The Profound Meaning of the Diamond Sutra from the Consciousness-Only Perspective (11)

Once, just as the World-Honored One had settled into his seat on the Dharma throne, Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva came forward, picked up the gavel, and struck it once on the lecture table, saying: "The World-Honored One has finished expounding the sutra." Thereupon the World-Honored One descended from his seat — and truly, the teaching was complete; the great Dharma of the tathāgatagarbha had been fully transmitted. In fact, the Dharma was already expounded the very instant the World-Honored One entered the lecture hall and pushed open the door; he could perfectly well have turned around and walked out, leaving his disciples dumbfounded. Layman Fu of the time of Emperor Wu of Liang, as well as the Chan masters of the Tang dynasty, all performed similar tricks; it is just that ordinary people cannot see through the mechanism here — only bodhisattvas with deep roots of goodness can comprehend it.

The second patriarch of the Chan school was Ānanda. After the World-Honored One entered parinirvāṇa, Ānanda asked Mahākāśyapa: "Aside from transmitting the golden-threaded kaṣāya robe to you, what else did the World-Honored One transmit to you?" He was asking about the tathāgatagarbha. Kāśyapa called out: "Ānanda!" — "That is exactly what was transmitted!" But Ānanda did not understand, and casually replied: "Yes?" Having responded, he should have understood, yet he still did not. Kāśyapa, having no alternative, continued: "Go and knock down the flagpole in front of the gate." Upon hearing this, Ānanda thought: I ask about the esoteric meaning, and you tell me to knock down the flagpole? As his mind turned, he suddenly understood — so that is how it is! — and thereupon attained great enlightenment, thus becoming the second patriarch of the Chan school. From then on, the twenty-eight patriarchs of India passed it down from generation to generation, all the way to the Sixth Patriarch of the Great Tang, and on until the end of the Ming dynasty; after that, those who awakened and entered it became extremely few and rare. But even now there still are some, for the Buddha would never abandon and disregard the sentient beings of this world.

This first chapter of the Diamond Sutra is itself a Chan gong'an: the World-Honored One transmitted the Dharma without opening his mouth to speak a single word. It is only that it is far too difficult to grasp — only a person of the very highest faculties can understand it. The object of all Chan investigation is the tathāgatagarbha. In any Buddha-land throughout the ten directions, it is this mind that is realized. Where is He? How does He operate? How does He generate the myriad dharmas? How does He give birth to the five aggregates and the eighteen realms? Apart from this, everything else is a deviation from the right direction. And one who only understands a bit of the theory, who does not know the nature of the tathāgatagarbha and cannot observe the principles of His operation, does not belong to realized enlightenment; at most it is an intellectual understanding, which cannot withstand birth and death.