Building the Ground for Practice
The Buddha gives Ānanda concrete, physical instructions for setting up a place of practice, then teaches the Śūraṅgama Mantra itself and its protective power at length. The fascicle closes with one of the sūtra's great cosmological set-pieces: the twelve categories that account for every kind of birth in the universe.
About This Fascicle
Fascicle 6 closed with the four precepts that ground any real practice. Fascicle 7 answers Ānanda's next question directly: given those precepts, how does one actually set up a place to practice in? The Buddha's answer is unusually concrete and physical — specific materials, a specific floor plan, specific offerings — before turning to the Śūraṅgama Mantra itself (悉怛多般怛囉, the "White Canopy" dhāraṇī) at the center of that practice.
A note on the mantra: like every dhāraṇī, the Śūraṅgama Mantra is a string of Sanskrit sounds transliterated into Chinese characters chosen for their pronunciation, not their meaning — it was never meant to be read as Chinese prose, and it is not translated into English prose here for the same reason no traditional edition renders it as flowing English: reciting it is the point, not parsing a sentence. We reproduce CBETA's Chinese transliteration below (public domain), together with the occasional brief word-glosses the canonical text itself preserves in parentheses, and translate in full everything the sūtra says about the mantra — its origin, its ritual use, and the protections it grants.
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.
Why the Mantra Is Needed 持呪助道
阿難！汝問攝心，我今先說入三摩地修學妙門。求菩薩道，要先持此四種律儀，皎如氷霜，自不能生一切枝葉。……阿難！如是四事若不失遺，心尚不緣色、香、味、觸，一切魔事云何發生？若有宿習不能滅除，汝教是人一心誦我佛頂光明摩訶薩怛多般怛囉無上神呪。斯是如來無見頂相無為心佛，從頂發輝，坐寶蓮華所說心呪。且汝宿世與摩登伽，歷劫因緣恩愛習氣，非是一生及與一劫，我一宣揚，愛心永脫成阿羅漢。彼尚婬女無心修行，神力冥資速證無學，云何汝等在會聲聞，求最上乘決定成佛。譬如以塵揚于順風，有何艱險？
"Ānanda, you have asked about gathering the mind — I will now first explain the wondrous gateway for entering samādhi through cultivation. To seek the bodhisattva path, one must first keep these four precepts as clear and cold as ice and frost, so that not one further branch of transgression can grow from them. ... Ānanda, if these four matters are never abandoned, the mind will no longer even attach itself to form, fragrance, flavor, or touch — how, then, could any demonic affair arise at all? But if there remain habitual tendencies from past lives that cannot be entirely dissolved, teach such a person to recite, with a single mind, my unsurpassed sacred mantra of the Buddha-crown's light, the Mahā-Sitātapatra — this is the mind-mantra spoken by the unconditioned mind-buddha manifesting from the Tathāgata's own invisible crown, radiating light while seated on a jeweled lotus.
"Consider: your own bond with Mātaṅgī, built up over lifetime after lifetime of karmic affection and habituated desire, was no matter of a single life or a single kalpa — and yet the moment I proclaimed this mantra, her mind of attachment was forever released, and she became an arhat. If even that woman, a courtesan with no prior intention to cultivate at all, could swiftly attain freedom from further training through the mantra's hidden power, how much more should you, śrāvakas gathered in this very assembly, seeking the highest vehicle and resolved on Buddhahood, find this easy — like dust lifted on a following wind?"
Building the Practice-Site 建立道場
佛告阿難：「若末世人願立道場，先取雪山大力白牛，食其山中肥膩香草，此牛唯飲雪山清水；其糞微細，可取其糞和合栴檀以泥其地。……方圓丈六，為八角壇。壇心置一金、銀、銅、木所造蓮華，華中安鉢，鉢中先盛八月露水，水中隨安所有華葉。取八圓鏡各安其方，圍繞花鉢。鏡外建立十六蓮華，十六香鑪間花鋪設。……取白牛乳置十六器，乳為煎餅，并諸沙糖、油餅、乳糜、酥合、蜜薑、純酥、純蜜，及諸菓子、飲食……於壇室中，四壁敷設十方如來及諸菩薩所有形像。應於當陽，張盧舍那、釋迦、彌勒、阿閦、彌陀，諸大變化觀音形像兼金剛藏，安其左右。……又取八鏡，覆懸虛空。與壇場中所安之鏡，方面相對，使其形影重重相涉。
The Buddha said to Ānanda: "If someone in a future age wishes to set up a place of practice, first obtain a powerful white ox from the Himalayan snow mountains, one that feeds only on the rich, fragrant grasses of that region and drinks only its pure snow-water — its dung is exceptionally fine and, mixed with sandalwood, can be used to coat the floor of the practice-site. ... Make it sixteen feet square, an eight-sided altar. At its center, place a lotus fashioned of gold, silver, copper, or wood; within the lotus, set a bowl, first filled with dew gathered in the eighth month, with whatever flowers and leaves happen to be at hand floating within. Take eight round mirrors and set one at each direction, surrounding the flower and bowl; beyond the mirrors, arrange sixteen lotus flowers, with sixteen incense burners interspersed among the flowers. ... Take white ox milk and place it in sixteen vessels, along with milk cakes, various sugars, oil cakes, milk porridge, clarified butter, honeyed ginger, pure butter, pure honey, and every kind of fruit and fine food. ... Within the practice-hall, hang on all four walls images of the Tathāgatas of the ten directions and all the bodhisattvas. Facing the sun's direction, hang images of Vairocana, Śākyamuni, Maitreya, Akṣobhya, and Amitābha, along with the great transformation-images of Avalokiteśvara and Vajragarbha placed to either side. ... Take eight more mirrors and suspend them, facing outward, in the space above, positioned exactly opposite the mirrors set within the altar itself, so that their reflected images interpenetrate one another, layer upon layer."
「於初七日中，至誠頂禮十方如來、諸大菩薩及阿羅漢，恒於六時誦呪繞壇，至心行道。一時常行一百八遍。第二七中，一向專心發菩薩願，心無間斷。……第三七中，於十二時一向持佛般怛羅呪。至第七日，十方如來一時出現，鏡交光處承佛摩頂。即於道場修三摩地，能令如是末世修學，身心明淨猶如瑠璃。」
"During the first seven days, bow with utmost sincerity to the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, the great bodhisattvas, and the arhats, reciting the mantra and circling the altar at all six periods of the day and night, practicing the path with complete devotion — one hundred and eight recitations at each session. During the second seven days, focus single-mindedly, without interruption, on giving rise to the bodhisattva vow. ... During the third seven days, hold to reciting the Buddha's Sitātapatra mantra continuously, at every hour. By the seventh day, the Tathāgatas of the ten directions will appear all at once, and, at the point where the mirrored lights intersect, will touch the practitioner's crown in blessing. Cultivating samādhi in this very place of practice will bring even a student of this final age to a body and mind as bright and pure as lapis lazuli."
Reading note: This ritual is unusually specific for the sūtra — exact materials (Himalayan ox dung, dew gathered specifically in the eighth month), an exact floor plan (an eight-sided altar with concentric rings of mirrors, lotuses, and incense burners), and an exact three-week schedule with a different focus each week. The interlocking, mutually reflecting mirrors are worth noting for their own sake: they physically stage the sūtra's repeated image, from fascicle 4 onward, of "one becoming countless, and countless becoming one" — the practice-site is built to be a literal working model of the doctrine it supports.
The Śūraṅgama Mantra 楞嚴神呪
Ānanda, having only received the mantra's protection indirectly before, now asks to hear it in full. The Buddha emits light from his crown, revealing a manifestation-buddha seated within a lotus, who proclaims the mantra — 439 lines in the sūtra's own count. What follows is CBETA's Chinese transliteration of the mantra's opening lines, with the brief parenthetical glosses the source text itself preserves:
南牟薩怛他蘇伽哆耶（歸命一切諸佛）阿囉訶帝三藐三菩陀耶（歸命一切如來應正等覺）娜牟薩婆勃陀（敬禮一切諸佛）勃地薩哆吠弊（歸命菩薩）娜牟颯哆喃三藐三菩陀俱胝喃（敬禮正遍知）薩失囉皤迦僧伽喃（敬禮辟支佛及四果人）娜牟嚧雞阿囉喝哆喃（歸命羅漢等眾）……娜牟薄伽筏帝（歸命世尊）嚧陀囉耶（大自在天）……娜牟婆伽筏帝怛他揭多俱囉耶（如來族）娜牟鉢頭摩俱囉耶（歸命蓮華族菩薩等）娜牟筏折囉俱囉耶（歸命金剛族）娜牟摩尼俱囉耶（歸命寶族）娜牟伽闍俱囉耶（歸命眾族）……〔the mantra continues for 439 lines in total〕……唵吽 毘嚕提 莎皤訶
Reading note: The opening lines translate, in sense though not in the mantra's own recitation practice, as a long series of homages — to all buddhas, to the fully and perfectly awakened, to bodhisattvas, to pratyekabuddhas and arhats, to Brahmā, to Śakra, to the buddha-family, the lotus-family, the vajra-family, the jewel-family — before moving into the mantra's protective and world-taming syllables proper. The full 439-line text is preserved on CBETA for those who wish to recite it in the traditional way; this page focuses on what the sūtra itself says about the mantra's origin and power, translated in full below.
What the Mantra Accomplishes 呪心功德
阿難！是佛頂光聚悉怛多般怛羅祕密伽陀微妙章句，出生十方一切諸佛，十方如來因此呪心，得成無上正遍知覺。十方如來執此呪心，降伏諸魔、制諸外道。……十方如來依此呪心，能於十方拔濟群苦。所謂地獄、餓鬼、畜生，盲聾瘖瘂，怨憎會苦、愛別離苦、求不得苦、五陰熾盛，大小諸橫同時解脫；賊難、兵難、王難、獄難、風水火難，飢渴貧窮，應念銷散。
"Ānanda, these subtle and wondrous verses of the Buddha-crown's gathered light, this secret Sitātapatra dhāraṇī, give rise to all the buddhas of the ten directions — the Tathāgatas of the ten directions rely on this mantra-mind to accomplish unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening; the Tathāgatas of the ten directions wield this mantra-mind to subdue every demon and restrain every non-Buddhist path. ... The Tathāgatas of the ten directions depend on this mantra-mind to rescue every kind of suffering throughout the ten directions — the sufferings of the hell-realms, hungry ghosts, and animals; of blindness, deafness, and muteness; of being bound to what one hates, of separation from what one loves, of not obtaining what one seeks, of the five aggregates blazing with affliction — every misfortune, great or small, dissolved at once; the calamities of thieves, of war, of unjust punishment, of imprisonment, of wind, water, and fire, and of hunger, thirst, and poverty, all dispersing the instant this mind recalls the mantra."
「阿難！若諸世界，隨所國土所有眾生，隨國所生樺皮、貝葉、紙素、白疊，書寫此呪貯於香囊，是人心惛未能誦憶，或帶身上、或書宅中，當知是人，盡其生年，一切諸毒所不能害。……若能自誦，若教他誦，當知如是誦持眾生，火不能燒、水不能溺、大毒小毒所不能害……一切呪咀、魘蠱、毒藥、金毒、銀毒、草木蟲蛇萬物毒氣，入此人口成甘露味。」
"Ānanda, if the beings of any land — writing this mantra on whatever material their own country produces, birch bark, palm leaf, paper, or fine cloth — place it in a scented pouch, then even someone too confused to memorize and recite it, simply by wearing it on the body or keeping it written in the home, will, we should know, be safe from every kind of poison for the rest of their natural life. ... Whether one recites it oneself or teaches others to recite it, such a person cannot be burned by fire, cannot be drowned by water, cannot be harmed by any poison, great or small ... every curse, hex, toxin, and poison — of metal, of herb, of insect, of serpent, of any substance whatsoever — turns, on entering such a person's mouth, into the taste of sweet dew."
「阿難！是善男子持此呪時，設犯禁戒於未受時，持呪之後，眾破戒罪無問輕重，一時銷滅。……若造五逆無間重罪，及諸比丘、比丘尼、四棄八棄，誦此呪已，如是重業，猶如猛風吹散沙聚，悉皆滅除更無毫髮。」
"Ānanda, when a good person holds this mantra, even transgressions of the precepts committed before ever receiving them are, once the mantra is taken up, entirely dissolved at once, regardless of how light or grave they were. ... Even the five heinous crimes bringing uninterrupted retribution, or the gravest offenses of monks and nuns, are, once this mantra is recited, scattered like a heap of sand blown apart by a fierce wind — utterly eliminated, without the slightest trace remaining."
Reading note: The sūtra makes an unusually strong claim here — that even grave transgressions can be entirely dissolved through this mantra, without downplaying how serious they are elsewhere in the text (fascicle 6's four precepts treat these same offenses with real severity). The consistent underlying logic is the same one that runs through the whole sūtra: nothing here works as a magical loophole around cause and effect; rather, the mantra is presented as activating the same originally pure, unconditioned nature — the tathāgatagarbha — that every fascicle has been pointing toward, a nature no accumulated karma can actually stain at the root.
Ānanda's Next Question, and the Buddha's Two Root Distortions 眾生顛倒 · 世界顛倒
阿難……而白佛言：「……云何名為乾慧之地？四十四心至何漸次、得修行目？詣何方所，名入地中？云何名為等覺菩薩？」……佛言：「阿難當知！妙性圓明離諸名相，本來無有世界、眾生。因妄有生，因生有滅，生滅名妄，滅妄名真；是稱如來無上菩提及大涅槃二轉依號。……阿難！汝今欲修真三摩地，直詣如來大涅槃者，先當識此眾生、世界二顛倒因。顛倒不生，斯則如來真三摩地。」
Ānanda ... said to the Buddha: "... What is meant by the ground of dry wisdom? Through what gradual stages do the forty-four minds of the path proceed, and by what practice are they attained? At what point does one truly enter the [bodhisattva] grounds? And what is meant by a bodhisattva of universal enlightenment?" ... The Buddha said: "Ānanda, you should know: the wondrous nature, perfectly bright, stands apart from every name and appearance — originally there is no 'world,' no 'sentient being' at all. Because of falseness, there is arising; because of arising, there is ceasing. Arising and ceasing together are called falseness; the ceasing of falseness itself is called truth — and this is what is meant by the two titles the Tathāgata turns toward and relies on: unsurpassed bodhi and great nirvāṇa.
"Ānanda, if you now wish to cultivate true samādhi and proceed directly to the Tathāgata's great nirvāṇa, you must first recognize the two root distortions — of sentient beings, and of the world — that give rise to all this. Once these distortions no longer arise, that, precisely, is the Tathāgata's true samādhi."
The Twelve Categories of Birth 眾生十二種類
The Buddha now derives, from the interaction of the world-distortion and the being-distortion, all twelve categories into which every form of sentient life falls.
「是故世界，因動有聲，因聲有色，因色有香，因香有觸，因觸有味，因味知法。六亂妄想成業性故，十二區分由此輪轉。……是故世間聲、香、味、觸，窮十二變為一旋復。乘此輪轉顛倒相故，是有世界——卵生、胎生、濕生、化生，有色、無色，有想、無想，若非有色、若非無色，若非有想、若非無想。」
"And so, in the world: because of motion, there is sound; because of sound, there is form; because of form, there is fragrance; because of fragrance, there is touch; because of touch, there is flavor; because of flavor, mental phenomena are known. These six confused, false thoughts, taken together, form the very nature of karma — and it is from this that the twelve divisions arise, turning endlessly in their wheel. ... And so the world's sound, fragrance, flavor, and touch, run through all twelve transformations, return to complete a single cycle. Riding this wheel of distorted turning, there comes to be a whole world of beings — egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born; possessing form, or without form; possessing conception, or without conception; neither possessing form nor entirely without it; neither possessing conception nor entirely without it."
大佛頂萬行首楞嚴經卷第七 — End of Fascicle Seven
Reading note: This taxonomy extends the classical Buddhist fourfold division of birth (egg, womb, moisture, transformation) to twelve, adding eight further categories built from combinations of form/formlessness and conception/non-conception. Each category, notably, is traced back to a specific "confused thought" (亂想) — the classification is not a neutral biology but a map of how different kinds of delusion crystallize into different kinds of embodied existence. The final category's image — young that devour the very parent who raised them — is a deliberately unsettling closing note, and sets up the sūtra's later, extended treatment of karmic retribution in the seven destinies (fascicle 8) and the fifty demonic states (fascicle 10).