Preface
We take refuge in the Buddus, We take refuge in the Dharma. We take refuge in the Sarigha, We take refuge in the Taple Gem within ourselves Ties important sermon contains the essence of the Buddha's teach ing and, as foretold by Him, will be the first sutra to disappear in the Dharma ending age. It reveals the law of causality relating to both delusion and enlightenment and teaches the methods of practice and realization to destroy for ever the roots of birth and death. It aims at breaking up alaya, the store consciousness, whose three character-istics are: self-evidencing, perception and form, by means of the three meditative studies of noumenon which is immaterial, of phe-nomenon which is unreal and of the 'Mean' which is inclusive of both. and leads to the all-embracing Súrangama samadhi which is the gateway to Perfect Enlightenment and reveals the nature of the Tatha gata store of One Reality. In the practice of the Surangama samadhi to wipe out the store consciousness, we should know that the latter has been under delu-sion for a very long time and that it is very difficult to transmute it into the Great Mirror Wisdom, Hence the Buddha uses two of its charac-teristics, perception and form, to explain the falseness of both so that we can relinquish our attachment to them and break its first charac-teristic, sell-evidencing. The illusion of form which includes the body and mind made of the five aggregates and the visible world is tackled first by returning each of its aspects to where it arises to prove its unreality. Then the illusion of perception is wiped out by revealing its essence, or alaya, which like a second moon is also an illusory creation. Hence the Buddha says: 'When seeing (perceives) seeing. seeing is not seeing (for) seeing strays from seeing; seeing cannot reach it, which Han Shan ably interprets thus: 'When the absolute seeing perceives the essence of seeing, the former is not the latter which still differs from it; how then can false seeing reach that abso-lute seeing? Absolute seeing is likened to the real moon in the sky: the essence of seeing to a second moon seen by bad eyes: and false seeing to the moon's reflection in water. In other words, the true moon stands for basic Enlightenment; the second moon for alaya, or the essence of seeing which is close to the true moon; and the moon in water for perception, an illusion which is very far from the real moon. As to dlaya which is the unenlightened aspect of the self nature, we cannot lightly dismiss it as non-existent, and this is why the Buddha avoids mentioning it for, as He says in His gåtha: Old habits flow like torrents in Alaya's subtle consciousness. Since the real yet unreal can create confusion I have refrained from revealing it to you. In answer to Ananda's request for instruction on the three medi tative studies (samatha, samapatti and dhyana), the Buddha reveals the light of Surangama samadhi from the host position of the all-embracing One Mind in its state of passionless imperturbability. Readers should not regard this revelation as some kind of miracle which cannot be proved by science and which should be dismissed as nonsense. We have mentioned in our previous book, The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, that all serious students of the Dharma ex-perience this state of brightness as soon as they succeed in stilling their minds in the practice of dhyāna. This absolute Mind as revealed by the Buddha has three great characteristics: greatness of its essence or substance, called Dharmakaya; greatness of its attributes or manifestations, perfect in wisdom and mercy, called Sambhogakaya, and the greatness of its functions, perfectly converting all living beings to the right Path, called Nirmāņakaya. Instead of cognizing the True Mind, we cling to the illusory body and mind made of the five aggregates as an ego, with sense data in the surrounding world as its objective field of activity. This coarse attachment to ego and things (dharma) arises from discrimination and pertains to both the sixth and seventh consciousnesses. The subtle attachment to ego and Dharma is inborn for it arises from the seventh consciousness clinging to alaya's perception as an inner ego and its realization of sainthood as Dharma. Only after wiping out both dis-criminative and inborn attachment can we reach the source of the One Mind and attain Enlightenment. Hence the three meditative stud-ies which aim at destroying both coarse and subtle clingings. It is much easier to relinquish the discriminative clinging than the inborn attachment and few practisers succeed in overcoming the lat-ter; hence Han Shan says: 'This pass is the most difficult one to get through and only one or two percent of practisers can succeed in negotiating it'. (See The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, p. 58, Rider and Co.) Here is the great difference between the Buddha Dharma and the teachings of other religions in the Orient.
About The Author
Lu K'uan Yü was born in, Canton in 1898. His first Master was the Hutuktu of Sikang, an enlightened Greet Lama. His second Master was the Venerable Chan Master Hsu Yun the Dharma-successor of all five Ch'an sects of China
About the Book
Enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism consists in transmuting the mind into the Great Mirror Wisdom. And so the Sürangama Sutra points directly at the Mind which when stirred by the first thought creates the basic illusion of an ego and splits the Whole into subject and object. In consequence it is still a primary source for the Ch'an or Zen shcool. In this sutra the Buddha began by stripping Ananda of his attachment to the illusory body and mind before revealing the One Mind. To teach how this One Mind can be realised he asked twenty five Bodhisattvas to describe the different methods by which each had attained Enlightenment. Avalokiteśvara's method of turning inward the organ of hearing was judged the most suitable for mankind today. The Buddha disclosed the cause of transmigration through the six worlds and of the attainment of the four saintly planes, describing these ten regions in some detail. Finally he detailed and warned against clinging to the various mental states experienced when practising the Sürangama Samādhi. We in the West know of the Creation according to the Bible, but readers will now find in this sūtra how man and his world came into being as taught by the Buddha. as born in, His first Hutuktu of htened second enerable Yun the or of all of China. Lu K'uan Yü's translation from the Chinese of this important sūtra is based on Ch'an Master Han Shan's late sixteenth-century commentary, portions of which are incuried in the footnotes.
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