What in You Never Grows Old?

At that time Ānanda and the whole assembly, hearing the Buddha's instruction, felt their bodies and minds grow calm and at ease. Reflecting that, from beginningless time, they had lost their own original mind and mistakenly clung to the shadow-play of conditioned, discriminating thought, they now felt awakened — like an infant who has lost its milk and suddenly meets its loving mother again. Joining their palms, they bowed to the Buddha, wishing to hear the Tathāgata reveal, of body and mind alike, what is true and what is false, what is empty and what is real, and to make plain the nature of what before us arises and ceases and what does not.

King Prasenajit rose and said to the Buddha: "In the past, before I received the guidance of the buddhas, I heard Kātyāyana and Vairaṭīputra both claim that after this body dies it is utterly annihilated, and that this is what is called nirvāṇa. Though I have now met the Buddha, I still harbor this doubt. How can it be shown and proven that this mind reaches a state beyond birth and death? All those with outflows still remaining in this assembly wish equally to hear the answer."

The Buddha said to the great king: "Your body still exists here before me — let me ask you: is this fleshly body of yours as everlasting and indestructible as vajra, or does it change and decay?" "World-Honored One, this body of mine will, in the end, change and perish." The Buddha said: "Great king, it has not yet perished — how do you know it will perish?" "World-Honored One, although this impermanent, decaying body of mine has not yet perished, I observe that, moment after moment, it is passing away, never for an instant staying the same — like a fire that gradually reduces itself to ash, extinguishing itself without rest. I know for certain that this body must, in the end, come to a complete end."

The Buddha said: "Just so, great king. Your years now bring you toward old age — how does your present countenance compare to when you were a child?" "World-Honored One, in my infancy my skin was moist and supple; when I reached my prime, my blood and vitality were full; but now, in this declining age, drawing near to senility, my form and complexion are withered, my spirit dull, my hair white, my face lined, and I have not much time left — how could this compare to the fullness of my prime!"

The Buddha said: "Great king, surely your appearance did not decay all at once?" The king said: "World-Honored One, the change has crept along in secret; I truly never noticed it happening — the cold and the heat passing, little by little, until it came to this. Why do I say so? At twenty, though called young, my face was already older than at ten; at thirty it had declined further from twenty; and now, past sixty-two, looking back on fifty I seem to have still been vigorous then. World-Honored One, I see this secret change proceeding, marked off, roughly, in units of ten years. But if I reflect on it more minutely still: the change is not confined to a decade or two at a time — it is truly a change from year to year; and not only from year to year, but month to month; and not merely month to month, but day by day as well. Reflecting deeply and observing closely, moment after moment, instant after instant, it never once stays still — and so I know for certain that this body of mine must, in the end, undergo change and perish."

The Buddha said: "Great king, you see this unceasing change and transformation and thereby recognize that you will perish — but at the very time of that perishing, do you know whether there is, within your body, something that does not perish?" King Prasenajit, joining his palms, said to the Buddha: "I truly do not know."

The Buddha said: "I will now show you the nature that neither arises nor ceases. Great king, at what age did you first see the water of the Ganges?" The king said: "When I was three years old, my loving mother took me to pay homage at the shrine of the god Jīva, and on the way we passed this river — that was when I first knew it as the Ganges." The Buddha said: "Great king, as you have said, your body declined from twenty to a mere ten years' vigor, and on to sixty, changing moment by moment with the days, months, and years — so when you saw this river at age three, and again at age thirteen, how was the water then?" The king said: "It was exactly the same as when I was three — and even now, at sixty-two, it is no different at all."

The Buddha said: "You now grieve over your white hair and wrinkled face — your face is certainly more wrinkled now than in childhood. But when you look at this Ganges now, compared to how you looked at it as a child, is the seeing itself young in one case and old in the other?" The king said: "No, World-Honored One."

The Buddha said: "Great king, though your face is wrinkled, this essence of seeing has never once been wrinkled! What wrinkles is subject to change; what does not wrinkle is not subject to change. What changes is subject to perishing; what does not change is, from the very beginning, beyond birth and death — how could it undergo your birth and death? And yet you still cite the likes of Maskarin Gośālīputra, who claim that after this body dies everything is utterly annihilated!" Hearing this, the king came to believe and know that after this body is given up, one goes on to another rebirth, and he, together with the whole assembly, leapt for joy, having gained what they had never had before.

Ānanda then rose from his seat, bowed to the Buddha with palms joined, knelt at length, and said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, if this seeing and hearing are truly beyond birth and death, why does the World-Honored One say that we have lost our true nature and act in an upside-down way? I beg you, in your compassion, to wash away the dust that clouds us!"

At once the Tathāgata lowered his golden-hued arm, turned his hand palm-downward, and, pointing it toward the ground, said to Ānanda: "Do you see this hand of mine, marked with the wheel-sign, as right-side up or upside down?" Ānanda said: "Ordinary beings in the world would call this upside down; but I myself do not know which way is right and which is upside down." The Buddha said to Ānanda: "If people in the world call this upside down, what, then, would they call right-side up?" Ānanda said: "If the Tathāgata raised his arm and pointed his cotton-soft hand upward toward the sky, that would be called right-side up."

The Buddha then raised his arm and said to Ānanda: "If this is all it takes — head and tail simply switching places — for ordinary people in the world to see it doubly, one way and then the other, then you should understand, comparing your own body to the Tathāgatas' pure Dharma-body in just this way: the Tathāgata's body is called that of right and universal knowing, while your bodies are called, by their very nature, upside down. Look closely, then, at your own body and at the Buddha's body, and consider exactly where, in what you call 'upside down,' the name 'upside down' is actually to be found."

At this Ānanda and the whole assembly stared at the Buddha, their eyes unblinking, not knowing where this inversion of body and mind was to be found.

The Buddha, moved to kindness, pitied Ānanda and the whole assembly, and in a voice like the ocean's tide declared to all who were gathered: "Good men! I have always said that the conditions of form and mind, and what mind sets in motion, and all phenomena taken as objects, are nothing but manifestations of mind. Your body and your mind are alike things appearing within the wondrous, luminous, truly refined and wondrous mind. How is it that you have lost your originally wondrous, perfectly luminous mind, that jewel-bright wondrous nature, and taken delusion for awakening? Obscurity becomes space; and in that dark obscurity darkness congeals into form; form mixed with false thinking, and the aspect of that thinking, becomes the body; conditions gather and stir within and rush outward, and this murky agitation is taken for the nature of mind. Once this is mistaken for mind, one is settled in the delusion that it lies inside the physical body, not knowing that outside that body the mountains and rivers, empty space and the great earth, are all of them things within the wondrous luminous true mind. It is as though one threw away a hundred thousand clear great seas and recognized only a single floating bubble, calling it the whole tide and the sum of all the oceans. You are the doubly deluded among the deluded — no different from my hand hanging down; and of such a one the Tathāgata says that he is to be pitied."

Ānanda, receiving the Buddha's compassionate rescue and deep instruction, wept, folded his hands, and said to the Buddha: "Though I have received such wondrous words from the Buddha and have awakened to the wondrous luminous mind as the ground of mind, originally complete and ever abiding, still, in awakening to the Buddha's present words of Dharma, I am using a conditioned mind even in the reverence I offer. Having merely gained this much of mind, I dare not yet acknowledge it as the original ground of mind. I beg the Buddha to pity me, to declare the perfect sound, to pull out the root of my doubt and return me to the unsurpassed path!"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "You are still listening to the Dharma with a conditioned mind, and so this Dharma too becomes a condition, and you do not gain the nature of Dharma. It is as when a man points at the moon to show it to another: that other ought to look at the moon by means of the finger; but if instead he looks at the finger and takes it for the moon, that man loses not only the moon but the finger as well. Why? Because he has taken the pointing finger for the bright moon. And he loses not only the finger but the very difference between light and darkness. Why? Because he has taken the substance of the finger for the moon's bright nature, and so has understood neither of the two natures, light and dark.

"It is just so with you. If you take the discriminating of the sound of my Dharma to be your mind, then that mind ought to have its discriminating nature apart from the sound it discriminates. It is like a traveling guest who lodges at an inn: he stops a while and goes, and never abides there; whereas the keeper of the inn has nowhere to go, and is therefore called the host. So it is here: if this were truly your mind, it would have nowhere to go — how is it, then, that apart from sound it has no discriminating nature? And this holds not only for the mind that discriminates sound: the mind that discriminates my face has no discriminating nature apart from the appearances of form; and so on until discriminating is altogether absent, and being neither form nor emptiness it is what Gośālīputra and his like obscurely called the dark principle — having no discriminating nature apart from phenomena as its conditions. Then the nature of your mind has, in each case, somewhere to return to; and how would it be the host?"

Ānanda said: "If the nature of my mind has, in each case, somewhere to return to, then what of the wondrous luminous original mind the Tathāgata speaks of — how has it nowhere to return to? I beg you to pity me and declare it!"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "Consider your seeing of me, the luminous source of the essence of seeing: this seeing, though it is not the wondrous refined luminous mind, is like a second moon — it is not the moon's reflection. Listen closely now: I shall show you the ground that has nowhere to return to.

"Ānanda, this great lecture hall opens wide to the east: when the sun's disc climbs the sky there is brightness; at midnight, with a dark moon and clouds and mist, there is darkness again; through the gaps of doors and windows one sees passage; between the walls one observes obstruction; where there is discriminating, one sees conditions; in blank vacancy there is nothing but the nature of space; in a dust-storm the aspect is murky with dust; and when the air clears after rain one observes purity again.

"Ānanda, look at all these changing aspects. I shall now return each to the place it came from. What are those origins? Ānanda, of these changes: brightness returns to the sun's disc — why? Because without the sun there is no brightness, and brightness has its cause in the sun, and so returns to the sun. Darkness returns to the dark moon; passage returns to doors and windows; obstruction returns to walls; conditions return to discriminating; blank vacancy returns to space; murkiness returns to dust; and clarity returns to the clearing sky. Everything there is in the world falls under one or another of these kinds.

"But this luminous nature of the essence of seeing, by which you see all eight — to what would you return it? Why? If it returned to brightness, then when there was no brightness you would no longer see darkness. Though brightness and darkness and the rest differ in all these ways, seeing does not differ. What can be returned is naturally not you; and what cannot be returned to you — if it is not you, what is it? So you may know that your mind is originally wondrous, luminous and pure, and that it is you yourself who, confused and blind, have lost your own root and undergone the wheel, forever adrift and drowning in birth and death. This is why the Tathāgata calls you one to be pitied."

Ānanda said: "Though I now recognize that this nature of seeing has nowhere to return to, how am I to know that it is my own true nature?"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "I now ask you this. You have not yet attained the purity that is free of outflows, yet by the Buddha's spiritual power you see as far as the first dhyāna without obstruction; Anuruddha sees this continent of Jambudvīpa as one looks at an āmalaka fruit in the palm; the bodhisattvas see a hundred thousand worlds; the Tathāgatas of the ten directions see through to the pure lands as many as dust-motes, and there is nothing they do not behold; while living beings see clearly no further than an inch or two. Ānanda, you and I are looking at the palaces where the four heavenly kings dwell, and taking in everything between that moves through water, over land, and through the air; and though there are all sorts of shapes and images, dim and bright, there is nothing there but objects in front of us, discriminated and held fast. Among all this you should distinguish self from other. I shall now have you pick out, within seeing, what is my own substance and what is a thing.

"Ānanda, press your seeing to its limit: from the palaces of sun and moon, these are things and not you; on to the seven golden mountains — examine them all closely, and though they have every kind of radiance, they too are things and not you; and look further, at the rising clouds, the flying birds, the stirring wind, the raised dust, the trees, the mountains and streams, the grasses, human beings and animals — all of them things, and none of them you.

"Ānanda, all these natures of things, near and far, however different they may be, are alike beheld by the pure essence of your seeing. The kinds of things have their own differences, but the nature of seeing has no difference at all: this refined and wondrous luminosity is truly your nature of seeing. If seeing were a thing, then you too could see my seeing. And if seeing the same thing were to be called seeing my seeing, then when I do not see, why do you not see the place where I do not see? And if you did see my not-seeing, that would naturally not be the aspect of what is not seen. And if you cannot see the ground of my not-seeing, then it is naturally not a thing — how, then, is it not you? Again, when you see a thing, since you see the thing, the thing also sees you; substance and nature are thrown into confusion, and then you and I and the whole world could not be established at all. Ānanda, when you see, it is you and not I; and seeing-nature being everywhere — if it is not you, what is it? Why do you doubt your own true nature, and, the nature that is yours not being taken as true, come to me to seek what is real?"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, if this nature of seeing must be mine and no one else's, then when the Tathāgata and I looked at the treasure palaces of the four heavenly kings and dwelt in the palaces of sun and moon, this seeing was full and round and reached throughout the Sahā world; and when we withdrew to the monastery I saw only the monastery grounds, and in the quiet of the hall I looked at nothing but the eaves. World-Honored One, this seeing is thus: its substance originally reached throughout a whole realm, and now, in a room, it fills only the room. Has this seeing been shrunk from great to small? Or have the walls squeezed it and cut it off? I do not know where the sense of this lies; I beg you in your great kindness to expound it for me!"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "All the affairs of the world, great and small, inner and outer, belong to the objects in front of you; it will not do to say that seeing spreads and shrinks. It is like seeing square space within a square vessel. Let me ask you: is the square space seen within this square vessel fixed as square, or not fixed as square? If it is fixed as square, then when a round vessel is set there instead, the space in it should not be round; and if it is not fixed, then within the square vessel there should be no square space at all. You say you do not know where the sense of this lies — the nature of the sense is just this, so what is there to locate? Ānanda, if you wish to have it enter a state with neither square nor round, simply remove the vessel's squareness. The substance of space has no squareness, and it will not do to speak of further removing some square aspect belonging to space. And as for your question — 'on entering a room, seeing is shrunk small' — then when you look up at the sun, are you drawing your seeing out to be level with the sun's face? And if building walls could squeeze seeing and cut it off, then when a small hole is bored through, would there be no mark of its being joined again? The sense of it is not so. All living beings, from beginningless time, have mistaken themselves for things, lost their own original mind, and been turned about by things; and so, within this, they see great and see small. But if one can turn things about instead, then one is the same as the Tathāgata: body and mind perfect and luminous, an unmoving place of awakening in which the tip of a single hair can contain and receive the lands of the ten directions."

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, if this essence of seeing must be my own wondrous nature, and this wondrous nature is now present in front of me, and the seeing is truly my own — then what are this body and mind of mine? Yet body and mind do have their real discriminating, while that seeing has no discriminating by which it makes out my body. And if it is really my mind, and makes me see as I now see, so that the nature of seeing is really me while the body is not me — how does that differ from what the Tathāgata challenged earlier, that 'a thing can see me'? I beg your great kindness: open this up for the unawakened!"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "What you now say — 'seeing is in front of you' — is not really so. If it were really in front of you and you really saw it, then this essence of seeing, having a location, could not fail to be indicated. Now you and I are sitting in the Jeta Grove, looking all about at the groves and channels and the halls, up as far as the sun and moon, and facing the Ganges in front. Raise your hand here before my lion-seat and point out all these various aspects: what is shaded is the grove, what is bright is the sun, what obstructs is a wall, what lets through is space; and so on down to grasses and trees and the finest hair — great and small they differ, but whatever has a shape can be pointed at. If there must be a seeing present in front of you, then point out for me with your hand, firmly and definitely, which of them is the seeing. Ānanda, know this: if space is the seeing, then space having already become seeing, what is space? And if a thing is the seeing, then it having already become seeing, what is the thing? Peel the ten thousand appearances apart as finely as you can, and separate out the refined, luminous, pure and wondrous source of seeing; point it out and show it to me, as plain and free of confusion as those other things are."

Ānanda said: "Here in this two-storied lecture hall, out as far as the Ganges and up to the sun and moon, whatever I raise my hand to point at, and whatever my eye roves over, everything I point at is a thing, and none of it is the seeing. World-Honored One, as the Buddha has said — how much less could I, a beginning hearer with outflows, or even the bodhisattvas, cut the refined seeing out from in front of the ten thousand appearances, so that apart from all things it had a nature of its own!" The Buddha said: "So it is, so it is!"

The Buddha said further to Ānanda: "As you have said, 'there is no refined seeing which, apart from all things, has a nature of its own.' Then among the things you pointed at, none of them is the seeing. Now I tell you this as well: you and the Tathāgata are sitting in the Jeta Grove; look again at the groves and gardens, and on to the sun and moon and all their differing appearances. There will certainly be no essence of seeing there for you to point at — so now make this evident to me: among all these things, which is not the seeing?"

Ānanda said: "I really do see this whole Jeta Grove, and I do not know which thing in it is not the seeing. Why? If the tree is not the seeing, how is the tree seen? And if the tree is the seeing, then what is the tree? And so on: if space is not the seeing, how is space seen? And if space is the seeing, then what is space? I have considered it further: finely made evident among these ten thousand appearances, there is nothing that is not the seeing!" The Buddha said: "So it is, so it is."

At this those in the assembly who were not yet beyond study, hearing the Buddha say this, were blank, not knowing the beginning or end of his meaning, and all at once were alarmed and lost their footing. The Tathāgata, knowing that their spirits were shaken and afraid, felt pity arise, and comforted Ānanda and the whole assembly: "Good men! The unsurpassed King of Dharma speaks what is real. He says things as they are, without deceit and without falsehood — this is not Maskarī's four kinds of evasive argument about the deathless. Consider it closely, and do not shame the sorrow and longing with which you seek."

Then Mañjuśrī, prince of the Dharma, pitying the fourfold assembly, rose from his seat among them, bowed his head at the Buddha's feet, joined his palms in reverence, and said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, these assemblies have not awakened to the sense in which the Tathāgata has made evident the two — the refined seeing, and form-and-emptiness — as being and not being it. World-Honored One, if these appearances of form and emptiness before us are the seeing, there should be something to point at; and if they are not the seeing, there should be nothing to behold. Not knowing now where this sense comes to rest, they are startled and afraid; it is not that their roots of good from former times are slight. I beg the Tathāgata in his great kindness to make evident what these appearances of things and this essence of seeing originally are, and how, between them, there is neither being it nor not being it."

The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī and the whole assembly: "The Tathāgatas of the ten directions and the great bodhisattvas, abiding in their own samādhi, find that seeing, the conditions of seeing, and the aspects thought of, are like flowers in empty space: originally nothing at all. This seeing and its conditions are from the first the wondrous, pure, luminous substance of awakening — how could there be, within it, being it or not being it? Mañjuśrī, I ask you now: as for you, Mañjuśrī, is there a further Mañjuśrī who is Mañjuśrī? Or is there no Mañjuśrī?"

"Just so, World-Honored One. I am the real Mañjuśrī, and there is no 'being Mañjuśrī'. Why? Because if there were something that 'is' it, there would be two Mañjuśrīs. Yet it is not that I today am without Mañjuśrī; within it there are truly not the two aspects, being and not being."

The Buddha said: "This wondrous luminous seeing, together with space and the objects, is just so. It is originally the wondrous luminous, unsurpassed, pure, perfect true mind of awakening, falsely taken to be form and emptiness and hearing and seeing — like a second moon: which is the moon, and which is not the moon? Mañjuśrī, there is only one real moon, and in it there is of itself neither 'this is the moon' nor 'this is not the moon'. And so your looking now at seeing and objects and all that is made evident in them is called false thinking, and within it you cannot get free of 'is' and 'is not'. It is by this refined, real, wondrous awakened luminous nature that you are able to get free of pointing and not-pointing!"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, it is truly as the King of Dharma says: the conditions of awakening reach throughout the worlds of the ten directions, limpid and ever abiding, their nature neither arising nor ceasing. But how does this differ from the dark principle spoken of by the former brahmin Kapila, or from the claim of the ash-smearers and other such non-buddhists that there is a true self filling the ten directions? The World-Honored One also once expounded this meaning on Mount Laṅkā for Mahāmati and the others: that those non-buddhists constantly speak of spontaneity, while what I teach is causes and conditions, which is not their territory. Now, looking at this awakened nature as spontaneous, neither arising nor ceasing, far removed from every falsity and inversion, it seems to be neither causes-and-conditions nor their spontaneity. How are we to be instructed, so as not to fall in with that crowd of errors, and to gain the real mind, the wondrous awakened luminous nature?"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "I have revealed it to you in this skillful way and told you what is real, and still you have not awakened, but are confused into taking it for spontaneity. Ānanda, if it must be spontaneous, then you must be able to make out a substance that is spontaneous. Look into this wondrous luminous seeing: what do you take as its own self? Does this seeing take brightness as its self? Darkness as its self? Space as its self? Obstruction as its self? Ānanda, if brightness is its self, it should not see darkness; and if space is taken as its own substance, it should not see obstruction. And so on: if aspects such as darkness are taken as its self, then in brightness the nature of seeing would be cut off — how then would it see brightness?"

Ānanda said: "This wondrous seeing must then have a nature that is not spontaneity, and I now make it out to be of the nature of causes and conditions. But my mind is still not clear, and I ask the Tathāgata: how does this sense accord with a nature of causes and conditions?"

The Buddha said: "You say causes and conditions. Let me ask you again: you now see because of seeing, and the nature of seeing is present before you. Does this seeing have seeing because of brightness? Because of darkness? Because of space? Because of obstruction? Ānanda, if it exists because of brightness, it should not see darkness; and if because of darkness, it should not see brightness; and so on with 'because of space' and 'because of obstruction', just as with brightness and darkness. Again, Ānanda: does this seeing have seeing conditioned by brightness? Conditioned by darkness? Conditioned by space? Conditioned by obstruction? Ānanda, if it exists conditioned by space, it should not see obstruction; and if conditioned by obstruction, it should not see space; and so on with 'conditioned by brightness' and 'conditioned by darkness', just as with space and obstruction. Know then that this refined awakened wondrous luminosity is neither cause nor condition, and neither spontaneous nor not spontaneous; there is no 'is not' and no 'is not not', no 'is' and no 'is not is'; apart from every aspect, it is every phenomenon. How is it that you now set your mind on it, and would discriminate it by the frivolous names and aspects of the world? That is like grasping and rubbing at empty space with the palm of the hand: you only tire yourself, and how would empty space submit to your grasping?"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, if the wondrous awakened nature must be neither cause nor condition — World-Honored One, why do you constantly teach the monks that the nature of seeing is furnished with four conditions, namely because of space, because of brightness, because of mind, and because of the eye? How is this meaning to be taken?"

The Buddha said: "Ānanda, when I speak of the world's aspects of causes and conditions, that is not the first truth. Ānanda, let me ask you again: people in the world say 'I can see' — what is called seeing, and what is called not seeing?"

Ānanda said: "People of the world, by the light of sun, moon, and lamp, see all sorts of aspects, and that is called seeing; and if these three kinds of light were absent, they would not be able to see."

"Ānanda, if what is called not-seeing is when there is no brightness, then darkness should not be seen either; and if darkness certainly is seen, then this is merely the absence of brightness — how is it the absence of seeing? Ānanda, if in darkness one is said not to see because brightness is not seen, then now, in brightness, not seeing the aspect of darkness would likewise be called not seeing — so are both aspects to be called not-seeing? And if the two aspects displace one another, it is not that your nature of seeing is momentarily absent within them; and in that case you may know that both are to be called seeing — how could either be not-seeing? Therefore, Ānanda, you should know: when brightness is seen, the seeing is not the brightness; when darkness is seen, the seeing is not the darkness; when space is seen, the seeing is not the space; when obstruction is seen, the seeing is not the obstruction — the four senses are established. And you should know further: when seeing is seen, the seeing is not that seeing; seeing is still apart from seeing, and seeing cannot reach it. How, then, can you still speak of causes and conditions, of spontaneity, and of aspects of combination? You hearers are narrow and poor in understanding, and cannot penetrate the pure real aspect. I now instruct you: consider it well, and do not grow weary on the road of wondrous awakening!"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, when the Buddha, the World-Honored One, expounded for us causes and conditions and spontaneity, and aspects of combination and non-combination, my mind was still not opened; and now, hearing further that when seeing is seen the seeing is not that seeing, my confusion is doubled. I humbly beg your great kindness to bestow the eye of great wisdom and reveal to us a mind of awakening, bright and pure!" Having said this, he wept, bowed his head, and received the holy intent.

Then the World-Honored One, pitying Ānanda and the whole assembly, and about to expound the great dhāraṇī and the road of wondrous practice in all the samādhis, said to Ānanda: "Though you have a strong memory, it has only added to your learning; in the subtle and secret contemplation of śamatha your mind is still not clear. Listen closely now: I shall distinguish and reveal it for you, and shall also let those with outflows in time to come gain the fruit of awakening.

"Ānanda, all living beings turn in the round of the world because of two inverted, discriminating falsities of seeing, which arise right where they are and turn in the round according to their karma. What are the two kinds of seeing? The first is a being's false seeing of individual karma; the second is the false seeing that beings share in common.

"What is called the false seeing of individual karma? Ānanda, it is as when a person in the world has a red film on the eye and at night sees, beside the lamplight, a separate round halo layered in five colors. What do you think: is this round light appearing in the lamp's brightness at night the lamp's color, or is it the color of seeing? Ānanda, if it is the lamp's color, then why do those without the film not see it as well, when in fact this round halo is seen only by the one with the film? And if it is the color of seeing, then seeing having already become color, what is one to call the man with the film who sees a round halo? Furthermore, Ānanda: if this round halo existed apart from the lamp, then on looking aside at the screens and curtains, the mats and couches, round halos ought to come out of those as well. And if it existed apart from seeing, it should not be beheld by the eye — how then does the man with the film see a round halo with his eye? So you should know that the color is really in the lamp, while the halo is the seeing's disease: halo and seeing are alike the film, but what sees the film is not itself diseased. And one should certainly never say, 'this is the lamp, this is the seeing, and within this there is what is neither lamp nor seeing' — as with the second moon, which is neither substance nor reflection. Why? Because the sight of a second moon is produced by pressing the eye. Those who have wisdom should not say of that pressing, 'this is at root a shape or not a shape, apart from seeing or not seeing.' It is the same here: with what the film on the eye produces, which of them would you now name the lamp, and which the seeing? How much less distinguish what is neither lamp nor seeing!

"What is called the false seeing shared in common? Ānanda, in this continent of Jambudvīpa, apart from the waters of the great sea, the level land between holds three thousand islands. On the great continent at the center, measured from east to west, there are in all two thousand three hundred large countries; and the smaller islands in the seas hold, some of them, two or three hundred countries, some one or two, and some as many as thirty, forty, or fifty. Ānanda, suppose among these there is a small island with only two countries, and the people of just one of them together meet with an evil condition: then the beings of that land on that small island will behold all sorts of inauspicious sights — some seeing two suns, some seeing two moons, and among them halos and eclipses, coronas and broken rings, comets and meteors, sun-ears and rainbows bright and dim. All these evil aspects are seen only in that country; the beings of the other country neither see them nor even hear of them. Ānanda, I shall now make these two matters clear for you by setting them side by side, forward and back.

"Ānanda, as for that being's false seeing of individual karma, who beholds a round halo appearing in the lamplight — though it appears to be an object, in the end it is produced by the film on the seer's eye. The film is the strain of seeing, and is not made by color; yet what sees the film is finally without fault of seeing. Take this as an instance for yourself today: your seeing, with your eyes, of mountains and rivers and lands and all living beings is entirely produced by a beginningless disease of seeing. Seeing and the conditions of seeing seem to be an object present before you, but they are, at root, the film upon what my awakened luminosity sees as its object. Awareness together with seeing is the film; the originally awakened luminous mind, aware of conditions, is not the film. What is aware of the film that is taken as an object, being aware, is not within the film — and this is truly 'seeing seeing'. How, then, could it further be called awareness, hearing, knowing, or seeing? Therefore your seeing now of me, and of yourself, and of the ten kinds of beings in all the worlds, is all of it the film upon seeing, and not what sees the film; and that seeing which is truly refined, being of a nature that is not the film, is therefore not called seeing at all.

"Ānanda, as for those beings' false seeing shared in common, take as its instance the false seeing of individual karma in one person: one person with a diseased eye corresponds to that one country. What he sees as a round halo is produced by the falsity of the film; and the inauspicious sights that appear to this multitude in common arise from the blight and evil within a karma of common seeing — both alike produced by a beginningless falsity of seeing. And taking as instances the three thousand islands of Jambudvīpa, together with the four great seas and the Sahā world, and on to all the lands with outflows in the ten directions and all their beings: they are alike this awakened luminous, outflow-free wondrous mind, in which seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing are false, diseased conditions — falsely arising by combination, falsely dying by combination. If one can get far away from all conditions of combination and of non-combination alike, then the causes of birth and death are extinguished as well; and awakening is complete, of a nature that neither arises nor ceases — the pure original mind, the original awakening, ever abiding.

"Ānanda, though you awakened earlier to the fact that the nature of original awakening, wondrous and luminous, is neither of causes-and-conditions nor of spontaneity, you are still not clear that this source of awakening is neither produced by combination nor uncombined. Ānanda, I shall question you once more by means of the objects before you. You still take up all the world's false thinking about combination and causes and conditions, and doubt on that account, supposing that the mind of realized awakening arises by combination. Then this wondrous pure essence of seeing of yours — is it combined with brightness? Combined with darkness? Combined with passage? Combined with obstruction? If it is combined with brightness, then look at brightness: when brightness is present before you, where is the seeing mixed into it? The aspect of seeing can be made out — what shape is it that is mixed in? If what is mixed in is not the seeing, how is brightness seen? And if it is the seeing, how is the seeing seen? And if seeing must be complete, where is there room for it to be combined with brightness? And if brightness is complete, it cannot be combined with seeing; and seeing being necessarily other than brightness, in mixing it would lose the very name of 'bright nature'; and mixing so as to lose the nature of brightness, 'combined with brightness' is not the right sense. And so likewise with darkness, with passage, and with all the kinds of obstruction.

"Furthermore, Ānanda: this wondrous pure essence of seeing of yours — does it join with brightness? Join with darkness? Join with passage? Join with obstruction? If it joins with brightness, then by the time of darkness the aspect of brightness has already vanished, and this seeing would then not be joined with any darkness — how would darkness be seen? And if in seeing darkness it is not joined with darkness, then in joining with brightness it should not be seeing brightness either; and not seeing brightness, how could 'joined with brightness' make out that brightness is not darkness? And so likewise with darkness, with passage, and with all the kinds of obstruction."

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, as I consider it, is this source of wondrous awakening then not combined with the conditioned objects and with the mind's thinking?" The Buddha said: "Now you say that awakening is uncombined. Let me question you again. This wondrous essence of seeing, being uncombined — is it uncombined with brightness? Uncombined with darkness? Uncombined with passage? Uncombined with obstruction? If it is uncombined with brightness, then seeing and brightness must have a boundary between them. Look closely: where is brightness? Where is seeing? Between seeing and brightness, what marks the boundary? Ānanda, if within the region of brightness there is certainly no seeing, then the two do not reach each other at all; and not knowing of itself where the aspect of brightness lies, how would a boundary be constituted? And so likewise with darkness, with passage, and with all the kinds of obstruction.

"And again, the wondrous essence of seeing being uncombined — is it unjoined with brightness? Unjoined with darkness? Unjoined with passage? Unjoined with obstruction? If it is unjoined with brightness, then the natures of seeing and brightness stand at odds, as the ear and brightness do not touch at all; and seeing not even knowing where the aspect of brightness lies, how would one make out the principle of its joining or not joining with brightness? And so likewise with darkness, with passage, and with all the kinds of obstruction.

"Ānanda, you are still not clear that all the floating objects and illusory transforming aspects arise right where they are and are extinguished right where they are; called aspects, they are illusory and false, and their nature is truly the wondrous awakened luminous substance. And so it is with the five aggregates and the six entrances, from the twelve fields to the eighteen elements: by the combining of causes and conditions there is a false arising, and by the parting of causes and conditions there is what is falsely named ceasing. What beings altogether fail to know is that arising and ceasing, coming and going, are originally the tathāgatagarbha — the ever-abiding, wondrously luminous, unmoving, all-pervading, wondrous suchness-nature; and that within this nature, truly constant, one may search for going and coming, delusion and awakening, death and birth, and find nothing at all.

"Ānanda, how are the five aggregates originally the tathāgatagarbha's wondrous suchness-nature?

"Ānanda, it is like a man who looks at a clear bright sky with clear eyes: there is nothing but clear emptiness, remote and with nothing in it at all. Then for no reason the man holds his eyes still and stares until they strain, and he sees in that empty space separate wild flowers, and all sorts of wild, disordered non-aspects besides. Know that the aggregate of form is just so. Ānanda, these wild flowers do not come from space and do not come out of the eye. So it is, Ānanda: if they came from space, then having come from space they would return into space; and if there were a coming out and a going in, that would not be empty space at all. And space, not being empty, could not of itself make room for those flower-aspects to arise and cease, just as Ānanda's own body makes no room for Ānanda. And if they came out of the eye, then having come out of the eye they would return into the eye; and this flower-nature, having come out of the eye, ought to have seeing. If it had seeing, then having gone out to become flowers in space, on turning back it ought to see the eye. And if it had no seeing, then having gone out to film the space, on turning back it ought to film the eye. Besides, when the flowers are seen the eye ought to have no film — why then is only a clear sky called a clear bright eye? You should therefore know that the aggregate of form is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature.

"Ānanda, it is like a man whose hands and feet are at ease and whose whole frame is comfortable, so that he almost forgets he is alive, his nature neither averse nor drawn. Then for no reason he rubs his two palms together in the air, and in those two hands sensations of roughness and smoothness, cold and warmth, falsely arise. Know that the aggregate of sensation is just so. Ānanda, these illusory contacts do not come from space and do not come out of the palms. So it is, Ānanda: if they came from space, then being able to touch the palms, why do they not touch the body? It will not do for empty space to pick and choose what it comes and touches. And if they came out of the palms, they should not have to wait on the palms' meeting. Moreover, coming out of the palms, the palms would know it when they met and the contact would enter when they parted; and the arms, wrists, bones, and marrow ought to be aware of the track of its entering as well. There would have to be an aware mind that knows the going out and the coming in — that is, some one thing traveling to and fro inside the body; and then why wait on the palms' meeting to know it, and call that contact? You should therefore know that the aggregate of sensation is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature.

"Ānanda, it is like a man whose mouth waters when sour plums are spoken of, and the soles of whose feet go weak when he thinks of treading a cliff's edge. Know that the aggregate of perception is just so. Ānanda, this sourness in the speaking is not produced from the plum, and does not enter from the mouth. So it is, Ānanda: if it were produced from the plum, the plum should speak of itself — why wait on a person to speak of it? And if it entered from the mouth, then the mouth should do its own hearing — why wait on the ear? And if the ear alone hears it, why does this water not come out of the ear? Thinking of treading a cliff's edge is of a kind with the speaking. You should therefore know that the aggregate of perception is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature.

"Ānanda, it is like a violent torrent whose waves follow one after another, the earlier and the later never overstepping each other. Know that the aggregate of formations is just so. Ānanda, this nature of flowing does not exist because of space and does not exist because of water; it is not the nature of water, and it is not apart from space and water. So it is, Ānanda: if it existed because of space, then all the endless empty space of the ten directions would become an endless torrent, and the world would of course be wholly drowned. If it existed because of water, then the nature of this torrent would not be water, and it would have a place and an aspect of its own, which ought to be present now. If it were the nature of water, then when the water is clear and still it would not be water's substance. And if it were apart from space and water — space has nothing outside it, and outside water there is no flowing. You should therefore know that the aggregate of formations is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature.

"Ānanda, it is like a man who takes a kalaviṅka vase, stops up its two openings, fills it with air, and carries it a thousand li to make a present of it to another country. Know that the aggregate of consciousness is just so. Ānanda, this air did not come from that place and does not enter in this place. So it is, Ānanda: if it came from that place, then the vase having carried off air stored in it, there should be that much less space in the place it came from. And if it entered in this place, then on opening the holes and tipping the vase one ought to see the air come out. You should therefore know that the aggregate of consciousness is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature.