Platform Sūtra of 6th Patriarch 六祖壇經 Part 3
Wong Weng Hon
- 不識本心,學法無益. 若識自本心, 見自本性, 即名丈夫,天人師,佛.
Without knowing your original mind, learning the Dharma is useless. If one knows one’s own original mind, and knows one’s original nature, one becomes a great tamer, a teacher of devas and human beings and an enlightened One.
Not only Buddhist study is useless but also all esoteric religions are useless if a believer does not know his true original Self. The true original Self is the Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhātu). Every sentient being or every human being is innately or potentially a Buddha. In short, everyone of us is intrinsically supreme or perfect. If one knows the true nature of one’s own mind and intuitively discerns one’s own true self-nature, one becomes a Buddha (an Enlightened One). A Buddha is a tamer, a teacher of devas and human beings, and an enlightened One. A Buddha is adept at appeasing the volitional activities of the sentient beings. He is a skillful teacher who can instruct and train the devas in the heavenly world and the human beings on earth. The enlightened One is a Tathāgata. He is the liberated one who has developed the perfection of wisdom. The perfection of wisdom is arisen from the penetrative apprehension of the Emptiness (Śūnyatā) of the five aggregates.
- 不思善, 不思惡, 正與麽時, 那個是明上座本來面目?
Not to be attached to the good and averse towards the evil, at that moment of consciousness, what is that original face of your supreme master ?
If one is not attached (取) to likes and not averse (舍) towards the dislikes, he is said to have developed the power of equanimity (平等心upekkhā) or non-discriminative wisdom(無分別智). Non-discriminative wisdom is non-dual. Non-dual wisdom is the perfection of perfection (prajñāpāramitā般若波羅蜜多). At that moment of equanimity (upekkhā), the Dharma eye (法眼) is arisen and the Buddha-mind (佛心) directs and empowers all the activities of senses without being defiled by cankers or defilements (染垢). The Buddha-mind is the original Face (本來面目) or the innate great perfection of all sentient beings. It is the True Self (真我) eliminating the false self (假我). It is the pure mental state of non-grasping (不執) upon the five aggregates (五蘊).
- 爲是二法,不是佛法. 佛法是不二之法.
The conditioned phenomena are dualistic. It is not the Buddhadharma. Buddhadharma is the doctrine of Non-duality.
When a sentient being or an ordinary worldling perceives the multiplicity (萬物) of all phenomena of the empirical world, he or she perceives the phenomenal world dualistically or discriminatively. He or she discriminates dualistically every phenomenon into two discrete entities (獨存個體). There is the perception of duality between the perceiver(能見) and the perceived (所見) or the subject and the object. This dualistic worldview is not the right view according to Buddha’s revelation. The ultimate Truth is that the perceiver and the perceived are dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality (advaita). All esoteric religions including the religions of Monotheism expound this Truth of Unity or Non-duality.
Buddha’s teaching is non-dualism (advaita不二). Non-dualism is dependently co-arisen unity (緣起一相). All phenomena in the empirical world exist interdependently and inter-relatedly in one infinite unity(一真法界). The diversifying contigent beings (衆緣) in the cosmos are conglomerated into a Unity forming an infinite cosmos. This can be illustrated metaphorically by utilizing the analogy of the waves and the ocean. The waves are contained by the borderless ocean and the borderless ocean contains all the waves. The ocean and the waves are never separate. The Ocean and the waves are non-dualistic. They are depicted as many in One and One in many(一切即一;一即一切) by religious masters. This communal esoteric Truth is visioned by all Seers or Gnostics (覺者) of esoteric religions. There is only one and only Truth of Unity or Non-duality. There is no second Truth. Any other phenomena other than this absolute essence of the eternal Unity are illusions or conceptual fictions (戲論).
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