The Profound Yogācāra Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (Part Five)

Prajñā is the great supramundane wisdom, entirely different from worldly wisdom, and therefore it is not translated simply as "wisdom." Worldly wisdom is the wisdom for surviving within the three realms of existence. In the desire realm there are men and women, and thus there is sexual desire between them; people bear children and raise descendants, create wealth, manufacture the necessities of life, engage in research, invention, and creation, pursue politics, and run enterprises. For the devas, all the necessities of life arise from their thoughts, and at all times they are devoted to pleasure. The devas of the form realm abide in sublime states of meditative concentration (dhyāna); they are not divided into male and female and do not need food or drink, but simply enjoy the bliss of dhyāna. The devas of the formless realm, though without physical bodies, possess profound meditative concentration, and their minds abide in samādhi enjoying the blessings of meditative concentration. The beings of the three evil destinies are always seeking ways to reduce their suffering so as to obtain warmth, food, and survival. All of these belong to the wisdom and scope of the three realms of worldly existence, and none of them transcends birth-and-death and saṃsāra.

The supramundane wisdom—prajñā—is neither inside nor outside the three realms and is not subsumed under the dharmas of the three realms. Therefore prajñā is not directly translated as "wisdom," lest worldly people misunderstand and say, "We also have wisdom—lofty wisdom in the fields of politics, economics, culture, psychology, and every profession." But all of these belong to worldly, arising-and-ceasing, impermanent dharmas; they are produced by the wisdom of prajñā and can exist and develop only by relying on the wisdom of prajñā. The wisdom of prajñā is measureless, boundless, and vast: the universe and empty space are within it. Measureless buddha-lands, measureless Lotus Treasury Worlds (Kusumatala-garbha-vyūhâlaṃkāra-lokadhātu-samudra), and measureless oceans of worlds are all established within empty space, all jointly manifested by the tathāgatagarbhas of the measureless and boundless sentient beings—this is called the one true dharma realm. The ten dharma realms (the four noble ones and the six ordinary destinies) are all produced by Him. No matter how far humanity's spacecraft can fly, however far they fly, they cannot fly beyond empty space; and empty space does not lie outside the mind of prajñā.