The Assembly at Mount Laṅkā, and Mahāmati's Hundred and Eight Questions
The sūtra opens on the summit of Mount Laṅkā, where the bodhisattva Mahāmati rises from the assembly, pays homage to the Buddha in verse, and then asks — in one unbroken chain of terse, five-character questions running to well over a hundred lines — after nearly everything a student of the Mahāyāna could want explained: the storehouse consciousness, the bodhisattva grounds, the nature of a buddha's body, the making of the world, food and desire, kingship, meat-eating, the icchantika, and dozens of questions besides. The list is not a random inventory. Sòng Lè and Rúqí's commentary reads it as the sūtra's own table of contents, organized beneath a single fourfold frame — the five dharmas, the three own-natures, the eight consciousnesses, and the two kinds of no-self — that the rest of the text will spend four fascicles unpacking.
The Assembly at Mount Laṅkā
如是我聞：一時佛住南海濱楞伽山頂，種種寶華以為莊嚴，與大比丘僧及大菩薩眾俱，從彼種種異佛剎來。是諸菩薩摩訶薩，無量三昧自在之力，神通遊戲，大慧菩薩摩訶薩而為上首。一切諸佛手灌其頂，自心現境界，善解其義。種種眾生、種種心色，無量度門，隨類普現。於五法自性、識、二種無我，究竟通達。
Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was dwelling at the summit of Mount Laṅkā on the shore of the southern sea, adorned with every kind of jeweled flower, together with a great assembly of monks and a great assembly of bodhisattvas who had come there from many different buddha-lands. These bodhisattva-mahāsattvas sported freely in spiritual powers through the sovereign strength of immeasurable samādhis, with the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Mahāmati foremost among them. Every buddha had anointed his crown with their own hand; he understood well the meaning of every realm manifested by his own mind; he appeared everywhere, according to kind, through immeasurable gateways of salvation, for every kind of sentient being and every kind of mental disposition; and he had penetrated, to the very end, the five dharmas, own-nature, the consciousnesses, and the two kinds of no-self.
Before reaching a single word of the sūtra proper, Zongle and Ruqi's preface to the title glosses "Laṅkā" itself: 不可往, "cannot be reached" — a city on the summit of a mountain in the southern sea that "no one without spiritual powers can reach," so that the Buddha's speaking there is itself already a statement about the teaching's altitude: this is buddha-territory (佛境界), reached by what the place is, not merely what is said in it. Their gloss on the品 title that follows, "一切佛語心品" (the chapter of every buddha's mind-teaching), makes the same point about content rather than geography: the sūtra's actual subject matter, they write, comes down to four things — 五法、三自性、八識、二無我, the five dharmas, the three own-natures, the eight consciousnesses, and the two kinds of no-self — and it is called simply "mind" because these four are "一經之綱目、究心之精要," the outline of the whole sūtra and the essential point of investigating mind itself. They cite the *Ten-Fascicle Laṅkāvatāra*'s own description of these teachings directly: "是一切諸佛菩薩入自心境，離所行相，稱真實義，諸佛教心也" — this is where every buddha and bodhisattva enters the domain of their own mind, apart from any object of activity, matching ultimate meaning exactly: it is what every buddha teaches as mind.
On the opening description of Mahāmati himself, the commentary reads each phrase as marking a specific attainment rather than generic praise. "一切諸佛手灌其頂" (every buddha has anointed his crown with their own hand) they gloss as 明其位居等覺，當授佛位 — showing that his rank is equal to a buddha's own enlightenment, awaiting only the formal transmission of buddhahood itself, the same consecration a crown prince receives before taking the throne. "自心現境界，善解其義" is glossed as praise of Mahāmati's own understanding specifically — 大慧善解，其智超勝也, "Mahāmati understands this well; his wisdom surpasses [the rest of the assembly]" — which is why, of the entire gathering, it is Mahāmati and no one else who is about to ask the questions that structure everything that follows.
Mahāmati's Homage in Verse
爾時大慧菩薩與摩帝菩薩，俱遊一切諸佛剎土，承佛神力，從坐而起偏袒右肩，右膝著地，合掌恭敬，以偈讚曰：
「世間離生滅， 猶如虛空華，
智不得有無， 而興大悲心。
一切法如幻， 遠離於心識，
智不得有無， 而興大悲心。
遠離於斷常， 世間恒如夢，
智不得有無， 而興大悲心。
知人法無我， 煩惱及爾炎，
常清淨無相， 而興大悲心。
一切無涅槃， 無有涅槃佛，
無有佛涅槃， 遠離覺所覺。
若有若無有， 是二悉俱離，
牟尼寂靜觀， 是則遠離生，
是名為不取， 今世後世淨。」
At that time the bodhisattva Mahāmati, together with the bodhisattva Matiḥ, was roaming through the lands of every buddha; and now, sustained by the Buddha's own spiritual power, he rose from his seat, bared his right shoulder, set his right knee upon the ground, joined his palms in reverence, and praised the Buddha in verse, saying:
"The world is free of arising and ceasing,
just like a flower conjured in the sky —
wisdom finds in it neither existence nor non-existence,
and yet gives rise to great compassion.
All dharmas are like an illusion,
far removed from mind and consciousness —
wisdom finds in them neither existence nor non-existence,
and yet gives rise to great compassion.
Far removed from annihilation and eternalism,
the world is forever like a dream —
wisdom finds in it neither existence nor non-existence,
and yet gives rise to great compassion.
Knowing the no-self of persons and of dharmas,
and the afflictions, and what is to be known —
forever pure and without any mark,
and yet [wisdom] gives rise to great compassion.
There is no nirvāṇa at all,
no buddha who attains nirvāṇa,
and no nirvāṇa that a buddha attains —
far removed from the knower and the known.
Whether it exists or does not exist,
both of these are equally left behind.
The sage's silent contemplation
is thus far removed from arising —
this is called taking hold of nothing,
pure in this life and in every life to come."
The commentary reads the refrain "wisdom finds in it neither existence nor non-existence, and yet gives rise to great compassion" as the whole verse's argument compressed into one clause, repeated three times because it needs to survive three separate objects — birth-and-death, all dharmas, and the world itself — without weakening: 一切世間眾生背覺合塵，流轉生死，而起妄想心識，復計斷常二見，無由出離. All worldly beings, they write, turn their backs on awakening and unite with the dust of objects, cycling through birth and death, giving rise to the discriminating mind and its false thoughts, and further conceiving the two views of annihilation and eternalism — with no way out. It is precisely because the Buddha's wisdom sees these things as neither existent nor non-existent that compassion for beings still caught between the two extremes can arise at all; a wisdom that had settled into either extreme would have nothing left to be compassionate about.
On "the afflictions, and what is to be known" (煩惱及爾焰), the commentary makes a small but load-bearing terminological point: 爾焰 is not a Chinese phrase but a transliterated Sanskrit term, and it names the hindrance to knowledge (智障) precisely as 煩惱 names the hindrance of affliction (惑障) — the verse is naming both members of Buddhism's standard two-hindrances pair, not one term followed by a vague gesture at "and so on." Their gloss adds a further turn that will recur across this sūtra: even wisdom itself, if a practitioner clings to it, becomes a hindrance — 若於智生著，智亦成障 — so that "常清淨無相" (forever pure and without any mark) has to describe the Buddha's insight into the emptiness of the wisdom that sees emptiness, not merely the emptiness of what it sees.
On the closing lines' apparent contradiction — no nirvāṇa at all, and yet a "silent contemplation" that is "far removed from arising," achieving a purity that spans every life to come — Zongle and Ruqi trace the logic precisely: 佛與眾生同具此理，尚無生死可斷，焉有涅槃可證. The Buddha and sentient beings equally possess this same principle [of intrinsic quiescence]; if there is, in the deepest sense, no birth-and-death to be cut off in the first place, how could there be any nirvāṇa left over to attain? "No nirvāṇa-buddha" (無有涅槃佛) denies that a person could exist apart from the truth he realizes; "no buddha-nirvāṇa" (無有佛涅槃) denies, symmetrically, that the truth could exist apart from the person who realizes it — person and principle are inseparable in both directions, which is exactly what "far removed from the knower and the known" then states directly.
The Hundred and Eight Questions
爾時大慧菩薩偈讚佛已，自說姓名：「我名為大慧，通達於大乘，今以百八義，仰諮尊中上。」世間解之士，聞彼所說偈，觀察一切眾，告諸佛子言：「汝等諸佛子，今皆恣所問，我當為汝說，自覺之境界。」
爾時大慧菩薩摩訶薩，承佛所聽，頂禮佛足，合掌恭敬以偈問曰：
Having praised the Buddha in verse, Mahāmati then spoke his own name: "My name is Mahāmati; I have penetrated the Great Vehicle. Now, with a hundred and eight matters, I look up and ask you, most honored one." The Knower of the World, hearing the verse he had spoken, surveyed the whole assembly and said to all the buddhas' children: "All of you buddhas' children, ask now whatever you wish; I will explain to you the domain of self-realization."
Then the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Mahāmati, granted leave by the Buddha to speak, bowed his head to the Buddha's feet, joined his palms in reverence, and asked in verse:
「云何淨其念？ 云何念增長？
云何見癡惑？ 云何惑增長？
何故剎土化， 相及諸外道？
云何無受欲？ 何故名無受？
何故名佛子？ 解脫至何所？
誰縛誰解脫？ 何等禪境界？
云何有三乘？ 唯願為解說。
緣起何所生？ 云何作所作？
云何俱異說？ 云何為增長？
云何無色定， 及以滅正受？
云何為想滅？ 何因從定覺？
云何所作生， 進去及持身？
云何現分別？ 云何生諸地？
破三有者誰？ 何處身云何？
往生何所至？ 云何最勝子？
何因得神通， 及自在三昧？
云何三昧心？ 最勝為我說。
云何名為藏？ 云何意及識？
云何生與滅？ 云何見已還？
云何為種姓， 非種及心量？
云何建立相， 及與非我義？
云何無眾生？ 云何世俗說？
云何為斷見， 及常見不生？
云何佛外道， 其相不相違？
云何當來世， 種種諸異部？
云何空何因？ 云何剎那壞？
云何胎藏生？ 云何世不動？
何因如幻夢， 及揵闥婆城，
世間熱時炎， 及與水月光？
何因說覺支， 及與菩提分？
云何國土亂？ 云何作有見？
云何不生滅， 世如虛空華？
云何覺世間？ 云何說離字？
離妄想者誰？ 云何虛空譬？
如實有幾種？ 幾波羅蜜心？
何因度諸地？ 誰至無所受？
何等二無我？ 云何爾炎淨？
諸智有幾種？ 幾戒眾生性？
誰生諸寶性， 摩尼真珠等？
誰生諸語言， 眾生種種性？
明處及伎術， 誰之所顯示？
伽陀有幾種， 長頌及短頌？
成為有幾種？ 云何名為論？
云何生飲食， 及生諸愛欲？
云何名為王， 轉輪及小王？
云何守護國？ 諸天有幾種？
云何名為地， 星宿及日月？
解脫修行者， 是各有幾種？
弟子有幾種？ 云何阿闍梨？
佛復有幾種？ 復有幾種生？
魔及諸異學， 彼各有幾種？
自性及與心， 彼復各幾種？
云何施設量？ 唯願最勝說。
云何空風雲？ 云何念聰明？
云何為林樹？ 云何為蔓草？
云何象馬鹿？ 云何而捕取？
云何為卑陋？ 何因而卑陋？
云何六師攝？ 云何一闡提？
男女及不男， 斯皆云何生？
云何修行退？ 云何修行生？
禪師以何法， 建立何等人？
眾生生諸趣， 何相何像類？
云何為財富？ 何因致財富？
云何為釋種？ 何因有釋種？
云何甘蔗種？ 無上尊願說。
云何長苦仙？ 彼云何教授？
如來云何於， 一切時剎現，
種種名色類， 最勝子圍遶？
云何不食肉？ 云何制斷肉？
食肉諸種類， 何因故食肉？
云何日月形， 須彌及蓮華，
師子勝相剎， 側住覆世界，
如因陀羅網， 或悉諸珍寶，
箜篌細腰鼓， 狀種種諸華，
或離日月光， 如是等無量？
云何為化佛？ 云何報生佛？
云何如如佛？ 云何智慧佛？
云何於欲界， 不成等正覺？
何故色究竟， 離欲得菩提？
善逝般涅槃， 誰當持正法？
天師住久如， 正法幾時住？
悉檀及與見， 各復有幾種？
毘尼比丘分， 云何何因緣？
彼諸最勝子， 緣覺及聲聞，
何因百變易？ 云何百無受？
云何世俗通？ 云何出世間？
云何為七地？ 唯願為演說。
僧伽有幾種？ 云何為壞僧？
云何醫方論， 是復何因緣？
何故大牟尼， 唱說如是言：
『迦葉、拘留孫、 拘那含是我？』
何故說斷常， 及與我無我？
何不一切時， 演說真實義，
而復為眾生， 分別說心量？
何因男女林， 訶梨阿摩勒，
雞羅及鐵圍， 金剛等諸山，
無量寶莊嚴， 仙闥婆充滿？」
"How is thought purified? How does thought grow?
How does deluded seeing arise? How does delusion grow?
Why does the Tathāgata manifest bodily marks within his lands, and [why do] the various tīrthikas [appear there too]?
How is desire had without grasping? Why is this called "without grasping"?
Why is one called a child of the Buddha? Once liberated, to what place does one go?
Who is bound, and who is liberated? What is the domain of the dhyānas?
Why are there three vehicles? I beg you to explain.
From what does dependent arising arise? What is doing, and what is done?
Why do accounts of sameness and difference arise? How does this proliferate?
What is the formless absorption, and the attainment of cessation?
How does perception cease? By what cause does one rise from that absorption?
How does activity arise once one has risen — the coming and going, the sustaining of the body?
How does one manifest a body and teach with discrimination? How does one advance through the grounds?
Who breaks through the three realms of existence? In what place, and with what body?
Once reborn, to what place does one go? Who is the foremost of the Buddha's children?
By what cause does one gain the superknowledges, and mastery in samādhi?
What is the mind of samādhi? Tell me, most honored one.
What is called the storehouse? What are will, and consciousness?
How do these arise and cease? How, having arisen, does seeing then withdraw?
What are the lineages, and what is not a lineage, and the measure of mind?
How is a mark established, and what is the meaning of no-self?
How is it that there is no sentient being? How is conventional speech still used of them?
What is the view of annihilation, and how does the view of eternalism fail to arise?
How is it that the Buddha and the tīrthikas do not contradict one another in their marks?
In the ages to come, how will the various different schools arise?
What is emptiness, and by what cause? How does everything perish in an instant?
How is one born from a womb? How does the world remain unmoved?
By what cause is the world like an illusion or a dream, like a city of gandharvas,
like a mirage in the summer heat, like the moon reflected in water and its light?
By what cause does one speak of the limbs of awakening, and the factors of enlightenment?
How does a buddha-land fall into disorder? How does the view of existence come to be formed?
How is it unborn and unceasing, when the world is like a flower conjured in the sky?
How does one awaken to the world? How is it explained as apart from words?
Who is it that is free of false thought? How does the simile of empty space apply?
How many kinds of suchness are there? How many minds of the perfections are there?
By what cause does one cross through the grounds? Who arrives at the state beyond all grasping?
What are the two kinds of no-self? How is the object of knowledge purified?
How many kinds of wisdom are there? How many moral natures do beings have, needing precepts?
Who brings forth the natures of the jewels — maṇi-gems, pearls, and the like?
Who brings forth the various languages, and the various natures of sentient beings?
The fields of knowledge and the arts — by whom are they revealed?
How many kinds of gāthā are there — the long verses, and the short?
How many kinds of doctrinal conclusion are there? What is called a treatise?
How does the desire for food and drink arise, and the various cravings?
What is called a king — the wheel-turning king, and the lesser kings?
How does one guard a kingdom? How many kinds of gods are there?
What are the earth, the constellations, and the sun and moon?
Those who have attained liberation, and those still practicing — how many kinds of each?
How many kinds of disciple are there? What is a preceptor?
How many kinds of buddha are there? And how many kinds of birth does a buddha take?
Māra, and the various heterodox teachers — how many kinds are there of each?
Own-nature, and mind — how many kinds are there of each?
How is the measure of mind provisionally established? Tell me, most honored one.
What are space, wind, and clouds? How does thought give rise to intelligence?
What makes a forest and its trees? What makes a creeping vine?
What are elephants, horses, and deer? How are they captured?
What is baseness? By what cause does one become base?
How are the six heterodox teachers to be understood? What is an icchantika?
Men, women, and those who are neither — how do all of these come to be?
How does one's practice regress? How does one's practice flourish?
By what dharma does a meditation master establish which kind of person on the path?
When sentient beings are born into the various destinies, what are their marks, what are their forms and kinds?
What is wealth? By what cause is wealth obtained?
What is the Śākya clan? By what cause does the Śākya clan exist?
What is the sugarcane lineage? Tell me, O Peerless One.
What is the long-suffering ascetic? By whom is he taught?
How does the Tathāgata, at every time and in every land,
manifest in every kind of name and form, surrounded by his foremost children?
Why does one not eat meat? Why is the eating of meat prohibited?
Those various kinds who do eat meat — for what reason do they eat it?
What is the shape of the sun and moon? Of Mount Sumeru, and of the lotus-womb world?
Of the lion-supreme lands, some standing on their side, some overturned, covering the world
like Indra's net; some made entirely of precious jewels, some shaped like a lute or a slender-waisted drum,
taking the shape of every kind of flower; some without the light of sun or moon at all —
of these, and countless more, tell me?
What is a transformation buddha? What is a reward-born buddha?
What is a suchness buddha? What is a wisdom buddha?
Why is it that full awakening is not accomplished within the desire realm?
Why is it that, only in Akaniṣṭha, apart from desire, is bodhi attained?
When the Well-Gone One enters parinirvāṇa, who will then uphold the true dharma?
How long does the Teacher of Gods and Humans abide? How long does the true dharma abide?
The siddhāntas, and views — how many kinds are there of each?
The vinaya, and the classes of monks — how, and for what reason, are they established?
For those foremost children of the Buddha, the pratyekabuddhas and the śrāvakas —
by what cause is there the transformation-death of the hundred afflictions? How is there their non-grasping?
What is worldly superknowledge? What is transcending the world?
What is the seventh ground? I beg you to explain.
How many kinds of saṅgha are there? What is a saṅgha broken apart?
What are the treatises of medicine, and for what reason are they taught?
Why does the Great Sage proclaim these words:
"Kāśyapa, Krakucchanda, and Kanakamuni are myself"?
Why does he speak of annihilation and eternalism, and of self and no-self?
Why does he not, at every time, proclaim the truth of ultimate meaning directly,
but instead, for the sake of sentient beings, expound the measure of mind by discrimination?
By what cause are there the forest of men and women, the harītakī and āmalaka trees,
Mount Kaila and the Cakravāḍa ring, Mount Vajra and all the other mountains,
adorned with immeasurable jewels and filled with sages and gandharvas?"
The commentary glosses this entire chain almost line by line — nearly every five-character phrase gets its own short paraphrase — which is itself a claim about the passage: that it is not decoration but the sūtra's actual outline, stated in advance. Their running gloss on 楞伽 in the title already promised this ("the essential matter of the whole sūtra comes down to the five dharmas, the three own-natures, the eight consciousnesses, and the two kinds of no-self"), and reading through their line-by-line notes confirms it: "云何名為藏" (what is called the storehouse) is glossed simply 問第八藏識, a direct question about the eighth, storehouse consciousness; "云何建立相，及與非我義" is glossed 問有相及無我相, tying the pair straight to the two-no-self doctrine; the long run of questions about kings, gods, elephants, mountains, and world-shapes is glossed collectively as belonging to what the five-dharmas scheme calls "name and mark" (名相), the raw content any teaching has to discriminate before wisdom (正智) and suchness (如如) can be reached. The list reads like chaos only if one misses that it is being organized by a classification scheme not yet named.
The commentary also flags, without smoothing over, the list's own numerical mismatch: the questions plainly number in the hundreds when counted individually, yet Mahāmati has just announced "百八義" — a hundred and eight matters. Sòng Lè and Rúqí do not try to force an exact count; a note appended after the Buddha's answering verses states plainly that "所問所領皆無倫次，故不可以定數開合而論之" — what is asked and what is echoed back follow no fixed sequence, so the number cannot be settled by any particular way of splitting the questions apart. The number 108 is doing symbolic rather than arithmetic work here — the commentary elsewhere ties it explicitly to the 108 afflictions (煩惱) countered by 108 dharma-gates — and the questions themselves are the sūtra's full scope stated at the threshold, not a list meant to be counted out one by one. The Buddha's reply, beginning on the next page, will first echo this same list back nearly line for line before finally distilling everything into a fixed hundred-and-eight pairs of terms — where the arithmetic, this time, is meant to come out exact.
Part 1 Complete
This closes Part 1: the assembly on Mount Laṅkā, Mahāmati's homage in verse, and his full chain of questions covering nearly everything a student of the Mahāyāna could ask after. Part 2 turns to the Buddha's reply — first a complete echo of this same list of questions, then its distillation into a fixed hundred and eight paired statements.
Continue to Part 2 — The Buddha's Reply: A Hundred and Eight Statements →