Is Every Dharma Destroyed Moment by Moment?
Mahāmati asks the Buddha to explain the mark of momentary destruction (刹那, kṣaṇa) — the teaching that conditioned things perish and are replaced instant by instant, with no interval at all. The Buddha's answer draws a careful line no earlier passage of this sūtra has drawn quite this way: the seven active consciousnesses genuinely do rise and perish moment by moment, driven by habituation to the storehouse-consciousness, but the tathāgatagarbha itself, considered in its own habituation-free purity, is not momentary at all. The teaching closes with three images of what endures without loss across any span of time: refined gold, an unbreakable vajra, and a buddha's own relics.
The Eight Consciousnesses and What "Momentary" Really Means
爾時，大慧菩薩復白佛言：「惟願為說一切諸法剎那壞相。世尊！云何一切法剎那？」佛告大慧：「諦聽，諦聽！善思念之，當為汝說。」佛告大慧：「一切法者，謂：善、不善、無記、有為、無為、世間、出世間。有罪、無罪、有漏、無漏、受、不受。大慧！略說心、意、意識及習氣，是五受陰因，是心、意、意識習氣，長養凡愚善不善妄想。大慧！修三昧樂，三昧正受現法樂住，名為賢聖善無漏。大慧！善不善者，謂八識。何等為八？謂如來藏，名識藏。心、意、意識、及五識身，非外道所說。大慧！五識身者，心、意、意識俱。善不善相，展轉變壞，相續流注。不壞身生，亦生亦滅。不覺自心現，次第滅餘識生。形相差別攝受，意識五識，俱相應生，剎那時不住，名為剎那。
At that time, Mahāmati Bodhisattva again said to the Buddha: "I only wish you would explain the mark of every dharma's momentary destruction. World-Honored One, in what sense is every dharma momentary?" The Buddha told Mahāmati: "Listen carefully, listen carefully, and reflect well upon it — I shall explain this for you." The Buddha told Mahāmati: "'Every dharma' means: the wholesome, the unwholesome, and the ethically indeterminate; the conditioned and the unconditioned; the worldly and the transcendent; the blameworthy and the blameless; the defiled and the undefiled; the received and the unreceived. Mahāmati, briefly stated, mind, will, consciousness, and their habituation are the very cause of the five aggregates subject to grasping — this habituation belonging to mind, will, and consciousness is what nourishes the foolish and ignorant's own wholesome and unwholesome false thought. Mahāmati, one who cultivates the bliss of samādhi, dwelling in the very bliss of the Dharma as it is present through the proper attainment of samādhi, is called wholesome and undefiled in the manner of the wise and noble. Mahāmati, as for 'wholesome' and 'unwholesome': this refers to the eight consciousnesses. What are the eight? They are: the tathāgatagarbha, called the storehouse-consciousness; mind, will, consciousness, and the [collective] body of the five sense-consciousnesses — a teaching not found among the outsiders. Mahāmati, as for the body of the five sense-consciousnesses: it arises together with mind, will, and consciousness. Their wholesome and unwholesome marks, transforming and dissolving one into the next, flow onward in unbroken succession — not themselves destroyed even as [each instance of] the body [of consciousness] arises, both arising and ceasing at once. Failing to be aware that these are simply one's own mind's manifestation, one consciousness ceases in succession as another arises, taking up manifold, differentiated forms. Mental consciousness and the five sense-consciousnesses, arising together in mutual correspondence, never remaining still for even a single instant — this alone is what is called 'momentary.'
The commentators define "momentary" itself with striking precision before the sūtra's own answer even begins: "剎那者，時之最促，念之極微者也。如云『壯士一彈指頃，六十一剎那。』故以心念起滅不停為剎那" — "'kṣaṇa' names the very shortest span of time, the finest possible unit of a single thought — as it is said, 'in the time it takes a strong man to snap his fingers once, sixty-one kṣaṇas have passed.' This is why the ceaseless rising and perishing of a single thought is called 'momentary.'" And they explain why the Buddha's answer opens with a comprehensive list of every kind of dharma before narrowing to consciousness itself: "剎那者下，重結前起後。此二種相雖通依諸識生起，而所從則別" — "the passage beginning 'as for momentary' gathers together what came before and opens what follows; though both of these two kinds of mark [momentary and non-momentary] arise in dependence on the various consciousnesses, what they each ultimately derive from differs."
On why the "body of the five sense-consciousnesses" is singled out as the clearest illustration of momentariness, the commentators trace the mechanism precisely: "根境之間未始間斷...念念起滅，故云『次第滅餘識生』...剎那時不住者，言諸識起滅不停，不於此則於彼，無時暫息，是為剎那之相也" — "between sense faculty and sense object there is never the smallest interruption... moment by moment they arise and perish, which is why it says 'one consciousness ceases in succession as another arises'... 'never remaining still for even a single instant' means that the consciousnesses' arising and perishing never stops at all — if not occurring here, then occurring there, never resting for even a moment; this is what the mark of momentariness actually is." The point is not that consciousness occasionally changes quickly, but that there is, in principle, no gap at all in which it could ever be said to simply stay put.
Gold, Vajra, and the Buddha's Relics: What Is Never Destroyed
大慧！剎那者，名識藏，如來藏意俱生識習氣剎那。無漏習氣非剎那，非凡愚所覺。計著剎那論故，不覺一切法剎那非剎那，以斷見壞無為法。大慧！七識不流轉，不受苦樂，非涅槃因。大慧！如來藏者，受苦樂與因俱，若生若滅。四住地、無明住地所醉。凡愚不覺，剎那見妄想勳心。「復次，大慧！如金、金剛、佛舍利，得奇特性，終不損壞。大慧！若得無間，有剎那者，聖應非聖，而聖未曾不聖。如金金剛，雖經劫數，稱量不減。云何凡愚，不善於我隱覆之說，於內外一切法作剎那想？」
Mahāmati, as for 'momentary': it is the storehouse-consciousness — that is, the tathāgatagarbha as habituated by consciousness co-arising with will — whose habituation itself is momentary. The habituation free of defilement is not momentary at all, though this is not something the foolish and ignorant are able to realize. Clinging to a theory of universal momentariness, they fail to be aware that some dharmas are momentary and some are not, and, through this very view of annihilation, they destroy the unconditioned dharma itself. Mahāmati, the seven [active] consciousnesses [when free of defilement] do not themselves continue to flow on, nor experience pleasure and pain, nor serve as the cause of nirvāṇa. Mahāmati, the tathāgatagarbha, however, does experience pleasure and pain together with their cause, whether arising or ceasing, intoxicated by the four abodes [of affliction] and by the abode of fundamental ignorance — something the foolish and ignorant fail to be aware of, their minds habituated instead by the false thought of momentary destruction. "Furthermore, Mahāmati, it is like gold, like a vajra, or like a buddha's own relics: these attain an extraordinary nature that is, in the end, never damaged or destroyed at all. Mahāmati, were it truly the case that even the very continuity [of realization] were subject to momentary destruction, then a noble one would have to become no longer noble — and yet a noble one is, in fact, never anything but noble. It is like gold or a vajra: though it passes through countless aeons, its very measure never diminishes at all. How, then, can the foolish and ignorant, unskilled in what I have taught beneath the surface of my words, form the notion that momentary destruction applies to every dharma, both internal and external, without exception?"
The commentators are careful to explain why the same reality — the tathāgatagarbha — can be called both momentary and non-momentary without contradiction, depending on which aspect is meant: "是則以諸識從識習氣者，剎那也；從無漏習氣者，非剎那也。既是無漏，猶名習氣者，謂其體是第七識，執想猶在，雖非剎那，未為究竟真常無漏" — "thus, insofar as the various consciousnesses derive from habituation belonging to [defiled] consciousness, they are momentary; insofar as they derive from habituation free of defilement, they are not momentary. And though this latter is called 'free of defilement,' it is still spoken of as 'habituation' because its very substance remains the seventh consciousness, whose grasping is still present — so that, though it is not momentary in the same sense, it is not yet the ultimate, truly constant, and fully undefiled state either." Even a state correctly called "not momentary" here is not yet the very furthest reach of realization — it is simply free of the moment-to-moment destruction that afflicts the six active consciousnesses, while a subtler grasping still remains to be resolved.
On why the Buddha's teaching of universal momentariness elsewhere in the tradition is not actually contradicted by this passage, the commentators locate the resolution in what "destruction" is taken to mean: "如來本答剎那之問，剎那則有損壞，而直以不可損壞言者，蓋迷則是剎那、悟則非剎那也" — "though the Tathāgata's original answer to the question of momentariness holds that momentary things are indeed subject to destruction, he directly describes [the tathāgatagarbha] as something that cannot be damaged or destroyed at all — for in delusion, it is momentary; in awakening, it is not." And on the three closing images: "喻如金剛等，金中精剛，以百鍊故，鑛璞全消，惟一精剛，物不能壞，此世間之奇特性也。又喻佛舍利，以萬行熏修，垢染都盡，惟一精真，無能壞者，此出世間奇特性也" — "the vajra illustrates this: the finest steel within gold, refined a hundred times over, until the raw ore is entirely dissolved away and only the pure, unbreakable substance remains — this is an extraordinary nature found even within the world. A buddha's relics illustrate the same on the transcendent side: through the habituation of ten thousand practices, every defilement is entirely exhausted, and only what is pure and true remains, something nothing can ever destroy." Whether a thing is called "momentary" or "indestructible" depends entirely on whether delusion or realization is doing the looking — the tathāgatagarbha itself never changes between the two.
Part 46 Complete
This closes Part 46: the eight consciousnesses catalogued, the precise sense in which the active consciousnesses are genuinely momentary while the tathāgatagarbha's own habituation-free nature is not, and the closing teaching that "destruction" describes only how delusion sees reality, never reality itself — illustrated by refined gold, an unbreakable vajra, and a buddha's own relics enduring across countless aeons without the smallest measure of loss. Part 47 turns to a new question Mahāmati raises immediately afterward: how the six pāramitās — the perfections of giving, moral discipline, patience, diligence, meditative concentration, and wisdom — differ across their worldly, transcendent, and supremely transcendent forms.
Continue to Part 47 — The Three Kinds of Pāramitā →