English
Anauda, the first is that which results from (ignorance about) the ever present root of life and death, which causes 3-ou and all beings to look on your conditioned mind as your true Nature (or as possessing an independent Nature). The second is (ignorance about) the true basis of the pure form of Nirvana, which o-enerates in you that subtle form of inward knowledge^ which o-ives you the power of originating the influences that, in the end, lead you away from a sense of this subtle essence, so that though to your last day you live and act by it, yet you know it not, and pass away into the different forms of perishable Being to which the power of error subjects you. 51. " Ananda, you now desire to know the way of Samadhi, with a view to emerge from the sea of life and death. I ask you, therefore — meantime, Tathagata, stretching out his golden- coloured arm, bent together his five fingers, and said : Do you see me doing this, Ananda ? Yes, indeed, Ananda replied ; I see you. What do you see, said Buddha? I see, Ananda replied, Tathagata raising his arm, bending his fingers into the form of a shining fist, dazzling alike my mind and eye, Buddha said : Now, what is the instrument by which you see all this ? Ananda said : I and all here present see this by the use of our eyes. 52. "Buddha addressed Ananda: Answer me truthfully ! You say that as Tathagata thus doubles his fingers together and makes a shining fist of them, that your mind and eyes are dazzled by the brilliancy of the same ; but if it is your eyes which see the fist, of what good (or account) is the mind (heart) which you say my fist dazzles? Ananda replied : Tathagata seems now to inquire as to the particular locality in which this mind of which I speak resides ; and yet it is by means of this mind that I, of whom you inquire, am able to investigate the question on wliich we are speaking. I take it, therefore, that this mind is the power by which I investigate. ' This knowledge (sliih tsing) is explained in tlic commentary by to-na. This may probably be the Sanscrit '"danya," denoting the subtle character of the knowledge in question ('danyil, a coriander seed). SCRIPTURES FROM THE CHINESE. 303 53. " Buddha replied : No, no, Ananda, this is not your mind. Ananda, in an agitated manner, quickly leaving his seat, with raised hands stood upright before Buddha and said: If this is not my mind,i tell me what is its name ? Buddha answei'ed: This is but the perception of vain and false qualities, which, under the guise of your true nature, has from the first deceived you, and caused you to lose your original permanent (soul), and involved you in the nexus of the metempsychosis. 54. " Ananda addressed Buddha again and said : World- honoured one ! I am the favourite cousin of Buddha, and because my heart was moved with affection to your person, I left my home and became a disciple. My sole desire was to minister to Tathagata, and to the utmost bounds of the innumerable earths, to render service to all the Buddhas ; my further hope was to arrive at supreme knowledge, making every effort to practise without exception the most arduous duties of my religious pro- fession. All this was the inward purpose of my heart ; and to this same source also I trace every disobedient act, and every evil thought against religion ; but if these efforts and intentions do not result from the heart, then I take it I have no heart at all, and am just the same as the different kinds of inanimate earths and trees — for by removing this capability of knowledge, you do in fact make its existence impossible. Explain, then, I pray, this paradox of ' this not being my heart.' I deeply reverence and venerate your presence ; and with all this great congregation am heartily desirous to have my doubts removed, by hearing that which we do not understand explained. 55. "At this time the world-honoured one began his explana- tion to Ananda and the rest of the congregation, desiring to excite in them a consciousness of that mind which springs not from any earthly source. Sitting on his lion throne, thei'efore, he touched the top of Ananda's head and spoke thus : Tathagata ever says, every pheenomenon that presents itself to our know- ledge is but the manifestation of Mind. The entire theory of the causes of production throughout the infinite worlds is simply the result of mind, wdiich is the true substratum of all, Ananda, if all the varieties of ' being' in the collection of woi'lds, down to ^ The original word throughout this section might be translated " heart"; but this word is so ambiguous, I take it, that the word corre- sponds to the Sanscrit "atmau" (self). 304 A CATENA OF BUDDHIST the single shrub, and the leaf, or the fibre of the plant, tracing all these to their ultimate elements — ifall th ese have a distinct and substantial nature of their own (as you say) — how much more ought the pure, excellent, and cfiulgent mind, which is the basis of all knowledge, to have attributed to it its own essential and substantial existence. 56. " If, then, you examine this question, and still prefer to call the discriminating and inquiring mind by the name of Heart, you must at any rate distinguish it from the power that apprehends the various phaBuomena connected with the mere senses, and allow this a distinct nature. Thus, whilst you now hear me declaring the law, it is because of the sounds you hear there is a discriminating process within you ; yet, after all sounds have disappeared, there still continues a process of thought within, in which the memory acts as a principal element, so that there is a mind acting as it were on the mere shadows of things. 57. "I do not forbid you to hold your own opinion on the question of this discriminative faculty, but I only ask you to search out the minutest elements of the question itself. If, after vou have removed the immediate cause of sensation, there is still a discriminative power in the faculty of which we speak, then that is the true mind which you justly designate as yours ; but if the discriminative power ceases to existafter the immediate cause which called it into exercise is removed, then this power is only a shadowy idea, dependent entii-ely on the presence of external phjenomena ; and therefore, when these are removed, the mind (as you regard it) becomes, as it were, a hair of the tortoise or the horn of the hare. So, then, the 'body of the law,'i as it is called, would be the same as something which does not exist ; and who then would strive after emancipation ? 58. " At this Ananda and all the congregation sat silently lost in thoufrht. Buddha then addressed Ananda thus : Searchers after truth generally, although they may attain to the nine pre- vious steps, seldom attain to the last deliverance found in the con- dition of a Rabat, and all this because they do not shake ofi" the mistaken notion that this perishable and uncertain process of thought (which depends entirely on accidents) is true and real. And so it is that you, though you are one of the foremost of the 1 Dharmakaya. Ttie remark in the text proves that the " dharnia- kvaya" was considered as a substantial existence. SCRIPTURES FROM THE CHINESE. 305 Sravakas, have yet failed to attain to any degree of superior excellence. 59. " A.nanda, having heard this, again melted to tears, pros- trated himself on the groand, and, with his hands joined whilst thus extended on the earth, addressed Buddha : From the time when my heart first yearned after Buddha, to become his dis- ciple, relying on his spiritual power, never did it suggest itself to me that there was any obstacle in the way of my becoming like Buddha himself, or arriving at Samadhi, little did I then know of the disagreement between ' body and mind' ; so that, although I had externally become a disciple, yet my heart had by no means entered on the limits of true wisdom — ^just like a child, helplessly taken from its father. Now, then, I also know that although I am accounted as one of the Sravakas, yet if I have made no due preparation, I am just as one who has never heard the law — ^just as a man who says he has eaten, but is never able to satisfy himself. World honoured one ! I and the others, in consideration of the difficulties which beset us, humbly request Tathagata to explain and simplify the question of the true heart, and exhibit to us the eye of Reason. 60.