Issue 293

I do not insist that you grant that it is not the mind. But examine your mind in minute detail to see whether there is a discriminating nature apart from the objects of sense. That would truly be your mind. If this discriminating nature has no substance apart objects, then it is shadows of discriminations of objects of mind. The objects are not permanent, and when they pass out of existence, such a mind would be like hair on a tortoise or horns on a rabbit. In that case your Dharma-body would be extinguished along with it. Then who cultivates and attains patience with the non-production of dharmas?

The Buddha further said to Ananda, “I do not insist that you grant that it is not the mind. I am not ordering you to agree with what I say. So what about? But examine your mind in minute detail –think about it carefully –to see whether there is a discriminating nature apart from the objects of sense. That would truly be your mind.” If when you are apart from the objects of sense you still have a discriminating nature, that would be your genuine mind.

If this discriminating nature has no substance apart objects – if you cannot find the substance of your discriminating nature apart from the defiling objects of sense – then it is shadows of discriminations of objects of mind. It is not your true mind.

This passage of text explains the matter a little more clearly. The objects are not permanent, and when they pass out of existence, such a mind would be like hair on a tortoise or horns on a rabbit. If when you have a thought when confronted with an object, you say there is a discrimination and that that is your mind. When confronted with an object you have a thought. When you aren’t confronted with an object there is no thought. Sometimes objects disappear; they change and cease to be. Then you are not confronted with an object, and there is no thought, no discrimination. Then where is this mind you speak of? It is like hair on a tortoise or horns on a rabbit. When do tortoises grow hair? Never. When do rabbits grow horns? It’s as if you didn’t have a mind at all. In that case your Dharma-body would be extinguished along with it. Since you haven’t any mind, your Dharma-body doesn’t exist either. How can you have a Dharma-body without a mind? Then who cultivates and attains patience with the nonproduction of dharmas? What do you use to cultivate the Way and achieve enlightenment? If you have neither mind nor body, who awakens to patience with the non-production of dharmas?

At that point Ananda and everyone in the great assembly was speechless and at a total loss.

The Buddha explained that if the mind exists in the discriminations of external objects, then apart from objects there is no discrimination, and your mind is also extinguished; like hair on a tortoise or horns on a rabbit, they basically do not exist. Since they don’t exist, doesn’t that mean there is no mind? If there is no mind there is no Dharma-body either. And with no mind and no Dharma-body, who is it that cultivates and attains the patience with the non-existence of beings and phenomena?

At that point Ananda and everyone in the great assembly was speechless and at a total loss. Ananda and the members of the great assembly thought about it and saw that he was right. If the mind exists in the discriminations of external objects, and apart from objects there is no discrimination, isn’t that there is no mind? None had anything to say. They just stared, but this time they didn’t enter samadhi, everyone simply didn’t know what to do. The Buddha saw that everyone was fidgeting and practically beside themselves, not knowing what to do. They had all lost their minds!

In China, the mind is also spoken in the book of Mencius. Let me first talk about the mind of Mencius. The book quotes two sentences from Confucius:

Its going outs and coming ins have no fixed time
And its location is unknown.
Just that is called the mind.

You don’t know what time it leaves, you don’t know when it returns, and you don’t know where it went. Probably that is the mind. However, the mind Confucius speaks of is also the false thinking not the true mind. How could the true mind go out and enter? It doesn’t have any exits or entrances.
Mencius also said:

When a person’s chickens and dogs get loose
he knows he should go look for them,
But when his mind escapes
he doesn’t know that he should search for it.

Here, too, he is talking about the mind which strikes up false thoughts from morning to night, running east, running west, running back and forth. He doesn’t know enough to watch over his own mind, to tell it not to run down so many roads in vain.

I’ve said your false-thinking mind allows you to be in New York in the space of a thought with no need to spend money on an airplane or train ticket; “Oh! The New York subway is very fast!” “Oh, this Brooklyn Bridge is world famous!” and you can play on the Brooklyn Bridge without bothering to take a bus; and you can go to New York without taking a plane. It’s really a cheap way to travel. But it is a tremendous exertion for the mind. That is what it says in Mencius about the conscious mind, the mind that Ananda is familiar with. The conscious mind is impermanent. The true mind is permanent.

The Buddha said to Ananda, “There are cultivators in the world who, although they realize the nine successive stages of samadhi, do not achieve the extinction of outflows or become Arhats, all because they are attached to birth-and-death false thinking and mistake it for what is truly real. That is why now, although you are greatly learned, you have not realized the accomplishment of sagehood.”

The Buddha said to Ananda.”There are cultivators in the world who, although they realize the nine successive stages of samadhi, do not achieve the extinction of outflows or become Arhats:” There are cultivators in the world who, although they realize the nine successive stages of samadhi, do not achieve the extinction of outflows or become Arhats.

The nine successive stages of samadhi are the first, second, third, and fourth stages of dhyana; the four places of emptiness:
the place of the heaven of boundless emptiness;
the place of the heaven of boundless consciousness;
the place of the heaven of nothing whatsoever;
the heaven of neither thought nor no thought.

And the samadhi of the extinction of feeling and thought.

All because they are attached to birth-and-death false thinking and mistake it for what is truly real: Why do they cultivate and achieve the nine successive stages of samadhi and yet cannot obtain the penetration of the extinction of outflows and accomplish Arhatship? It is because they are attached to false thinking of birth and death and mistake it for what is truly real. They make the mistake of taking that false thinking to be true. span style=”font-weight:bold” >That is why now, although you are greatly learned, you have not realized the accomplishment of sagehood. By this time Ananda had reached the first stage of Arhatship, so why does the Buddha say nevertheless that, despite the advantages that come with erudition, Ananda hasn’t realized the accomplishment of sagehood? The Buddha means Ananda has not obtained the penetration of the extinction of outflows. He is not devoid of outflows. In the Small Vehicle, the first stage of Arhatship is considered to be a level of sagehood, but among Bodhisattvas it is not.

When Ananda heard that, he again wept sorrowfully, placed his five limbs on the ground, knelt on both knees, put his palms together, and said to the Buddha, “Since I followed the Buddha and left home, what I have done is to rely on the Buddha’s awesome spirit. I have often thought, ‘There is no reason for me to toil at cultivation’ expecting that the Tathagata would bestow samadhi upon me. I never realized that he could not stand in for me in body and mind. Thus, I lost my original mind and although my body has left the home-life, my mind has not entered the Way. I am like the poor son who renounced his father and roamed around.”

The Buddha has said that because Ananda was obstructed by his learning he had not realized sagehood. He had neglected samadhi and concentrated on acquiring erudition.
When Ananda heard that, he again wept sorrowfully. Why did he cry? He realized he had been wasting his time, and the fact that he had not attained sagehood was truly pitiful. So, he burst into tears. Then, too, the Buddha had instructed him about his true mind, feeling a deep gratitude to the Buddha for that, he was moved to tears.

He placed his five limbs on the ground. Ananda then placed his hands, feet, and head on the ground. After he bowed deeply this way, he did not rise but knelt on both knees, put his palms together, and said to the Buddha. Ananda was crying and talking at the same time, like a child who goes out to play and gets beaten up, and runs crying home to his parents to tell how he’s been bullied. Now it is as if Ananda had taken a beating. What kind of beating? His original way of thinking disappointed him. He’s lost his basic frame of reference.

As he explains it, “Since I followed the Buddha and left home, what I have done is to rely on the Buddha’s awesome spirit.” Ananda was the Buddha’s attendant, doing such things as helping straighten the Buddha’s robe when he ascends the high seat. He left home, but as I mentioned before, one can leave the worldly home, the home of the three realms, and the home of affliction, and Ananda had left only the worldly home.

He still hadn’t left the other two. Now Ananda confesses that, although he has left home and bowed to the Buddha as his teacher, still hasn’t changed his way of thinking. What was that? He relied on the Buddha’s awesome virtue and spiritual penetrations. He thought, “As, I have the Buddha for a cousin. Who else in the whole world has the Buddha for a cousin?” He was extremely arrogant. He thought he had something both powerful and influential to depend on.