Issue 305

Mental dimness turns into dull emptiness. This emptiness, in the dimness, unites with darkness to become form. Stimulated by false thinking, the form takes the shape of a body. As causal conditions come together there are perpetual internal disturbances which tend to gallop outside. Such inner disturbances are often mistaken for the nature of mind. The primary misconception about the mind and body is the false view that the mind dwells in the physical body. You do not know that the physical body, as well as the mountains, the rivers, empty space, and the great earth are all within the wonderful bright true mind.

“Mental dimness turns into dull emptiness.” I speak to you about the Dharma of “form and mind.” What does “form” mean? Let me tell you now! This concept of form is “obscured,” and obscured is a manifestation of darkness; “ignorance,” ignorance is also not illuminated, it is very dark. What is very dark? This emptiness. It is due to the initial thought of ignorance, here referred to as “mental dimness,” which obscures True Emptiness and changes it into dull emptiness. “This emptiness, in the dimness, unites with darkness to become form.” This black color exists; this counts as a ‘blackness’. Within the emptiness and ignorance, the darkness binds together to become form.

Stimulated by false thinking, the form takes the shape of a body.” Gathered together, there is form and appearance. Form is mixed with false thinking. From false thinking and this form, a body is materialized.

The previous text states that ‘mental dimness turns into dull emptiness’, and mental dimness is this ignorance. Although this ignorance is called ignorance, it is something you cannot see, so it is equivalent to being completely empty! Within this emptiness and ignorance, ‘this emptiness, in the dimness, unites with darkness to become form,’ leading to the emergence of a form and appearance, which is the reasoning behind ‘ignorance conditions actions’.

‘Stimulated by false thinking’; since a form and appearance have risen, this form gives rise to a kind of delusion. What is this delusion? It is that ‘consciousness’. This is also the beginning of the doctrine of the Twelve Causal Conditions: Ignorance conditions activity, activity conditions consciousness, and consciousness conditions name and form. False thinking is the consciousness, and when it takes shape as the body, that is the name and form. We have bodies because our false thinking creates them. This is the principle of the Twelve Causal Conditions.

“As causal conditions come together there are perpetual internal disturbances which tend to gallop outside.” Many kinds of conditions are brought together to form the body and mind. At the time of this external movement you can say that the six entrances, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, come into being. Name and form condition the six entrances, and the six entrances condition contact. The tendency to gallop outside is a rudimentary awareness of contact, such as a small child has. In this instance it refers to the sensory organs that draw outside sense data. The contact and the false-thinking mind go outside and race back and forth at a gallop randomly all over the place because one has no genuine wisdom. One doesn’t know where to run to; one can’t tell north, south, east, and west from one another. This is disorder and disturbance, and “Such inner disturbances are often mistaken for the nature of mind.” You think this lack of clarity is the nature of your mind.

Since you lack clarity as if you had lost it – lost your own genuine perfect wonderful bright mind, the precious light of your wonderful nature. But it is not a true loss; your true nature only seems to be lost, because you take the mark of disorder and disturbance to be the nature of your mind, the mind which has perfect transparency and bright comprehension, and thus you are disordered and disturbed.

You have the confusion of attachment and you lack enlightenment. “The primary misconception about the mind and body is the false view that the mind dwells in the physical body.” You think that your true mind is inside the physical body. This is the first confusion.

Most people think the mind is within the body. This is an extremely great mistake. It is outside our body? It is not outside either. But as I say, it is also not the case that our mind is in our body. It is that we people are within the true mind.

So the Sutra says, “You do not know that the physical body, as well as the mountains, the rivers, empty space, and the great earth are all within the wonderful bright true mind.” All these various kinds of things are within your fundamental wonderful bright true mind. They are not outside. So you should know that our mind encompasses empty space and the ten thousand things. It is not that empty space and the ten thousand things contain us. If you understand this doctrine you have not lost your true nature and your true mind!

It is like ignoring hundreds of thousands of clear pure seas and taking notice of only a single bubble, seeing it as the entire ocean, as the whole expanse of great and small seas.

“What is it like? I’ll give you an analogy. “It is like ignoring hundreds of thousands of clear pure seas and taking notice of only a single bubble.” It’s like you don’t want a hundred or a thousand of pure seas; you give them up and only recognize one bubble of water on the surface of all those great seas.

You say, “This bubble is the great sea.” Isn’t this a grave mistake? The situation is the same with the mind in our body that Ananda is speaking of. That mind within our body is as small as a bubble on the sea. The mind beyond the body, our true mind, is as vast as hundreds of thousands of great seas. You reject the hundreds of thousands of great seas; you don’t recognize them; you don’t know they are seas. You take an infinitesimal bubble to be the sea.

In the same way, the pure nature and bright substance of your permanently dwelling true mind, the substance of the Dharma nature, pervades the Dharma realm. It is everywhere, and it is our true mind. But you don’t realize it is your true mind; you think that what is in your body is your mind. That is like seeing one miniscule bubble as the entire ocean, as the whole expanse of great and small seas. This is the same mistake as to take that small mind in your body to be your true mind. Your true mind is not inside, and it is not outside. All of you are complete with it, but you don’t recognize it. You don’t recognize your own true mind!

You people are doubly deluded among the deluded. Such inversion does not differ from that caused by my lowered hand. The Thus Come One says you are most pitiable!

The character 「差」 is pronounced like「疵」(Ci)

“You people are doubly deluded among the deluded.” You people who have not accomplished the fruition or obtained the state of no outflows are confused within confusion. Such inversion does not differ from that caused by my lowered hand. When I lowered my hand, you said that it was upside-down. When I raised it, you said it was right-side-up. In fact, there was no upside-down or right-side-up to the hand. There is no upside-down or right-side-up, but you set up names and call it ‘upside-down’ or ‘right-side-up.’ This is confusion within confusion. Originally there was no problem, and you created a problem. Originally there wasn’t all this trouble, and you have gone looking for trouble. That is what is meant by someone being doubly deluded among the deluded.

“The Thus Come One says you are most pitiable.” The Buddha looks upon such doubly confused people with sympathy and pity. People who pile confusion upon confusion are sad indeed. What kind of person is this? It’s someone who’s obsessed to the point of doubling. They weren’t obsessed to begin with, but then they find themselves obsessed; finding one obsession is alright, but they become even more obsessed, doubling or tripling their obsession – that’s what’s called “someone obsessed to the point of doubling.” Why is it “someone obsessed to the point of doubling”? You see, it’s the same confusion which mistakes a single bubble for the great seas; there’s no difference. The saying of ‘the whole expanse of great and small seas’: the character 「瀛」means a great sea; the character 「渤」means it’s right next to the sea, in that small body of water, not that big.

Having received the Buddha’s compassionate rescue and profound instruction, Ananda’s tears fell, and he folded his hands and said to the Buddha, “I have heard these wonderful sounds of the Buddha and have realized that the wonderful bright mind is fundamentally perfect; it is the eternally dwelling mind-ground. But now in awakening to the Dharma-sounds that the Buddha is speaking, it is my conditioned mind which I use to contemplate them reverently. Having just obtained the mind, I do not acknowledge that it is the fundamental mind-ground.

So the Sutra says, having received the Buddha’s compassionate rescue and profound instruction, as the beginning of the Sutra relates, Ananda fell into the hands of people of an external path and was in grave danger, since he was on the verge of destroying the precept-substance. The Buddha instructed Manjushri Bodhisattva to use the Shurangama Mantra to rescue Ananda and bring him back, and the Buddha then instructed him repeatedly, one doesn’t know how many times.