (rūpa) and mind (citta). Material form includes the universe, the material environment (bhājana-loka), including the living environment needed by sentient beings, and chiefly includes sentient beings' five-aggregate physical bodies, that is, the five faculties, the five sense objects, and form subsumed under the Dharmāyatana. Mental dharmas include the seven consciousnesses and the mental factors of the seven consciousnesses. In summary, these are the sentient being's six faculties, six objects, and six consciousnesses—the eighteen realms, the twelve bases, and the five aggregates.

These dharmas all exist, arise and cease, change, and function within the one true dharma realm, the tathāgatagarbha; all are produced, manifested, and upheld by the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha. Because they are all produced and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, they are dharmas that arise and cease, dharmas lacking self-mastery (avaśatā), dharmas that cannot be their own masters, dharmas of the nature of no-self. A dharma with the nature of self would not arise, cease, and mutate; it would be able to be its own master, able to exist independently by itself, needing no other conditions to endure forever, perfect and complete in all merits and functions.

Dharmas without self do not possess these qualities. Dharmas without self cannot exist independently; they need to rely on external conditions to exist and function, and they also require the tathāgatagarbha to continuously transmit seeds to sustain their existence and operation; otherwise they would cease. Therefore all dharmas in the world of the three realms are subject to arising, ceasing, and mutation, and are all without self. As for the supramundane dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, although it has a certain aspect of self-nature—able to exist independently, needing no external conditions, neither arising nor perishing, free and self-governing—yet it still contains the defiled karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses. These karmic seeds are subject to arising, ceasing, and mutation, and they drag the tathāgatagarbha into change as well, causing some impact upon the merits and functions of the tathāgatagarbha.

Because the seeds within the tathāgatagarbha at this time are subject to perfuming by the seven consciousnesses, and since the seeds within can be perfumed, the tathāgatagarbha as a whole is not immutable, and thus is not entirely of the nature of self. From another perspective, the tathāgatagarbha itself also has its own consciousness seeds flowing forth; only through these consciousness seeds arising, ceasing, and mutating moment by moment can the existence and operation of the tathāgatagarbha be sustained. Therefore the tathāgatagarbha is also not entirely of the nature of self, but is still of the nature of no-self. Only the Dharmakāya at the Buddha stage, the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), is entirely of the nature of self. At that time, the arising, ceasing, and mutation of the karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses has ended; the undefiled consciousness is no longer perfumed, no longer mutates, has no seeds of arising and ceasing, and the flowing forth of its own consciousness seeds has also stopped, with no phenomenon of momentary arising and ceasing existing. Therefore the undefiled consciousness at the Buddha stage is the complete and thorough self; its merits and functions can be fully exercised, no longer constrained and limited by the defiled karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses.

Because bodhisattvas have realized that all dharmas are without self, they can be patient with the absence of self in all dharmas and attain the profound wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas. Their experiential benefit of merit is extremely abundant, extremely great, and extremely deep—beyond the reach of calculation and metaphor. Bodhisattvas will, by means of this profound wisdom of the seeds of consciousness (Yogācāra seed-wisdom), gradually enter the Buddha stage, with both merit and wisdom perfectly complete, becoming the honored one of the world of the three realms, the teacher of the assemblies of humans and gods, endowed with the merits and benefits of the ten epithets. They can establish lands in the worlds of the ten directions, manifest the attainment of buddhahood, and extensively deliver immeasurable sentient beings. Therefore, when a bodhisattva realizes that all dharmas are without self, the merits and experiential benefits of his wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas far surpass the merit and福德 of a bodhisattva's giving of the seven treasures; the difference between them cannot be compared and cannot be expressed in words.