Word and Meaning
The Buddha distinguishes speech itself — sound produced through throat, lips, tongue, and teeth — from meaning, which is apart from every mark of speech and false thought entirely, and warns that even the sūtra's own most exalted vocabulary, terms like "unborn," "unceasing," and "nirvāṇa," becomes just one more occasion for false assertion or slander the moment it is grasped as a fixed thing rather than used as a raft to cross with. The page then turns to a new topic the Buddha introduces on his own: the three kinds of wisdom — worldly, transmundane, and transmundane beyond transmundane — that sort every kind of knowing all the way from the outsiders' attachment to existence and non-existence up to a buddha's own direct realization of the unborn and unceasing.
Word and Meaning
爾時，大慧菩薩白佛言：「世尊！如世尊所說，菩薩摩訶薩當善語義。云何為菩薩善語義？云何為語？云何為義？」
佛告大慧：「諦聽，諦聽！善思念之，當為汝說。」
大慧白佛言：「善哉，世尊！唯然受教。」
佛告大慧：「云何為語？謂：言字妄想和合，依咽喉脣舌齒齗頰輔，因彼我言說，妄想習氣計著生。是名為語。大慧！云何為義？謂：離一切妄想相、言說相，是名為義。大慧！菩薩摩訶薩於如是義，獨一靜處，聞思修慧，緣自覺了，向涅槃城，習氣身轉變已，自覺境界，觀地地中間勝進義相。是名菩薩摩訶薩善義。
「復次，大慧！善語義菩薩摩訶薩，觀語與義，非異非不異；觀義與語，亦復如是。若語異義者，則不因語辯義，而以語入義，如燈照色。復次，大慧！不生不滅，自性涅槃，三乘一乘，心自性等，如緣言說義計著，墮建立及誹謗見。異建立，異妄想，如幻種種妄想現。譬如種種幻，凡愚眾生作異妄想，非聖賢也。」
爾時，世尊欲重宣此義而說偈言：
「彼言既妄想， 建立於諸法，
以彼建立故， 死墮泥犁中。
陰中無有我， 陰非即是我，
不如彼妄想， 亦復非無我。
一切悉有性， 如凡愚妄想，
若如彼所見， 一切應見諦。
一切法無性， 淨穢悉無有，
不實如彼見， 亦非無所有。
Then Mahāmati Bodhisattva said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, as the World-Honored One has taught, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva should be skilled in word and meaning. How is a bodhisattva skilled in word and meaning? What is a word? And what is meaning?"
The Buddha told Mahāmati: "Listen well! Listen well! Consider this carefully — I shall now explain it to you."
Mahāmati said to the Buddha: "Excellent, World-Honored One! I gladly receive your teaching."
The Buddha told Mahāmati: "What is a word? It is speech and written letters coming together through false thought, produced through the throat, lips, tongue, teeth, gums, and cheeks, arising through the habituated force of false thought bound up with speaking of oneself and of others — this is called a word. Mahāmati, what is meaning? It is that which is apart from every mark of false thought and every mark of speech — this is called meaning. Mahāmati, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva, with respect to meaning of just this kind, alone in a solitary place, through the wisdom of hearing, reflecting, and cultivating, comes to understand it through self-realization, heading toward the very city of nirvāṇa; his body, having thus turned and transformed beyond its habituated force, [dwells within] the domain of self-realization, observing the mark of ever-further advancement found between one ground and the next. This is called a bodhisattva-mahāsattva's skill in meaning.
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva skilled in word and meaning observes that word and meaning are neither identical nor not identical; and observing meaning in relation to word, it is just the same. If word were different from meaning, then one could not, by way of word, come to discern meaning at all — yet it is precisely by way of word that one enters into meaning, just as a lamp illumines a form. Furthermore, Mahāmati, [even terms such as] the unborn and unceasing, nirvāṇa as one's own nature, the three vehicles and the one vehicle, mind's own own-nature, and the rest — if one becomes attached to them merely as the meaning that speech happens to point toward, one falls into the view of false assertion and of slanderous denial. One assertion differs from another, one false thought from another, and, like an illusion, every kind of false thought thereby appears. Just as with every kind of illusion, ordinary and ignorant beings form different kinds of false thought about them — this is not the way of the noble and the wise."
Then the World-Honored One, wishing to restate this meaning, spoke in verse: "Once that very speech becomes false thought, it establishes every dharma as though real;
and it is on account of that very establishing that one dies and falls into the hell-realms.
There is no self within the aggregates, nor are the aggregates themselves a self;
[yet the truth] is not as that [outsider's] false thought would have it either — nor is it, for that matter, that there is no self at all.
[To hold that] everything, without exception, has a fixed nature — this is simply the ignorant person's own false thought;
were it truly as they see it, everyone should already see the very truth itself.
[To hold instead that] no dharma has any nature at all, that purity and defilement are both alike absent —
this, too, is unreal, just as that [other, opposite] view is — nor is it, for that matter, that there is nothing whatsoever."
The commentators are precise that word and meaning are neither collapsed into one another nor treated as fully separable, drawing the balance directly from the sūtra's own lamp simile: "義雖妄言，非言無以辯義，則必因言而入於義，如燈照色者" — "though meaning is not itself speech, without speech there would be no way to discern meaning at all; one necessarily enters into meaning by way of speech, just as a lamp illumines a form [that is not itself the lamp's own light]." A lamp's light and the form it reveals are not the same thing, yet the form cannot be seen without the light — this is offered as the precise relationship between word and meaning: genuinely distinct, and yet indispensable to each other, which is why the sūtra calls them "neither identical nor not identical" rather than settling the question one way or the other.
On why even the sūtra's own honored vocabulary — unborn, unceasing, nirvāṇa, the one vehicle — becomes dangerous the moment it is grasped, the commentators are direct: "如不生不滅等，雖皆理性名言，若謂實有則墮常見，若謂實無則墮斷見，況餘者乎" — "terms such as 'unborn' and 'unceasing,' though each names a genuine principle, become the view of permanence the moment one holds they truly exist, and the view of annihilation the moment one holds they are simply nonexistent — how much more so, then, for lesser terms." No vocabulary is safe from this trap purely by virtue of being doctrinally correct; the fault lies entirely in whether the term is used as a raft to be relied on for its meaning, per this fascicle's own repeated teaching, or clung to as a fixed thing in its own right — which is exactly the error the closing verse's four-part structure works through one more time, showing that neither "everything has a nature" nor "nothing has any nature" survives scrutiny.
Three Kinds of Wisdom, and the Distinction Between Wisdom and Consciousness
「復次，大慧！智識相，今當說。若善分別智識相者，汝及諸菩薩，則能通達智識之相，疾成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。大慧！彼智有三種，謂：世間、出世間、出世間上上智。云何世間智？謂：一切外道凡夫，計著有無。云何出世間智？謂：一切聲聞、緣覺，墮自共相悕望計著。云何出世間上上智？謂：諸佛、菩薩，觀無所有法，見不生不滅，離有無品，入如來地，人法無我，緣自得生。大慧！彼生滅者是識，不生不滅者是智。復次，墮相無相，及墮有無種種相因是識，超有無相是智。復次，長養相是識，非長養相是智。復次，有三種智，謂：知生滅、知自共相、知不生不滅。復次，無礙相，是智。境界種種礙相，是識。復次，三事和合生方便相，是識。無事方便自性相，是智。復次，得相，是識。不得相，是智。自得聖智境界，不出不入，故如水中月。」
爾時，世尊欲重宣此義而說偈言：
「採集業為識， 不採集為智，
觀察一切法， 通達無所有。
逮得自在力， 是則名為慧，
縛境界為心， 覺想生為智。
無所有及勝， 慧則從是生，
心意及與識， 遠離思惟想。
得無思想法， 佛子非聲聞，
寂靜勝進忍， 如來清淨智。
生於善勝義， 所行悉遠離，
我有三種智， 聖開發真實。
於彼想思惟， 悉攝受諸性，
二乘不相應， 智離諸所有。
計著於自性， 從諸聲聞生，
超度諸心量， 如來智清淨。」
"Furthermore, Mahāmati, I shall now speak of the mark of wisdom and the mark of consciousness. If you and the other bodhisattvas rightly discriminate the mark of wisdom and the mark of consciousness, you will be able to penetrate the mark of wisdom and of consciousness, and swiftly accomplish unsurpassed, complete enlightenment. Mahāmati, that wisdom is of three kinds: worldly wisdom, transmundane wisdom, and wisdom transmundane beyond the transmundane. What is worldly wisdom? It is that every outsider and ordinary person becomes attached to existence and non-existence. What is transmundane wisdom? It is that every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha falls into hopeful attachment to own mark and shared mark. What is wisdom transmundane beyond the transmundane? It is that every buddha and bodhisattva observes the dharma that has nothing at all, sees the unborn and the unceasing, is apart from the class of existence and non-existence, enters the ground of the Tathāgata, [realizes] the no-self of persons and of dharmas, and arises through self-realization alone. Mahāmati, what arises and ceases is consciousness; what is unborn and unceasing is wisdom. Furthermore, falling into a mark or its absence, and falling into every kind of mark bound up with existence and non-existence as a cause — this is consciousness; passing beyond the mark of existence and non-existence — this is wisdom. Furthermore, a mark that must be nourished [by an external object] is consciousness; a mark that requires no such nourishment is wisdom. Furthermore, there are three kinds of wisdom: knowing arising and ceasing, knowing own mark and shared mark, and knowing the unborn and unceasing. Furthermore, an unobstructed mark is wisdom; an object-realm bound up with every kind of obstructing mark is consciousness. Furthermore, the mark of a skillful means arising from the coming together of three matters is consciousness; the mark of an own-nature requiring no [such coming-together as its] skillful means at all is wisdom. Furthermore, a mark that is attained is consciousness; a mark that is not attained [in that sense] is wisdom. The domain of noble wisdom attained through self-realization neither goes out nor comes in — it is, therefore, just like the moon reflected in water."
Then the World-Honored One, wishing to restate this meaning, spoke in verse: "Gathering in karma is consciousness; not gathering it in is wisdom;
observing every dharma, one penetrates through to what has nothing at all.
Attaining mastery's own power — this alone is called insight;
mind is what is bound to an object-realm; wisdom is what arises as awareness itself.
From having nothing at all, and yet being supreme, insight is what is thereby born;
mind, will, and consciousness are all, alike, far removed from every deliberating thought.
Attaining the dharma free of deliberating thought — this belongs to the Buddha's own child, not to the śrāvaka;
the forbearance of still, ever-further advancement — this is the Tathāgata's own pure wisdom.
Born from what is genuinely supreme in meaning, every [ordinary] activity left entirely behind —
I myself have three kinds of wisdom; the noble ones alone bring forth what is genuinely real.
With respect to that deliberating thought, [the two lesser vehicles] grasp at every [fixed] nature entirely;
they do not correspond to it at all — [true] wisdom is apart from everything they hold.
Attachment to own-nature is what arises from every śrāvaka;
passing beyond every measure of mind — this is the Tathāgata's own pure wisdom."
The commentators map the three kinds of wisdom directly onto specific categories of knower rather than leaving them abstract: "世智言外道者，凡出家不稟佛教者皆名為外，其智之極雖至非想，然其所計不出有無，但名世智也...上上智言觀無所有者，謂佛菩薩用上上智照了諸法皆畢竟空" — "'worldly wisdom' names the outsiders: anyone who has renounced the household life without receiving the Buddha's own teaching is called an 'outsider' in this sense; even at the very summit of such wisdom, reaching [the formless absorption of] neither-perception-nor-non-perception, what it grasps still never moves beyond existence and non-existence — hence it is only called worldly wisdom... 'wisdom transmundane beyond the transmundane,' 'observing the dharma that has nothing at all,' means that buddhas and bodhisattvas, using this highest wisdom, illuminate every dharma as, in the end, entirely empty." Even the outsiders' most refined meditative attainment never breaks free of the existence/non-existence framework that defines worldly wisdom as such — the three-tier scheme sorts not by how deep a state of concentration reaches, but by whether the underlying view has broken free of that framework at all.
On the recurring distinction between wisdom and consciousness across the passage's several restatements, the commentators single out the "three matters" (三事) pairing as the clearest single test: "三事即根、塵及我，三事和合相應而生是識，此不知自性相故。若知性相，則一念靈知不假緣生，故曰『無事方便自性相是智』也" — "the three matters are the sense-faculty, the sense-object, and a self; whatever arises through the coming-together and mutual correspondence of these three is consciousness, precisely because it does not know its own own-nature-mark. Once that own-nature-mark is known, a single moment of luminous knowing requires no such combination of conditions to arise at all — hence it is said that 'the own-nature-mark of a skillful means requiring no such matter is wisdom.'" Consciousness is, by this test, definitionally dependent — it cannot arise without faculty, object, and a self meeting together — while wisdom is what remains once that dependency itself is seen through, needing no further combination of conditions to know what it knows.
Part 27 Complete
This closes Part 27: word and meaning shown to be neither identical nor separable, illustrated by a lamp and the form it illuminates; a warning that even the sūtra's own most honored vocabulary becomes dangerous the moment it is grasped as a fixed thing rather than relied on as a raft; and the three kinds of wisdom, sorting every kind of knowing from the outsiders' attachment to existence and non-existence up to a buddha's own direct realization of the unborn, tested throughout by whether a given mark of knowing still depends on faculty, object, and self coming together, or requires no such combination at all. Part 28 turns to the outsiders' nine theories of transformation — how they explain change in the world — and to a teaching on continuity itself: the eleven ways false thought binds a being to further existence, likened to a silkworm spinning its own cocoon.
Continue to Part 28 — Nine Theories of Transformation →