The Shurangama Sutra with Commentary by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
Buddhist Lecture Hall, San Francisco, 1968
The Master:
...It is just when there is the false that the true is not separate from
it. When there is the true, the false is still there. It is not absent. It is
just like a hand, which has a back and a palm: although the palm and the back
are two, they are both right there; all you have to do is flip your hand over.
It is the same with the characteristics which are subject to production and
extinction and the nature which is not subject to production and extinction;
these two are also one. Just as affliction is Bodhi, and birth and death are
nirvana; it is the same kind of principle.
People who study the Buddhadharma should certainly investigate the
Shurangama Sutra and gain a thorough understanding of it. The
Shurangama Sutra is for bringing forth great wisdom. If you want to have
right knowledge and right views and open great wisdom, you should certainly
understand the Shurangama Sutra. The
Shurangama Sutra breaks
up the deviant and reveals the proper. It smashes all the heavenly demons and
those of externalist sects and reveals the innate human capacity for right
knowledge and right views.
But when the Buddhadharma is just about to become
extinct, the very first sutra to vanish will be the
Shurangama Sutra.
So if we wish to protect and maintain the proper dharma, we should investigate
the Shurangama Sutra, come to understand the
Shurangama Sutra,
and protect the Shurangama Sutra. When the Buddhadharma is about to
become extinct, weird demons and strange ghosts will come in the world, people
with deviant knowledge and deviant views. They will be wise to the ways of the
world and will be endowed with powers of debate and keen intelligence. They will
argue that the Shurangama Sutra is spurious - inauthentic - and will
tell people not to believe it.
Why will they say the Shurangama Sutra is spurious?
Because the Shurangama Sutra tells about all their faults. It discusses
their kinds of deviant knowledge and deviant views. If the
Shurangama Sutra
remains in the world, no one will believe their deviant views. If there is
no Shurangama Sutra, then their deviant knowledge and deviant views
will succeed in confusing people. So they argue that the
Shurangama Sutra
is spurious. This is the appearance of a demon-king. Those who study the
Buddhadharma should be particularly attentive to this point. They should be
particularly careful not to be turned around by the deviant knowledge and
deviant views of that demon-king. Do not allow him to change your thoughts and
opinions.
Does anyone have an opinion?
Student: How does the
Lankavatara Sutra
compare to the Shurangama Sutra?
The Master: The
Lankavatara Sutra
discusses the doctrine of the Chan school. It is different from the
Shurangama Sutra. The Patriarch Bodhidharma used the
Lankavatara Sutra
as a basis when he transmitted the Chan school to China. The
Shurangama
Sutra represents the genuine wisdom of the entirety of Buddhism.
Student: Is it possible for a Bodhisattva to appear
in the form of a teacher of an externalist sect?
The Master: All dharmas are the Buddhadharma. None
can be obtained. Do not be attached. If you are attached, it is not Buddhadharma.
If you are not attached, it is the Buddhadharma. If you are attached, it is
demonic dharma.
Student: Another translation of the
Shurangama
Sutra has been published. Is it basically correct? If not, what would you
suggest that English-speaking people read?
The Master: ...As for the other translation you
mention, it is correct in some places and incorrect in many other places. And it
is not at all in accord with the basic intent of the sutra. For instance, the
translator says that Westerners wouldn’t like the Shurangama Mantra and that
they would not study the mantra. That is a complete mistake. He omits the mantra
from his translation.
But if there hadn’t been any Shurangama Mantra in the
Shurangama Sutra,
then basically there wouldn’t have been any reason to speak the sutra. The
importance of the Shurangama Sutra is just to praise the Shurangama
Mantra. The translator took it upon himself to dispense with the mantra. That is
in total discord with the purport of the Buddha’s explanation of the
Shurangama Sutra.
Student: I have heard it said about the
Lotus Sutra that the
Buddha spoke all the other sutras of the other periods, all the other teachings,
only as expedient means, and that they were taught only to enable his disciples
to know the Lotus Sutra, and that in the Dharma-ending Age all other
sutras would lose their power. Only the Lotus Sutra would have real
power.
The Master: Not bad. All sutras were spoken for the
sake of the Lotus Sutra. But the
Lotus Sutra was spoken in
order to cause living beings to become Buddhas. The
Shurangama Sutra is
for opening wisdom. The Lotus Sutra is for realizing Buddhahood. The
Shurangama Sutra is for breaking through all the heavenly demons and
externalist sects. It can also be said that it is for the sake of the
Lotus
Sutra that the Shurangama Sutra breaks through all the heavenly
demons and externalist sects - that it is to cause people to cultivate the
Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra. One studies the
Dharma Flower
and cultivates the doors of practice explained in it in order to realize
Buddhahood.
However, at the very last, when the dharma is about to become extinct, it is not
the Lotus Sutra that will remain alive in the world; it will be the
Amitabha Sutra. In the end, when the Buddhadharma becomes extinct, only the
Amitabha Sutra will remain, and after it remains in the world for one
hundred years it too will vanish. Then only the one sentence, the great
six-syllable name Na Mwo A Mi Two Fwo (Namo Amitabha Buddha) will
remain.