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 fixedly at the Buddha, their eyes unblinking, unable to find where in body or mind this "upside-down-ness" actually was. The Buddha, moved by compassion, taking pity on Ānanda and the assembly, sent forth a voice like the ocean tide and proclaimed to the whole gathering: "Good sons! I have always taught that form, mind, all their conditions, the mental factors that mind employs, and all the objects these take hold of, are nothing but what mind itself manifests. Your body and your mind are both things manifested from within the wondrous, bright, true, essential, wondrous mind. ... It is like abandoning the whole vast, clear ocean and recognizing only a single floating bubble as the entire tide, thinking it exhausts the whole sea. You are, in this delusion, doubly lost — just as with my hand turning one way or the other, no real difference at all — and this is why the Tathāgata calls you objects of pity."

Ānanda, receiving the Buddha's compassionate rescue and profound teaching, wept and, hands clasped, said to the Buddha: "Though I have received this wondrous teaching from the Buddha and understand that the wondrously bright mind is originally the complete and ever-abiding ground of mind, still, my very understanding of the Buddha's present teaching depends on a conditioned, grasping mind, which is what I now rely on to look up in reverence. I have merely obtained this conditioned mind — I do not yet dare recognize it as my own original ground of mind. I beg the Buddha, in compassion, to proclaim the complete teaching and pull out the root of my doubt, so that I may return to the unsurpassed path."

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "You are still using a conditioned, grasping mind to listen to the Dharma, and so this Dharma too becomes merely another condition — you have not grasped the true nature of the teaching. It is like a man who points his finger at the moon to show it to someone else: that person ought to look, by means of the finger, at the moon itself. But if instead he looks at the finger and takes it to be the moon's own body, then he has lost not only the moon but the finger as well. ... It is the same with you: if you take the mind that discriminates my spoken teaching to be your own mind, then this mind ought to have its own nature of discrimination apart from the sounds it discriminates. It is like a traveler who lodges for a night at a wayside inn — he stays a while and then departs, never remaining permanently; whereas the innkeeper, who has nowhere else to go, is rightly called the host of the inn. ... In just this way, your mind's own nature has, in every case, somewhere it returns to and departs from — how, then, could it be the host?"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "... Ānanda, this great lecture hall opens directly to the east: when the sun rises in the sky, there is bright radiance; in the black-moon depth of night, with clouds and fog, there is dimness and dark; through the gaps of doors and windows there is a further sense of openness; between walls there is a further sense of obstruction; where discrimination occurs, there is a further sense of what it takes as its object; in inert emptiness, there is, throughout, the nature of empty space; where dust rises thick, there is a haze of turbid dust; and when the air clears after rain, there is, once more, a sense of purity.

"Ānanda, you observe all these changing appearances — I will now return each of them to the place that is properly its own cause. What are these proper causes? Ānanda, of all these changes: brightness returns to the sun. Why? Without the sun there is no brightness, and since brightness has its cause in the sun, it returns to the sun. Darkness returns to the black moon. Openness returns to doors and windows. Obstruction returns to walls. The sense of an object returns to discrimination. Inert emptiness returns to empty space. Turbid haze returns to dust. Clarity returns to the clearing sky. Everything that exists in the whole world falls into one of these categories without exception.

"Now, as for the nature of your seeing that perceives these eight kinds of things — to whom should it be returned? Why do I ask this? Because if it could be returned to brightness, then, at a time when there is no brightness, it could no longer see darkness at all. Although brightness, darkness, and all these various things differ from one another, the seeing itself has no such differences. Whatever can be returned to something else is, by its very nature, not you; but that which cannot be returned anywhere — if that is not you, then what is it? You should therefore know that your own mind is, at its root, wondrously bright and pure; it is you yourself who, through delusion and confusion, have lost this original nature and undergone the wheel of rebirth, forever adrift and sinking in birth and death — and this is why the Tathāgata calls you an object of pity."

Ānanda said: "Though I now recognize that this nature of seeing has nowhere it can be returned to, how can I know that it is my own true nature?" The Buddha said to Ānanda: "... Ānanda, all these things, near and far, however much they differ from one another, are alike observed by the pure essence of your seeing. The various kinds of things have their own distinctions; the nature of seeing has none. This essential, wondrous brightness is truly your nature of seeing.

"If seeing were itself a thing, then you ought to be able to see my seeing too. If, when we both see the same thing, that counts as your seeing me, then at a time when I am not seeing, why do you not see the place where I am not seeing? And if you could see my not-seeing, that would obviously no longer be the mark of not-seeing at all. But if you cannot see the place where I am not seeing, then it is obviously not a thing — so how could it not be you? And further: at the very time you see some object, since you see the object, does the object also see you? If so, then subject and object would be hopelessly tangled together, and neither you, nor I, nor the world at all could stand established as they are. Ānanda, when you see, it is you who see, not I; the nature of seeing is all-pervading — if it is not you, then who is it? Why do you doubt your own true nature, treating your own nature as not real, and instead seeking something from me to count as real?"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, if this nature of seeing is truly me and nothing else, then, when the Tathāgata and I look upon the jeweled palace of the Four Heavenly Kings, dwelling amid the palaces of sun and moon, this seeing fills the whole Sahā world-system; yet when we withdraw to the monastery, I see only the monastery grounds, and, with a settled mind indoors, I see only as far as the eaves. ... This seeing's own substance is, from the start, all-pervading throughout a whole world — so why, now, indoors, does it fill only this one room? Has this seeing contracted from large to small? Or have the walls pinched it and cut it off?"

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "All the various matters of large and small, inner and outer, throughout the world, belong to what is in front of you — one should not say that seeing itself expands or contracts. It is like seeing a square shape of space inside a square container. ... If, as you ask, seeing contracts to become small on entering a room, then when you look up at the sun, do you stretch your seeing all the way out to meet the sun's very face? And if building a wall could pinch your seeing and cut it off, then boring a small hole through it should leave some trace of the seeing having been reconnected — but this is not how it works. From beginningless time, all sentient beings have mistaken themselves for things, lost their original mind, and been turned about by things — and so, within that confusion, they perceive things as large or small. But one who is able to turn things, rather than be turned by them, is the same as the Tathāgata, whose body and mind are perfectly bright, who does not move from the place of practice, and who, on the tip of a single hair, can fully contain the lands of the ten directions."

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "What you have just said — that 'seeing is right in front of you' — is not actually true. ... Ānanda, you should know: if empty space were seeing, then, once space had already become seeing, what would be left to be called space? And if an object were seeing, then, once the object had already become seeing, what would be left to be called an object? Try, then, to pick apart every single phenomenon in the finest detail, and extract this pure, essential, wondrous origin of seeing, and point it out to me clearly, the way you would point out any of these other objects, leaving no room for doubt."

Ānanda said: "Now, in this many-storied lecture hall, as far as the Ganges, up to the sun and moon — everywhere I raise my hand to point, everywhere my eyes freely roam, whatever I point to is an object; there is nothing there that is 'the seeing' itself. World-Honored One, exactly as the Buddha has said — how much less could I, a beginning śrāvaka still with outflows, or even a bodhisattva, manage to extract, from in front of the ten thousand things, a pure seeing that has its own nature apart from every one of those things!" The Buddha said: "Just so, just so!"

Mañjuśrī, Dharma-Prince, ... said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, this whole assembly has not understood what the Tathāgata means by asking whether the two things, the essence of seeing and form-and-emptiness, 'are' this or 'are not' this. ... I beg only that the Tathāgata, in his great compassion, make clear what these various objects and this essence of seeing actually, originally are, in the space between 'is' and 'is not.'"

The Buddha said to Mañjuśrī and the whole assembly: "The Tathāgatas of the ten directions and the great bodhisattvas, abiding in their own samādhi, see that seeing itself, together with its objects and all conceived appearances, are, like flowers conjured in empty space, originally without any existence at all. This seeing and its objects are, originally, the wondrous, pure, bright substance of bodhi — so how could there be any 'is this' or 'is not this' within it? Mañjuśrī, let me ask you: besides you, Mañjuśrī, is there another Mañjuśrī who 'is' Mañjuśrī — or is there no such Mañjuśrī at all?" "Just so, World-Honored One. I am the true Mañjuśrī; there is no 'Mañjuśrī who is Mañjuśrī.' Why? Because if there were such a thing, there would be two Mañjuśrīs. And yet I am not, today, without a Mañjuśrī either — there is truly, in this matter, no such pair as 'is' and 'is not.'"

The Buddha said: "This wondrous brightness of seeing, together with all the appearances of emptiness and dust, is exactly the same. It is, originally, the wondrous, unsurpassed, pure, perfect, true mind of bodhi, mistakenly taken to be form and emptiness, hearing and seeing — like a second moon: which one, then, is 'the moon,' and which one 'is not the moon'? Mañjuśrī, there is only ever one true moon; in between, there is naturally no such thing as a moon that 'is' or a moon that 'is not.' ... It is precisely because of this true, essential, wondrously enlightened, bright nature that you are able to move beyond both pointing and not-pointing at all!"

Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, it is truly as the Dharma-king has said: this awareness and its conditions pervade the ten directions, calm and ever-abiding, its nature beyond birth and death. But how does this differ from what the ancient brahmacārin Kapila taught as the 'obscure principle,' or from the various non-Buddhist schools of ash-smeared ascetics who likewise speak of a true self pervading the ten directions? ... As I now observe it, this nature of awareness seems spontaneous, neither arising nor ceasing, far removed from every falsehood and inversion — it seems to be neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor the 'spontaneity' those others speak of. How, then, can I be shown a way that avoids falling among these various false views, and attains the true mind, the wondrously enlightened, bright nature?"

... The Buddha said: "Ānanda, when I speak of causes and conditions among worldly things, that is not the ultimate truth. ... At the moment of seeing brightness, the seeing itself is not brightness; at the moment of seeing darkness, the seeing itself is not darkness; at the moment of seeing emptiness, the seeing itself is not emptiness; at the moment of seeing obstruction, the seeing itself is not obstruction — these four points established. You should further understand: at the very moment of seeing seeing itself, that seeing is not itself an act of seeing either — seeing forever eludes being seen, seeing can never be reached this way. How, then, could one still speak of causes and conditions, of spontaneity, or of any state of 'combination' at all?"

"Ānanda, all sentient beings revolve through the cycle of the world because of two kinds of inverted, discriminating false seeing, each arising in its own proper place, each turning according to its own karma. What are these two kinds of seeing? First, sentient beings' individual-karma false seeing. Second, sentient beings' shared-karma false seeing.

"What is meant by individual-karma false seeing? Ānanda, it is like a person in the world whose eye has a red inflammation, who at night, looking at a lamp's flame, sees a separate, layered halo of five colors around it. ... You should therefore know that the color truly belongs to the lamp; it is the eye disease that produces the halo. Both the halo and the seeing of it belong to the eye disease — the seeing of the disease is not itself the disease. ... It is the same here: it is produced by the eye's own affliction. Now, what should we call 'the lamp' and what should we call 'the seeing' in this? How much less could we go on to distinguish a 'not-lamp' and a 'not-seeing'!

"What is meant by shared-karma false seeing? Ānanda, in this continent of Jambudvīpa ... suppose there were, within it, a small island with only two countries on it, and the people of just one of those countries, together, had incurred some shared evil condition. Then the beings native to that small island alone would witness all manner of inauspicious signs: some seeing two suns, some seeing two moons ... All these various evil portents would be seen only by that one country; the beings of the other country would, from the start, neither see nor hear anything of the kind."

"Ānanda, just as with that individual's karmic false seeing ... so it is with you today: your eyes' observation of mountains, rivers, lands, and all sentient beings is likewise entirely produced by a beginningless disease of seeing. Seeing, together with what seeing takes as its condition, resembles a scene appearing before us — but it is originally only the affliction that my own bright awareness takes as its condition of seeing. Awareness-in-seeing is itself the affliction; the original, bright mind of awareness, aware of its condition, is not itself afflicted. That which is aware of the afflicted-seeing-as-object is, itself, not within the affliction — this is truly 'seeing the seeing' — so how could it still be called by names like awareness, hearing, knowing, or seeing?

"Ānanda, just as with that shared karmic false seeing ... so it is throughout Jambudvīpa's three thousand continents, together with the four great oceans of this Sahā world, and throughout every impure land of the ten directions and every being within them: all alike are the bright, undefiled, wondrous mind of awareness. Seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing arise falsely, in combination, from the false, afflicted condition, and perish falsely, in combination, as well. If one is able to remove oneself far from every condition of combination, and from non-combination too, then one thereby also eliminates every cause of birth and death, and fully realizes the unborn, unceasing nature of bodhi — the pure, original mind, original awareness, ever-abiding."

"Ānanda, it is like a person who, with clear eyes, gazes at a clear, open sky — nothing there but open clarity, utterly empty. If, for no reason, this person holds his eyes fixed and unmoving until they grow strained, he will see, apart from the sky itself, wild flowers appear in the empty space, along with all manner of wild, disordered, unreal shapes. You should know that the aggregate of form is exactly the same. ... If these flowers came from empty space, then, having come from space, they should return into space — but if they truly went in and out like this, then space would no longer be truly empty. ... If they came out of the eye, then, having come from the eye, they should return into the 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 person whose hands and feet are perfectly at ease, whose whole body is comfortable, who has all but forgotten the sensation of being alive, with no feeling of anything pleasant or unpleasant at all. If, for no reason, this person rubs his two palms together in empty space, all sorts of sensations — roughness, smoothness, cold, heat — arise falsely between the two hands. You should know that the aggregate of sensation is exactly the same. ... If these sensations came from empty space, since space could touch the palms, why would it not also touch the rest of the body? ... And if they came from the palms alone, they should not need to wait for the two hands to come together at all. ... 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 person who, on hearing someone talk about sour plums, finds water welling up in his mouth, or who, thinking of stepping to the edge of a sheer cliff, feels his feet grow weak and tense. You should know that the aggregate of perception is exactly the same. ... If this sourness arose from the plum itself, the plum ought to be able to talk about itself — why would it need a person to speak of it? And if it entered through the mouth, the mouth itself ought to hear the words — why would it need to wait for the ears to hear them first? ... 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 rushing torrent, its waves following one upon another in unbroken succession, each earlier wave never overtaking the one that comes after. You should know that the aggregate of mental formations is exactly the same. ... If this flowing nature arose from empty space, then all the boundless empty space of the ten directions would become a boundless torrent, and every world-system would naturally be submerged and drowned. If it arose from water, then this rushing flow could not itself be identical with water... 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 person who takes a kalaviṅka-shaped vase, plugs both its openings, fills it entirely with ordinary air, and carries it a thousand miles to give as a gift in another country. You should know that the aggregate of consciousness is exactly the same. Ānanda, this air inside the vase did not come from that other place, nor does it, on arrival, actually enter this new place. ... You should therefore know that the aggregate of consciousness is false — originally neither a matter of causes and conditions, nor of any spontaneous nature."

大佛頂萬行首楞嚴經卷第二 — End of Fascicle Two