The Profound Consciousness-Only Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (96)

Ultimately No-Self, Seventeen

In this chapter, the World-Honored One teaches ultimately no-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, be without the mark of self and the mark of sentient beings, and gradually become without self in the mind, ultimately without self. Because in the realm of ultimate reality there truly is no self, both the self of persons and the self of dharmas must be completely extinguished. Only then does one accord with the profound bodhi mind; having subdued the self, the mind attains purity, and only then do the buddhas confer prediction of buddhahood upon such a one. Even after attaining buddhahood, the mind is still without self and empty, without the dharma-mark of attaining buddhahood, without the dharma-mark of delivering sentient beings, without any dharma-mark whatsoever.

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: At that time Subhūti said to the World-Honored One: World-Honored One, after good men and good women give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, how should their minds abide? How should they hold and subdue their own minds?

This was Subhūti asking the World-Honored One on behalf of sentient beings: after bodhisattvas have given rise to the Mahāyāna bodhi mind, how should they abide in and hold this mind? Which mind is this mind? It refers to the minds of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, which are capable of giving rise to the bodhi mind, not to the true mind, the 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, especially since the World-Honored One had already expounded the nature of the vajra prajñā mind as abiding nowhere. What Subhūti was asking is: 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 should it 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, cling 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?