Two Kinds of Awareness, and the Four Great Elements
The Buddha names two kinds of awareness a bodhisattva must master — one that observes ultimate truth directly, apart from the four extremes, and one bound up with the provisional world of earth, water, fire, and wind. Mastering both together carries a bodhisattva to the Ground of Joy and, by stages, to the crown-anointing of the Ground of the Dharma Cloud. The page then explains how the four great elements actually arise from four kinds of habituated tendency, why the five aggregates resist being counted the way ordinary objects are counted, the four kinds of nirvāṇa the outsiders wrongly teach in place of the Buddha's own single teaching, and why the ceasing of the discriminating consciousness — like wind dying down over water — brings the seven active consciousnesses to a stop right along with it.
Two Kinds of Awareness
「復次，大慧！有二種覺，謂：觀察覺，及妄想相攝受計著建立覺。大慧！觀察覺者，謂若覺性自性相，選擇離四句不可得，是名觀察覺。大慧！彼四句者，謂離一異、俱不俱、有無非有非無、常無常，是名四句。大慧！此四句離，是名一切法。大慧！此四句觀察一切法，應當修學。大慧！云何妄想相攝受計著建立覺？謂：妄想相攝受，計著堅濕煖動不實妄想相四大種。宗因想譬喻計著，不實建立而建立，是名妄想相攝受計著建立覺。是名二種覺相。若菩薩摩訶薩，成就此二覺相，人法無我相究竟，善知方便無所有覺。觀察行地，得初地，入百三昧，得差別三昧，見百佛及百菩薩，知前後際各百劫事；光照百剎土，知上上地相，大願殊勝神力自在。法雲灌頂，當得如來自覺地，善繫心十無盡句，成熟眾生，種種變化，光明莊嚴，得自覺聖樂三昧正受故。
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, there are two kinds of awareness: the awareness that observes, and the awareness that establishes [a doctrine] through the attachment of grasping at a false-thought mark. Mahāmati, the awareness that observes is this: when the own-nature mark of any [fixed] nature is examined and sought among the four extremes, it cannot ultimately be apprehended at all — this is called the awareness that observes. Mahāmati, the four extremes are these: identity and difference, both together and neither, existence and non-existence, both together and neither, permanence and impermanence, both together and neither — these are called the four extremes. Mahāmati, apartness from these four extremes is what is meant by 'every dharma.' Mahāmati, one should diligently train in observing every dharma by way of these four extremes. Mahāmati, what is the awareness that establishes [a doctrine] through the attachment of grasping at a false-thought mark? It is grasping at a false-thought mark, becoming attached to the unreal, false-thought marks of solidity, moisture, warmth, and motion belonging to the four great elements, and, through attachment to a syllogism's thesis, reason, and illustrative example, establishing what is not real as though it were established — this is called the awareness that establishes [a doctrine] through the attachment of grasping at a false-thought mark. These are called the two kinds of awareness. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva who accomplishes these two kinds of awareness reaches the very culmination of the no-self of persons and of dharmas, and rightly understands the skillful means of the awareness that has nothing at all. Observing the grounds of practice, he attains the first ground, enters a hundred samādhis, attains distinct samādhis one by one, sees a hundred buddhas and a hundred bodhisattvas, knows the affairs of a hundred kalpas both before and after, illuminates a hundred buddha-lands with his own light, knows the marks of every ground higher still, and attains mastery, through great and excellent vows, over his own spiritual power. Anointed by the Dharma Cloud, he then attains the Tathāgata's own ground of self-realization, skillfully binding his mind to the ten inexhaustible statements, bringing sentient beings to maturity through every kind of transformation, adorned with light — attaining thereby the true attainment of the bliss of self-realized noble samādhi."
The commentators are careful that the two kinds of awareness are not simply "correct" and "incorrect," matched with real and false doctrine respectively — both, they insist, are what a bodhisattva must master together: "雖若真妄之異，然據結文云『菩薩成就』，則皆大士所觀，而真俗不同。觀察覺即真諦之覺也，建立覺即俗諦之覺也。良以菩薩觀真不捨俗，照俗不違真" — "though these might appear to be simply the true and the false, the passage's own closing line, 'a bodhisattva accomplishes,' shows that both are observed by the great being — they differ only as ultimate truth and conventional truth differ. The awareness that observes is the awareness of ultimate truth; the awareness that establishes is the awareness of conventional truth. This is precisely because a bodhisattva, observing the ultimate, does not thereby abandon the conventional, and, illuminating the conventional, never contradicts the ultimate." The second kind of awareness — attachment to the four great elements' fixed properties, built up through formal syllogisms — is not simply the outsiders' error to be avoided; it names the same conventional apparatus a bodhisattva himself has to understand and work skillfully within, precisely so as not to mistake it for the ultimate truth it is not.
On the string of hundredfold attainments at the first ground, the commentators cite the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha* directly for the full canonical list this passage compresses: "菩薩入初地時，證十百明門：一、於一剎那頃證百三摩地；二、以淨天眼見百佛國；三、以神通力能動百佛世界... 餘地倍倍增勝" — "when a bodhisattva enters the first ground, he realizes ten gateways of a hundredfold illumination: first, in a single instant he attains a hundred samādhis; second, with the pure heavenly eye he sees a hundred buddha-lands; third, through spiritual power he is able to shake a hundred buddha-worlds... and at every ground beyond this, [each capacity] doubles again in excellence." The specific number "a hundred" is not poetic exaggeration but a fixed feature of this particular ground's own attainment, doubling at every ground thereafter all the way to buddhahood.
The Four Great Elements, and the Five Aggregates
「復次，大慧！菩薩摩訶薩，當善四大造色。云何菩薩善四大造色？大慧！菩薩摩訶薩作是學，彼真諦者，四大不生。於彼四大不生，作如是觀察。觀察已，覺名相妄想分齊，自心現分齊，外性非性，是名自心現妄想分齊。謂三界觀彼四大造色性離，四句通淨，離我我所。如實相、自相分齊住，無生自相成。大慧！彼四大種云何生造色？謂津潤妄想大種生內外水界，堪能妄想大種生內外火界，飄動妄想大種生內外風界，斷截色妄想大種生內外地界。色及虛空俱，計著邪諦，五陰集聚，四大造色生。大慧！識者，因樂種種跡境界故，餘趣相續。大慧！地等四大及造色等，有四大緣，非彼四大緣。所以者何？謂性形相處所作方便無性，大種不生。大慧！性形相處所作方便和合生，非無形。是故四大造色相，外道妄想。非我。
「復次，大慧！當說諸陰自性相。云何諸陰自性相？謂五陰。云何五？謂色受想行識。彼四陰非色，謂受想行識。大慧！色者，四大及造色，各各異相。大慧！非無色有四數，如虛空。譬如虛空，過數相，離於數，而妄想言一虛空。大慧！如是陰，過數相，離於數，離性非性，離四句。數相者，愚夫言說，所說非聖賢也。大慧！聖者如幻種種色像，離異不異施設。又如夢影士夫身，離異不異故。大慧！聖智趣，同陰妄想現。是名諸陰自性相。汝當除滅，滅已，說寂靜法，斷一切佛剎諸外道見。大慧！說寂靜時，法無我見淨，及入不動地。入不動地已，無量三昧自在，及得意生身，得如幻三昧，通達究竟，力明自在，救攝饒益一切眾生。猶如大地載育眾生。菩薩摩訶薩普濟眾生，亦復如是。
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva should be skilled in the four great elements and the form produced by them. How is a bodhisattva skilled in the four great elements and the form produced by them? Mahāmati, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva trains himself to see that, in ultimate truth, the four great elements are unborn. Observing them as unborn in just this way, and having so observed, he becomes aware of the precise boundary drawn by the false thought of name and mark, the precise boundary manifested by his own mind, and that what is external has no fixed nature at all — this is called the precise boundary of one's own mind's manifestation of false thought. Observing that the very nature of the form produced by the four great elements throughout the three realms is apart from own-nature, pervasively purified of the four extremes, apart from a self and what belongs to a self, he abides within the mark exactly as it really is, within its own precise boundary — and it is thus that the own mark of the unborn itself is accomplished. Mahāmati, how do these four great elements give rise to the form they produce? The great element of moisture-imagining gives rise to the inner and outer realm of water; the great element of heat-capacity-imagining gives rise to the inner and outer realm of fire; the great element of stirring-imagining gives rise to the inner and outer realm of wind; the great element of severing-form-imagining gives rise to the inner and outer realm of earth. Form together with space, [once] attached to as a false truth, gives rise, through the gathering of the five aggregates, to the form produced by the four great elements. Mahāmati, consciousness — delighting in every kind of track left across an object-realm — is what causes rebirth into further destinies to continue on without break. Mahāmati, earth and the other great elements, and the form they produce, have the four great elements themselves as a condition, [but this does] not [mean the great elements] are their own condition in turn. Why is this? Because the [very] nature, form, place, and skillful means of activity all have no fixed nature at all — hence, [taken alone,] the great elements do not [truly] arise. Mahāmati, [it is only] through the coming together of nature, form, place, and skillful means of activity that they arise — not that they lack form altogether. It is for this reason that the mark of the four great elements and the form they produce is what the outsiders falsely think it to be — not what I myself teach.
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, I shall now speak of the own-nature mark of the aggregates. What is the own-nature mark of the aggregates? It refers to the five aggregates. What are the five? Form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. The other four aggregates are not form — namely, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Mahāmati, form is the four great elements and the form they produce, each with its own distinct mark. Mahāmati, it is not that the formless [aggregates alone] have a fixed count of four, [while form does not] — [rather, all five are] like space itself. Just as space is beyond any [real] count, apart from counting altogether, and yet false thought still speaks of 'a single space,' Mahāmati, so too are the aggregates: beyond any real count, apart from counting, apart from [fixed] nature and its absence, apart from the four extremes. To speak of a fixed count at all is merely the ignorant person's own manner of speaking — what is spoken is not the way of the noble and the wise. Mahāmati, the noble ones see every kind of form and image as like an illusion, apart from any positing of it as either the same or different [from what underlies it] — and, just as with a dream, a reflection, or a living body, apart from being the same or different as well. Mahāmati, the domain of noble wisdom is that in which the aggregates, too, appear identically as false thought [does] — this is called the own-nature mark of the aggregates. You should extinguish this [misapprehension], and, having extinguished it, teach the dharma of stillness, cutting off the outsiders' every view throughout every buddha-land. Mahāmati, when this dharma of stillness is taught, the view [obstructing] the no-self of dharmas is purified, and one enters the Immovable Ground. Having entered the Immovable Ground, one attains mastery over immeasurable samādhis, attains the mind-made body, attains the illusion-like samādhi, penetrates through to its very culmination, gains mastery over [every] power and [threefold] knowledge, and rescues, gathers in, and benefits every sentient being — just as the great earth carries and nurtures every living thing. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva's universal deliverance of sentient beings is just the same."
The commentators trace the paradox at the heart of this passage — the four great elements are "unborn," and yet the passage goes on to explain exactly how each one arises — to a distinction between the elements' own essential nature and their functional appearance: "然理非無四大，直彰無相，故云不生... 不生而生，是生四大之本" — "yet this principle does not mean there are, in reality, no four great elements at all; it simply makes plain that they have no fixed mark of their own — hence they are said to be 'unborn.' This non-arising-that-yet-arises is precisely the root from which the four great elements themselves arise." "Unborn" describes the elements' ultimate status, not a denial that water, fire, wind, and earth appear at all; the four named "imaginings" — moisture, heat-capacity, stirring, and severing — are the functional level at which that same unborn reality actually manifests as the elements a bodhisattva must still learn to work skillfully with.
On why the aggregates, like space, resist being counted the way ordinary objects are, the commentators press the analogy to its precise point: "虛空過數相，然妄想分別，言虛空是一。陰亦如是，離諸數相有無等四句" — "space is beyond any mark of counting at all, yet false thought and discrimination still speak of 'a single space.' The aggregates are exactly the same: apart from every mark of counting, apart from the four extremes of existence, non-existence, and the rest." Calling something "the five aggregates" is already a concession to ordinary speech, the same concession made when someone speaks of "one space" despite space having no boundary that could make it countable as a single, delimited thing in the first place — the number is a convenience for beings who need one, not a report of how many aggregates genuinely, independently exist.
Four Kinds of Outsider Nirvāṇa, and the Seven Consciousnesses
「復次，大慧！諸外道有四種涅槃。云何為四？謂：性自性非性涅槃、種種相性非性涅槃、自相自性非性覺涅槃、諸陰自共相相續流注斷涅槃。是名諸外道四種涅槃。非我所說法。大慧！我所說者，妄想識滅，名為涅槃。」
大慧白佛言：「世尊！不建立八識耶？」
佛言：「建立。」
大慧白佛言：「若建立者，云何離意識，非七識？」
佛告大慧：「彼因及彼攀緣故，七識不生。意識者，境界分段計著生習氣，長養藏識意俱。我我所計著思惟因緣生。不壞身相藏識，因攀緣自心現境界，計著心聚生，展轉相因。譬如海浪，自心現境界風吹，若生若滅，亦如是。是故意識滅，七識亦滅。」
爾時，世尊欲重宣此義，而說偈言：
「我不涅槃性， 所作及與相，
妄想爾炎識， 此滅我涅槃。
彼因彼攀緣， 意趣等成身，
與因者是心， 為識之所依。
如水大流盡， 波浪則不起，
如是意識滅， 種種識不生。
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, the outsiders teach four kinds of nirvāṇa. What are the four? Nirvāṇa as the absence of any fixed own-nature; nirvāṇa as the absence of any fixed nature within manifold marks; nirvāṇa as the awareness that own mark and own-nature are themselves absent; and nirvāṇa as the cutting off of the continuous flow of the own mark and shared mark of the aggregates. These are called the outsiders' four kinds of nirvāṇa. This is not the dharma I myself teach. Mahāmati, what I teach is this: the ceasing of the false-thought-bound discriminating consciousness — this alone is what is called nirvāṇa."
Mahāmati said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, do you not, then, teach the eight consciousnesses?"
The Buddha said: "I do teach them."
Mahāmati said to the Buddha: "If you do teach them, then how is it that only the discriminating consciousness is left behind [at nirvāṇa], and not the [other] seven?"
The Buddha told Mahāmati: "Because of that [discriminating consciousness's] own cause and its own object grasped at, the seven consciousnesses do not [continue to] arise. The discriminating consciousness is this: it arises through attachment to the divisions of an object-realm, its habituated force nourishing, and standing together with, the storehouse consciousness and will; it arises through the causes and conditions of deliberation bound up with attachment to an 'I' and to 'mine.' Without destroying the very mark of the body, the storehouse consciousness, through grasping at the object-realm manifested by its own mind, gives rise, through attachment, to a gathering of mind, each conditioning the next in succession. It is just like the waves of the ocean: stirred by the wind of the object-realm manifested by one's own mind, they arise and cease in just the same way. It is for this reason that, once the discriminating consciousness ceases, the seven consciousnesses cease as well."
Then the World-Honored One, wishing to restate this meaning, spoke in verse: "I do not take any [fixed] nature, activity, or mark as nirvāṇa;
it is the ceasing of the false-thought-bound consciousness of the knowable — this alone is my own nirvāṇa.
That very cause, that very object grasped at, will and the rest, together form the body [of consciousness];
and that which serves as their cause is mind itself, the very support every consciousness depends upon.
Just as, when a great body of water is exhausted, its waves no longer arise —
so too, once the discriminating consciousness ceases, the manifold consciousnesses no longer arise."
The commentators dismiss the outsiders' four nirvāṇas together in one stroke rather than refuting each individually, tracing all four back to the same flawed starting point: "涅槃是果，果由因得，其因既邪，果亦非正" — "nirvāṇa is a fruit, and a fruit is obtained from its cause; since the cause [the outsiders rely on] is already mistaken, the fruit cannot be correct either." Whatever positive metaphysical claim each of the four outsider nirvāṇas makes about a fixed nature being absent, present, or known, all four still treat nirvāṇa as a state defined by some fact about a fixed thing — precisely the assumption the Buddha's own one-line definition, "the ceasing of the false-thought-bound discriminating consciousness," refuses to make.
On why the ceasing of just one consciousness — the sixth, the discriminating consciousness — is enough to stop the other seven as well, the commentators lay out the causal chain the sūtra's own prose compresses: "言因及攀緣在六識，而七識執我，未常相離；若六識滅，則七識亦不生也" — "the cause and the object grasped at both belong to the sixth consciousness, and the seventh consciousness's own grasping at a self has never actually been separate from it; if the sixth consciousness ceases, the seventh consciousness likewise fails to arise." They extend the ocean-and-wave image from earlier in this fascicle to the full eight-consciousness structure: "海喻八識、浪喻六識，以六塵為境界風... 風息則浪滅，故云『意識滅七識亦滅』也" — "the ocean is a metaphor for the eighth consciousness, the waves for the sixth, and the six sense-objects for the wind of the object-realm... once the wind subsides, the waves cease — hence it is said that 'once the discriminating consciousness ceases, the seven consciousnesses cease as well.'" The eighth consciousness, like the ocean itself, is never said to cease at all — only the wind-driven waves upon its surface fall still.
Part 20 Complete
This closes Part 20: the two kinds of awareness — of ultimate truth and of conventional truth — that together carry a bodhisattva through the hundredfold attainments of the first ground; the four great elements shown to be unborn in their ultimate nature while still arising through four specific habituated tendencies; the five aggregates shown to resist real counting the way space itself does; the outsiders' four mistaken nirvāṇas set against the Buddha's own single definition; and the wave-and-ocean image explaining why the discriminating consciousness's ceasing stops the other seven consciousnesses along with it, while the storehouse consciousness itself remains, like the ocean beneath its waves, untouched. Part 21 turns to twelve named kinds of false thought, each a different way the mind mistakes the merely conventional for something fixed and real — closing this section with one of the sūtra's longest single verses, restating all twelve through the recurring image of a magician's illusion.
Continue to Part 21 — Twelve Kinds of False Thought →