How the World Begins, and How It Ends
Pūrṇa asks the question fascicles 1–3 have been building toward: if everything is originally the pure tathāgatagarbha, why does a whole world of mountains, rivers, and suffering beings ever arise at all? The Buddha's answer runs from the origin of the cosmos to the parable of a man who thought he had lost his own head, and closes with a bell whose sound proves that hearing itself never ceases.
About This Fascicle
Fascicles 1–3 dismantled every false location for the mind and showed each category of experience to be, at root, the tathāgatagarbha. Fascicle 4 opens with the objection this naturally provokes: if everything is originally pure, why does an entire world of mountains, rivers, birth, and death ever arise in the first place? Pūrṇa's question, and the Buddha's answer, take up roughly the first half of the fascicle; the second half turns practical, laying out the "two decisive meanings" a practitioner must settle before starting to cultivate, and closing with a simple demonstration — ringing a bell — that the nature of hearing itself never ceases, even when sound does.
This page is Ru-Yi's own translation, made directly from the Chinese text preserved by CBETA (public domain). It does not reproduce or paraphrase the Buddhist Text Translation Society's existing English edition; see the translation notes for terminology, and the companion Jiǎngyì project for Master Yuanying's commentary.
Pūrṇa's Two Doubts 滿慈致疑
爾時，富樓那彌多羅尼子在大眾中即從座起……而白佛言：「……世尊！若復世間一切根、塵、陰、處、界等皆如來藏清淨本然，云何忽生山河大地諸有為相，次第遷流，終而復始？又如來說地、水、火、風本性圓融、周遍法界，湛然常住，世尊！若地性遍，云何容水？水性周遍，火則不生。復云何明水、火二性俱遍虛空不相[9]𣣋滅？世尊！地性障礙，空性虛通，云何二俱周遍法界？而我不知是義攸往，唯願如來宣流大慈，開我迷雲，及諸大眾！」
At that time Pūrṇamaitrāyaṇīputra rose from his seat in the assembly ... and said to the Buddha: "... World-Honored One, if all the faculties, objects, aggregates, sense-fields, and elements of the world are, originally and purely, the tathāgatagarbha, why do mountains, rivers, and the great earth — all these conditioned appearances — suddenly arise, flowing onward in succession, ending only to begin again? And the Tathāgata teaches that earth, water, fire, and wind, in their basic nature, interfuse perfectly and pervade the whole Dharma-realm, calm and ever-abiding — but World-Honored One, if the nature of earth is all-pervading, how can it make room for water? And if the nature of water is all-pervading, how could fire ever arise within it? How, further, can the natures of water and fire both pervade empty space without destroying one another? World-Honored One, the nature of earth is obstructive, while the nature of space is open and unobstructed — how can both pervade the Dharma-realm at once? I do not know where this teaching is meant to lead. I beg only that the Tathāgata, in great compassion, dispel this cloud of confusion, for me and for this whole assembly!"
How a World Arises: The Three Subtle and Six Coarse Marks 性覺必明，妄為明覺
佛言：「富樓那！如汝所言『清淨本然，云何忽生山河大地？』汝常不聞如來宣說性覺妙明本覺明妙？」……佛言：「汝稱覺明，為復性明稱名為覺？為覺不明稱為明覺？」富樓那言：「若此不明名為覺者，則無所明。」佛言：「若無所明，則無明覺。有所非覺，無所非明，無明又非覺湛明性。性覺必明，妄為明覺。覺非所明，因明立所，所既妄立，生汝妄能，無同異中熾然成異。……起為世界，靜成虛空，虛空為同，世界為異。……因空生搖，堅明立礙，彼金寶者明覺立堅，故有金輪保持國土。……以是義故，彼大海中火光常起；彼洲潬中江河常注。……」
The Buddha said: "Pūrṇa, as for your question 'why, if originally pure, do mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise?' — have you not always heard the Tathāgata teach that the nature of awareness is inherently bright, and original enlightenment is inherently subtle and bright?" ... The Buddha said: "When you speak of 'awareness that is bright,' do you mean a brightness that is, in its own nature, called awareness — or an awareness that, lacking brightness, must be given brightness to become 'bright awareness'?" Pūrṇa said: "If what lacks brightness were still called awareness, then there would be nothing at all that it illuminates." The Buddha said: "But if there is nothing it illuminates, there is no 'bright awareness' either. Having an object is not itself awareness; having no object is not itself brightness — and 'no-brightness' besides is not the calm, bright nature of awareness itself.
"The nature of awareness is necessarily bright; mistakenly, this becomes 'awareness that is bright.' Awareness has, in itself, nothing that it illuminates; because of [this need for] brightness, an object comes to be posited. Once this object is falsely posited, it gives rise to your own false capacity [to perceive it] — and, in what was originally without sameness or difference, difference blazes fiercely into being. ... Where this settles into activity, it becomes 'world'; where it settles into stillness, it becomes empty space. Empty space is 'sameness'; world is 'difference.' ... Dependent on space, agitation arises; dependent on solidity and brightness, obstruction is established — and where this preciousness of gold-like brightness establishes solidity, there comes to be the wheel of gold that upholds the lands. ... For this reason, fire constantly arises within the great oceans, and rivers constantly flow across the continents."
Reading note: This is the sūtra's cosmogony — its account of how a physical world comes to appear at all within what is, originally, undivided awareness. The pivot is a single wordplay in the Chinese: 覺明 can mean either "awareness that is [inherently] bright" (性覺妙明) or "awareness made bright [by adding something to it]" (妄為明覺). The Buddha's whole answer turns on this: awareness does not need to illuminate any object to be itself luminous — but the moment it mistakenly tries to make itself an object of its own illumination, an object is posited, a perceiving subject arises to match it, and from that first split into subject and object, wind, gold (solidity), fire, and water all follow in turn, the classical four elements condensing out of a single founding confusion.
How Beings and Karma Continue 眾生相續 · 業果相續
「復次，富樓那，明妄非他，覺明為咎！……由是分開見、覺、聞、知。同業相纏，合離成化，見明色發，明見想成。異見成憎，同想成愛，流愛為種，納想為胎。交遘發生，吸引同業，故有因緣生羯羅藍、遏蒱曇等。胎、卵、濕、化，隨其所應。……以是因緣眾生相續。
「富樓那！想愛同結，愛不能離；則諸世間父母子孫相生不斷；是等則以欲貪為本。貪愛同滋，貪不能止……是等則以殺貪為本。以人食羊，羊死為人，人死為羊……唯殺、盜、婬三為根本，以是因緣業果相續。」
"Further, Pūrṇa, this mistaken brightness is nothing external — it is precisely the fault of [awareness] trying to be bright [about itself]. ... From this, seeing, sensing, hearing, and knowing become divided out separately. Beings bound by shared karma come together or separate, giving rise to transformation: seeing produces brightness, form arises, and brightness combined with seeing produces conceptual thought. Difference in view becomes aversion; sameness in thought becomes attraction. The flow of attraction becomes a seed; the intake of thought becomes a womb. Through this mutual coupling, beings of shared karma are drawn together, and so, through this causal chain, the earliest embryonic stages come to arise. Womb-born, egg-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born beings arise accordingly, each in its own way. ... For this reason, sentient beings continue on without end."
"Pūrṇa, thought and desire bind together, and desire cannot be severed — and so, in every world, parents and children go on being born from one another without cease; this has craving and desire as its root. Craving and desire nourish each other, and craving cannot be stopped — and so egg-born, transformation-born, moisture-born, and womb-born beings, throughout the world, devour one another according to their relative strength; this has killing and desire as its root. Because a person eats a sheep, the sheep is reborn a person, and the person, in turn, is reborn a sheep ... Killing, stealing, and sexual desire alone are the three roots — and it is on account of these that karma and its fruits continue on without end."
Reading note: This passage answers Pūrṇa's question in three linked stages, traditionally called the three continuities: the continuity of worlds (just covered), the continuity of sentient beings (reproduction, driven by desire), and the continuity of karma (the cycle of killing, stealing, and sexual desire, driven by mutual indebtedness across lifetimes). All three, the Buddha insists, trace back to the same single root: mistaken brightness, awareness trying to illuminate itself as an object.
Yajñadatta, Who Thought He Had Lost His Own Head 演若達多迷頭認影
富樓那言：「若此妙覺本妙覺明與如來心不增不減，無狀忽生山河大地諸有為相；如來今得妙空明覺，山河大地有為習漏何當復生？」
佛告富樓那：「譬如迷人，於一聚落惑南為北，此迷為復因迷而有？因悟所出？」富樓那言：「如是迷人，亦不因迷又不因悟。何以故？迷本無根，云何因迷？悟非生迷，云何因悟？」佛言：「彼之迷人正在迷時，倐有悟人指示令悟；……此人縱迷，於此聚落更生迷不？」「不也，世尊！」「富樓那！十方如來，亦復如是。此迷無本，性畢竟空。昔本無迷，似有迷覺，覺迷迷滅，覺不生迷。……」
Pūrṇa said: "If this wondrous awareness — originally wondrous, aware, and bright — is no different, neither more nor less, from the Tathāgata's own mind, why would mountains, rivers, and the great earth ever suddenly arise from it at all? And now that the Tathāgata has attained this wondrous, empty, bright awareness, will mountains, rivers, and their habituated afflictions ever arise again?"
The Buddha said to Pūrṇa: "It is like a confused person in a village who mistakes south for north — does this confusion exist because of confusion itself, or does it come out of understanding?" Pūrṇa said: "Such a person's confusion arises neither because of confusion nor because of understanding. Why? Confusion has, at its root, no cause of its own — how could it be 'because of confusion'? And understanding does not produce confusion — how could it be 'because of understanding'?" The Buddha said: "Suppose that, while this confused person is still confused, someone who understands suddenly points out the directions and sets him straight. ... Even though he was once confused, would he ever become confused about this same village again?" "No, World-Honored One." "Pūrṇa, it is exactly the same with the Tathāgatas of the ten directions. This confusion has no root; its nature is, in the end, empty. It was never truly there to begin with — it only seemed as though awareness had become confused. Once awareness recognizes the confusion, the confusion vanishes; and awareness itself never again produces confusion. ..."
佛告富樓那：「……譬如有人，於自衣中、繫如意珠，不自覺知，窮露他方，乞食馳走；雖實貧窮，珠不曾失，忽有智者指示其珠，所願從心，致大饒富，方悟神珠非從外得。」
即時阿難……而白佛：「世尊現說殺、盜、婬業三緣斷故，三因不生；心中達多狂性自歇，歇即菩提，不從人得。斯則因緣皎然明白，云何如來頓棄因緣？我從因緣心得開悟。……今說菩提不從因緣，則王舍城拘舍梨等所說自然，成第一義！唯垂大悲開發迷悶！」
佛告阿難：「即如城中演若達多，狂性因緣，若得滅除，則不狂性自然而出。因緣、自然，理窮於是。……本然非然，和合非合，合、然俱離，離、合俱非，此句方名無戲論法。……」
The Buddha said to Pūrṇa: "... It is like a man who has a wish-fulfilling jewel sewn into the lining of his own robe, without knowing it is there — reduced to poverty, wandering to distant lands, begging and running about. Though genuinely destitute, he never actually lost the jewel. When a wise person suddenly points it out to him, every wish comes true, and he becomes greatly wealthy — only then realizing that this wondrous jewel was never obtained from anywhere outside himself."
At that moment Ānanda ... said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One, you have just taught that when the three conditions — killing, stealing, and sexual desire — are severed, the three causes no longer arise, and the madness in the mind of [the man like] Yajñadatta subsides of itself; and that this subsiding is itself bodhi, not something obtained from anyone else. This makes causation perfectly clear and evident — so why does the Tathāgata now suddenly reject causation altogether? It was, in fact, through a causal chain of reasoning that my own mind came to awaken. ... If bodhi does not come from causation, then the 'spontaneity' taught by Maskarin Gośālīputra of Rājagṛha would turn out to be the ultimate truth after all! I beg only that you, in great compassion, dispel this confusion!"
The Buddha said to Ānanda: "Consider that very Yajñadatta in the city: if his madness — a matter, you say, of causes and conditions — could be brought to an end, then his sane nature would have to emerge 'spontaneously.' Causation and spontaneity, examined to their very limit, both come down to exactly this same problem. ... 'Being naturally so' is not truly so of itself; 'combining' is not truly a combination; both 'combining' and 'being naturally so' must be set aside together, and 'setting aside' and 'combining' must both, in turn, be denied — only this last position is free of empty argument. ..."
Reading note: Yajñadatta appears here without yet being named — the full story (a man who, looking in a mirror, becomes obsessed with the reflected face and terrified that he has lost his own head, running through the streets in a panic) is told explicitly in fascicle 10, where it becomes the sūtra's central image for delusion itself. Here the point is narrower but just as sharp: his "madness" never had a real cause to begin with, so its ending cannot be credited to a cause either — which is exactly why the Buddha rejects both of Ānanda's categories, causation and spontaneity, as equally beside the point. The wish-fulfilling jewel sewn into the beggar's own robe makes the positive half of the same claim: what is sought was never actually absent, only unrecognized.
Neither the Same Nor Different: Fire, Water, and the Reflected Sun 釋地水火風性真圓融
「富樓那！又汝問言：『地、水、火、風本性圓融周遍法界，疑水、火性不相𣣋滅？又徵虛空及諸大地俱遍法界，不合相容。』富樓那！譬如虛空體非群相，而不拒彼諸相發揮。……如一水中現於日影，兩人同觀水中之日，東西各行，則各有日隨二人去；一東一西，先無准的。不應難言：『此日是一，云何各行？各日既雙，云何現一？』宛轉虛妄，無可憑據。」
「富樓那！汝以色空相傾相奪於如來藏，而如來藏隨為色空，周遍法界，是故於中風動、空澄、日明、雲暗。……我以妙明不滅不生合如來藏，而如來藏唯妙覺明，圓照法界，是故於中一為無量、無量為一，小中現大、大中現小，不動道場遍十方界……而如來藏本妙圓心，非心、非空，非地、非水、非風、非火……即如來藏元明心妙，即心、即空、即地、即水、即風、即火……即如來藏妙明心元，離即、離非，是即、非即。」
"Pūrṇa, as for your further question — how earth, water, fire, and wind, each said to interfuse perfectly and pervade the whole Dharma-realm, can avoid destroying one another, and how space and the great earth can both pervade the Dharma-realm without contradiction — consider empty space: its own substance is not any one of the various appearances, and yet it does not refuse to let all of them manifest within it. ... It is like the sun's reflection appearing in a body of water: if two people watch the sun's reflection in the water and then walk off in different directions, east and west, each will find the reflected sun following him — one to the east, one to the west, with no fixed original position to appeal to. One should not then object: 'If this sun is one, how can it go two separate ways? And if the two suns are genuinely two, how did they ever appear as only one?' Such an objection only tangles itself in false premises, with nothing solid to stand on."
"Pūrṇa, you take form and emptiness to be pushing against and displacing each other within the tathāgatagarbha — but the tathāgatagarbha itself simply becomes form, or becomes emptiness, as the occasion requires, pervading the whole Dharma-realm; and so, within it, wind moves, space is still, the sun shines, clouds darken. ... I, myself, have united this wondrous, unborn, unceasing brightness with the tathāgatagarbha, and the tathāgatagarbha is nothing but wondrous, aware brightness, perfectly illuminating the whole Dharma-realm — and so, within it, one becomes countless, and countless become one; the small appears within the large, the large within the small; unmoving from the place of practice, it pervades the worlds of the ten directions. ... The tathāgatagarbha's own original, wondrous mind is neither mind, nor emptiness, nor earth, water, wind, nor fire ... [Yet] the tathāgatagarbha's original, bright, wondrous mind is also precisely mind, precisely emptiness, precisely earth, water, wind, and fire ... The tathāgatagarbha's own wondrous, bright mind stands apart from both 'is' and 'is not' — and is, at once, both 'is' and 'is not.'"
Reading note: The reflected-sun analogy answers a very concrete worry: if fire and water each "pervade" everywhere, shouldn't they cancel each other out on contact? The reflection shows how something can appear to multiply and move without the underlying reality doing either — there are not really two suns following the two walkers, and yet each walker's experience of "his" reflected sun is completely real and consistent from where he stands. The long "neither... nor" followed immediately by "both... and" litany that closes this section is one of the sūtra's most quoted passages: the tathāgatagarbha cannot be pinned down as identical to any category (not mind, not earth, not even nirvāṇa itself), and yet, in exactly the same breath, it is identical to every one of them — a deliberate refusal to let either the negative or the positive description stand alone as the final word.
The Two Decisive Meanings 二決定義
Ānanda now asks for the actual starting point of practice. The Buddha's answer is to insist on two things being settled first, before any cultivation begins at all.
First: Distinguish the True Cause from the False 審觀因地發心與果地覺同異
「阿難！第一義者，汝等若欲捐捨聲聞，修菩薩乘，入佛知見，應當審觀因地發心，與果地覺為同、為異？阿難！若於因地，以生滅心為本修因，而求佛乘不生不滅，無有是處。……則汝身中堅相為地，潤濕為水，煖觸為火，動搖為風。由此四纏，分汝湛圓妙覺明心為視、為聽、為覺、為察，從始入終，五疊渾濁。」
"Ānanda, the first decisive meaning is this: if you wish to set aside the śrāvaka path, cultivate the bodhisattva vehicle, and enter the Buddha's knowledge and seeing, you must carefully examine whether the mind you resolve on at the causal stage matches or differs from the awakening you seek at the fruit-stage. Ānanda, if, at the causal stage, you take the arising-and-ceasing mind as the root cause of your cultivation while seeking the unborn, unceasing Buddha-vehicle, this cannot succeed. ... Within your own body, solidity is earth, moisture is water, warmth is fire, and movement is wind; bound by these four, your own calm, perfect, wondrous, bright awareness becomes divided into seeing, hearing, sensing, and discerning — and, from beginning to end, five layers of turbidity result."
The Five Turbidities 五濁
「阿難！汝見虛空遍十方界，空見不分。有空無體，有見無覺，相織妄成；是第一重名為劫濁。汝身現摶四大為體，見、聞、覺、知壅令留礙，水、火、風、土旋令覺知，相織妄成；是第二重名為見濁。又汝心中憶識誦習，性發知見，容現六塵……相織妄成；是第三重名煩惱濁。又汝朝夕生滅不停……相織妄成；是第四重名眾生濁。汝等見聞元無異性，眾塵隔越，無狀異生……相織妄成；是第五重名為命濁。」
"Ānanda, you see empty space pervading the ten directions, indistinguishable from seeing itself: space has no substance, seeing has no [independent] awareness of its own, and the two weave falsely together — this is the first layer, called the turbidity of the aeon. Your own body, formed by combining the four elements, obstructs seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, so that water, fire, wind, and earth are made to circulate as if aware — this weaving-together falsely produced is the second layer, called the turbidity of views. Further, in your mind, memory, discrimination, and habituated learning give rise to knowledge and views, manifesting the six sense-objects ... this falsely woven result is the third layer, called the turbidity of affliction. Further, your own arising and ceasing, morning and night, never stops ... this falsely woven result is the fourth layer, called the turbidity of beings. Your seeing and hearing have, originally, no differing nature at all, yet the various sense-objects divide them apart, producing difference where none belongs ... this falsely woven result is the fifth layer, called the turbidity of life-span."
Reading note: The five turbidities describe how a single, undivided awareness gets progressively more entangled: first with space and time as such (aeon), then with a physical body (views), then with habituated mental content (affliction), then with the sheer fact of arising-and-ceasing (beings), and finally with the felt sense of a bounded individual life (life-span). Yuanying's commentary — see the Jiǎngyì project — treats this passage at length as the diagnostic the rest of the path is designed to reverse.
Second: Examine the Root of Affliction 審詳煩惱根本
「第二義者，……應當審詳煩惱根本。此無始來發業潤生，誰作誰受？……則汝現前眼、耳、鼻、舌、及與身、心，六為賊媒，自劫家寶；由此無始眾生世界生纏縛故，於器世間不能超越。」
"The second decisive meaning is this: ... you must carefully examine the very root of affliction. From beginningless time, what has generated karma and nourished rebirth — who has done this, and who has experienced its results? ... Your own present eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind — these six — act as accomplices to a thief, robbing your own household of its treasure. It is because of this beginningless entanglement that sentient beings remain bound within their material world, unable to transcend it."
The Merit of Each of the Six Sense-Roots 六根功德多寡
The Buddha now enumerates, faculty by faculty, how fully each sense-root actually functions — information Ānanda will need later, in fascicle 6, to choose which single faculty to cultivate through.
「如眼觀見，後暗、前明，前方全明，後方全暗，左、右傍觀三分之二……當知眼唯八百功德。如耳周聽十方無遺……當知耳根圓滿一千二百功德。如鼻嗅聞通出入息，有出有入而闕中交……當知鼻唯八百功德。如舌宣揚盡諸世間、出世間智，言有方分，理無窮盡……當知舌根圓滿一千二百功德。如身覺觸識於違順，合時能覺，離中不知……當知身唯八百功德。如意默容十方三世一切世間出世間法……當知意根圓滿一千二百功德。」
"Seeing with the eye: dark behind, bright in front; fully bright to the front, fully dark to the rear, and only two-thirds visible to either side — so the eye's merit is incomplete: three parts credited, one part lacking; know that the eye has only eight hundred units of merit. Hearing with the ear: it takes in sound from all ten directions without exception, near or far, in motion or at rest, without limit — know that the ear-faculty is fully complete, with twelve hundred units of merit. Smelling with the nose: it perceives the breath going out and coming in, but lacks awareness at the very midpoint between the two — the nose is thus missing one part in three; know that the nose has only eight hundred units of merit. Speaking with the tongue: it can proclaim the whole of worldly and transcendent wisdom — its words may be bounded, but the principles it expresses are inexhaustible — know that the tongue-faculty is fully complete, with twelve hundred units of merit. Feeling with the body: it senses contact, whether agreeable or not, only when touching something, and knows nothing when separated from it — the body is thus missing one part in three; know that the body has only eight hundred units of merit. Knowing with the mind: it silently takes in every phenomenon, worldly and transcendent, throughout the ten directions and the three times, holding sage and ordinary being alike within its full scope — know that the mind-faculty is fully complete, with twelve hundred units of merit."
Reading note: This tally matters practically, not just theoretically: ear, tongue, and mind each score the full twelve hundred units because they can, in principle, take in their whole domain without a blind spot (sound from every direction, meaning without limit, every phenomenon whatsoever); eye, nose, and body each lose a third because they have a structural gap (no rear vision, no awareness at the exact turning-point of breath, no sensation without contact). This scorecard is exactly what lets Ānanda ask, later in the sūtra, which single sense-faculty is the best door to enter through — the ear, not coincidentally, turns out to be the sūtra's own answer for this world.
The Bell That Proves Hearing Never Ceases 擊鐘驗聞性無生滅
即時如來勅羅睺羅擊鍾一聲，問阿難言：「汝今聞不？」阿難、大眾俱言：「我聞。」鍾歇無聲，佛又問言：「汝今聞不？」阿難、大眾俱言：「不聞。」時羅睺羅又擊一聲，佛又問言：「汝今聞不？」阿難、大眾又言：「俱聞。」佛問阿難：「汝云何聞？云何不聞？」阿難、大眾俱白佛言：「鍾聲若擊則我得聞；擊久聲銷，音響雙絕，則名無聞。」
At once the Tathāgata commanded Rāhula to strike the bell once, and asked Ānanda: "Do you hear it now?" Ānanda and the whole assembly said: "We hear it." When the bell fell silent, the Buddha again asked: "Do you hear it now?" Ānanda and the assembly said: "We do not hear it." Rāhula then struck the bell again, and the Buddha again asked: "Do you hear it now?" Ānanda and the assembly again said: "We hear it." The Buddha asked Ānanda: "By what do you mean 'hearing,' and by what do you mean 'not hearing'?" Ānanda and the assembly said to the Buddha: "When the bell is struck, we hear it; once struck, the sound fades and both tone and echo cease entirely — this we call 'not hearing.'"
佛語阿難及諸大眾：「汝今云何自語矯亂？」……佛言：「我問汝聞，汝則言聞；又問汝聲，汝則言聲。惟聞與聲報答無定，如是云何不名矯亂？阿難！聲銷無響，汝說無聞；若實無聞，聞性已滅同于枯木，鍾聲更擊，汝云何知？……是故阿難！聲於聞中自有生滅；非為汝聞聲生、聲滅，令汝聞性為有、為無。……若棄生滅，守於真常，常光現前，塵根、識心應時銷落。想相為塵，識情為垢，二俱遠離；則汝法眼應時清明，云何不成無上知覺？」
The Buddha said to Ānanda and the whole assembly: "Why are your own answers now so confused and contradictory?" ... The Buddha said: "When I asked whether you heard, you said you heard; and when I asked about the sound, you likewise spoke of the sound. Your answers about hearing and about sound were given with no fixed distinction between them — how is this not confusion? Ānanda, when the sound fades and there is no echo, you say there is 'no hearing.' But if there truly were no hearing at all, the nature of hearing would already have perished like a withered tree — so when the bell is struck again, how could you possibly know it? ... You should therefore know, Ānanda: it is sound, within hearing, that has its own arising and ceasing — it is not that your hearing itself arises when sound arises and perishes when sound perishes, such that your very nature of hearing becomes existent or nonexistent. ... If you set aside what arises and ceases, and hold fast instead to what is ever-true and constant, the constant light will appear before you, and the dust of the sense-faculties, together with the discriminating mind, will fall away at once. Once conceptual appearances, taken as dust, and discriminating feeling, taken as defilement, are both left far behind, your own Dharma-eye should become clear and bright at that very moment — so how could you fail to attain unsurpassed knowledge and awareness?"
大佛頂萬行首楞嚴經卷第四 — End of Fascicle Four
Reading note: This closing demonstration answers, with a simple experiment, a mistake that runs through everything before it: confusing the object (sound, which genuinely comes and goes) with the faculty that perceives it (hearing, which the Buddha insists never actually switches on and off). Ānanda's own contradictory answers — "we hear," "we don't hear," using the same word "hear" to describe two different things (an act of perceiving, and the presence of a sound-object) — are the proof, caught in real time rather than merely asserted. Fascicle 5 goes on to have twenty-five different disciples each testify to how they personally attained enlightenment, before Mañjuśrī is asked to judge which approach — inevitably, hearing — best suits beings in this world.