The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment

Harry Miller has studied Buddhist meditation for over 40 years. He was a student of the renowned Zen teacher, Chan Master Sheng Yen for 30 years. Mr. Miller edited the Chan Newsletter and has contributed articles and translations to Chan Magazine, the journal of the American branch of Dharma Drum Mountain in New York. He teaches meditation and philosophy at the Chan Meditation Center in Queens where he is also a board member. He holds a BA in French and English literature from Sarah Lawrence College, an MA in Chinese Literature and an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He recently translated Master Sheng Yen’s book ‘Right and Wrong Require A Gentle Approach’ from the Chinese.

Some years ago, I was on a retreat with Simon Child and he read a passage from The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment. Hearing this was an insightful moment, and I found it to be a very helpful teaching in that it leads to a way of orienting the mind so you do not have to be caught up in illusions about what you are experiencing in any given moment. As a wise guide to any form of meditation, this passage points the way to recognizing the subtle tricks of the mind. This is a profound explication of mindfulness – being aware or conscious of consciousness, with clarity and freedom, we do not have to be controlled by the actions and content of the mind.

From a Chan point of view, we try to see the direct nature of the mind, both things just as they are, and us just as we are, with no discrimination. This is Dong Shan’s “Just This” and Juzhi’s One-Finger Chan, or the moment when Shifu’s master yelled at him “Put Down.”

In The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, the Bodhisattva of Pure Wisdom asks the Buddha, “What are the differences in the actualization and attainment between all sentient beings, bodhisattvas, and the World Honored Tathagata?” The Buddha speaks about illusory projections of the mind that sentient beings make, and he says that since beginningless time they have a deludedly conceived “self ” and have never known the succession of rising and perishing thoughts. The Buddha goes on to say that when these processes are fully understood, the distinctions between sentient beings, bodhisattvas, and buddhas that the Bodhisattva of Pure Wisdom is asking about will no longer be valid. At the end of the chapter, the Buddha gives a teaching on how one should orient the mind and practice to come to know this true reality. The Buddha declares:

Virtuous man
All bodhisattvas and sentient beings in the Dharma Ending Age
Should at no time give rise to deluded thoughts!
Yet when their deluded minds arise, they should not extinguish them.
In the midst of deluded concepts, they should not add discrimination.
Amidst non-discrimination they should not distinguish true reality.
If sentient beings upon hearing this Dharma method,
Believe in, understand, accept, and uphold it and do not generate alarm and fear,
They are ‘in accordance with the nature of enlightenment.

The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment provides guidance for very advanced practitioners, but I believe that its teachings are relevant to the day-today lives of most of us ordinary sentient beings. The simplest Buddhist teaching can be shown to have enormous complexity and the most complex teachings can be shown to have relevance to what is here and in this moment. So, I will go through this passage line by line and look closely at the implications:

Virtuous man

I start by making a slight but necessary change. Many of the sutra passages begin with the phrase “Virtuous Man.” There are certainly cultural and historical reasons for this, but I choose to render it Virtuous Man or Woman. I don’t think the Buddha would object to this.

Then there is the issue of “virtuous.” What is meant by that? Ancient India had a caste system, determined by birth. The highest caste was the brahmins. The Buddha had many discussions and sometimes confrontations with brahmins who believed that they were assured of a happy life and a fortunate rebirth because of their caste. But the Buddha believed that a man or woman’s life was determined by the qualities of their actions, not the condition of their birth, so he said:

Who has cut off all fetters and is no more by anguish shaken. Who has overcome all ties, detached. He is the one I call a brahmin. Who has cut each strap and thong, the reins and bridle as well…Who does not flare up with anger, dutiful, virtuous, and humble…Who has laid aside the rod against all beings frail or bold. Who does not kill…Who leaves behind all human bonds and bonds of heaven…Whose destination is unknown to gods, to spirits, and to humans. An arahant with taints destroyed. He is the one I call a brahmin.

By invoking the word “virtuous” the Buddha is indicating that his words will be heard and appreciated by someone on the bodhisattva path. For us ordinary practitioners, being virtuous just means being sincere and having a willing heart. We may not have cut off all fetters and be immune to anguish, but we recognize the problem of suffering and the issues involved in understanding our minds.

So, line by line:

All bodhisattvas and sentient beings in the Dharma Ending Age Should at no time give rise to deluded thoughts!

Bodhisattva, many of us know, refers to a being who has the ability to attain Buddhahood but has postponed its final attainment in order to remain in the world to help sentient beings. And The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment is addressed to bodhisattvas of the highest achievement and renown such as Manjusri, Samantabhadra, and Maitreya. These are beings who are very close to Buddhahood, yet they are asking the Buddha important questions about proper understanding and the proper way to practice.

However, there is a broader, more down-to-earth understanding of bodhisattva, which can include anyone sincerely on the path, or anyone you encounter, even and sometimes especially those who give us a hard time. To reinforce this point, the Buddha directly addresses bodhisattvas as well as ordinary sentient beings, so it is clear that the message is for everyone, that there really is no distinction to be made among sentient beings. The sutra actually states, 

In Absolute Reality, there are indeed no bodhisattvas or sentient beings. Why? Because bodhisattvas and sentient beings are illusory projections. When illusory projections are extinguished, there exists no one who attains or actualizes…Because sentient beings are confused they are unable to eliminate illusory projections.

There is a relatively simple explanation of why there are really no bodhisattvas or sentient beings: we tend to label, characterize, and judge everyone, including ourselves. Those labels, characterizations, and judgements are superficial and impermanent, yet we hold on to them as if they were absolute truth. A more profound understanding lies in seeing through the mechanism of desire, cause and effect that produces these illusory projections that we make and the states of mind we cling to. To penetrate this thoroughly is to see the nature of the mind itself.

So, the purport of the sutra is, among other things, to help us eliminate illusory projections and perceptions. Our whole lives have been conditioned by this illusory mental activity. Our projections and perceptions are seductive and give us an unreliable sense of “who we are.” Recognizing that unreliability and its cause is not easy.

The sutra says that “at no time give rise to deluded thoughts.” Literally it says “at all times dwell such that you do not give rise to deluded thoughts.” What would it be like to dwell without deluded thoughts? What are deluded thoughts? Generally, they are additions or subtractions and spin offs from what the mind is actually experiencing. There are many levels to deluded thoughts. Superficially, a thing is just a thing. If you have a watch, that’s what you have. But you may think it’s expensive or cheap, better or worse than your friend’s. You may regret having bought it or are very proud of your ownership. The delusions, illusions, or confusion inherent in such thinking are based on an original misapprehension – that it is “my” watch. Before you bought it, it belonged to the store or someone else. Once you’ve purchased it, the watch itself hasn’t essentially changed, but your perception of your relationship to it has. That relationship is impermanent, incomplete, and conditional, and exists only in the mind. Based on this original false premise, we create and proliferate thoughts in an almost endless cavalcade, and believe that what we perceive and think is reality itself. In the example of the watch, one thought links to another so your thoughts are not really “watch-related.” The watch itself was left out of your thoughts a long time ago. What is left are only self-engendered, ever-changing thoughts and feelings.

This kind of prapanca – the continual percolation and proliferation of thoughts – not only applies to objects, but to the environment, other people, ideas, relationships, and even your thoughts about your thoughts. If you get upset about something, it’s quite possible that you will get upset about getting upset. Ultimately, deluded thoughts derive from the illusory sense of self, others, sentient beings, and an entire lifespan - concepts that we take as absolutely real, despite the fact that our perceptions of them are incomplete and subject to moment to moment change. We are caught in the basic idea that we and what we perceive is the “subject” and everything outside of that is the “other.”

There is a passage in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn where Huck comes into a small town on the Mississippi that has been embroiled in a bitter and bloody feud for years. Huck tries to find out what caused the feud, but nobody remembers who started it or for what reason they’re fighting. Thinking and perception have become entirely divorced from the causes that first engendered them. Our minds engage in this kind of behavior all the time, on both gross and subtle levels.

To dwell without deluded thoughts would be quite an accomplishment. The instruction to refrain from deluded thinking should not be surprising to anyone who has done even a little meditation. This instruction should be all we need, so why doesn’t the sutra just stop here? What more is there to say? The next line is: 

Yet when their deluded minds arise, they should not extinguish them.

The sutra doesn’t stop at the previous line, because Buddhadharma recognizes how difficult it is to perceive deluded thinking and tame the mind.

This next line begins to deal with that difficulty. “Yet when their deluded minds arise, they should not extinguish them.” This line can be divided into two parts. The first refers to the deluded mind arising: When we begin to practice, we are exhorted to strive diligently, to practice hard, to tame the monkey mind. We understand that our mind will wander away again and again, and we must make a continual and unrelenting effort to bring it back to the method. That seems to be Shenxiu’s intent in The Platform Sutra when he wrote this gatha (poem):

Our body is the bodhi tree
Our mind is a mirror bright
Carefully we wipe them hour by hour
And let no dust alight.

(Price & Wong tran.)

Diligent striving is also the concern of The Four Noble Exertions. These are four of the 37 Aids to Enlightenment (explained in Master Shengyen’s Things Pertaining to Bodhi), which are found in both Theravadin and Mahayana teaching. After one has calmed the mind using the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the instruction is:

To keep unwholesome states not yet arisen from arising
To cease unwholesome states already arisen
To give rise to wholesome states not yet arisen
To continue wholesome states already arisen

These are straightforward instructions that concern right and wrong expressions of body, speech and mind. In this way, we keep the defilements (dust) off the mirror and we keep the mirror bright and shiny. Of course, we distinguish – dualistically – wholesome from unwholesome.

However, the next part of the line from the sutra is striking: “yet do not extinguish the deluded thoughts.” How can this be? Letting deluded thoughts stay undisturbed in the mind would almost seem like letting a thief have the run of your house. Imagine all the damage that could be done! But that would only happen if you attached to the thoughts and that is discouraged by implication in the first line, “do not give rise to deluded thoughts.”

It is the wisdom of the sutra to acknowledge that the mind does not follow our wishes. Whether or not we’d like deluded thoughts to arise, they will arise. One Japanese master compared the mind to the stomach. Just as the stomach secretes gastric juices, the mind secretes thoughts. It is quite natural. The problems arise when the thoughts are reified, attached to, identified with, taken as self, and made into a story or narrative. That is when we start seeing flowers growing in the sky – one of the metaphors for illusion that The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment brings to our attention.

However, if thoughts, deluded or otherwise, are left alone and observed mindfully, they are self-liberating. That is, if left alone, they naturally extinguish of their own accord. That is because what generated the thought is now in the past. Causes and conditions have changed and what originally initiated the thought is no longer salient or important. The illusion of continuation can only be reinforced by a new, deluded thought. Without the support of subsequent thoughts, a thought, once orphaned and unnourished, will just fade away.

Thus, Hui Neng, who was destined to be The Sixth Patriarch, answered Shenxiu’s poem with a rebuttal:

There is no bodhi tree
Nor stand of mirror bright
Since all is void,
Where can dust alight?

(Price & Wong tran.)

All of the givens in Shenxiu’s poem have been taken away. There is no mind, no body. There is nothing to generate thoughts and nowhere that they are contained. Thistranslation says all is void, but the literal Chinese isthat Buddhanature is always pure and clean, which amountsto much the same thing.

Thus, there is no need to extinguish deluded thoughts because there is nothing to extinguish.

The next line reads:

In the midst of deluded concepts, they (practitioners) should not add discrimination.

In the last line we learned not to extinguish deluded thoughts. They should have gone away by now, right? Not exactly. Deluded thoughts have a way of seeping in through the slightest hole or crack.

At this point it might be in order to explain the three Chinese words that are used for mental activity in this passage.

In the line that introduced “deluded thoughts,” the Chinese word is nian, which does mean thought, asin one thought after another. In the line above, what is translated as “concepts” is xin in Chinese, literally heart/mind. This can also be interpreted as “states of mind.” In the next line (which we haven’t spoken about yet) the Chinese word is xiang and this can be translated as thinking or perceiving. The sutra covers every kind of mental activity, so that emotions, moods, symbols, etc. are all included. In all cases, when “deluded” is used, the Chinese word is wang, meaning deluded or illusory.

At this point in the sutra now, deluded concepts are still present. Despite our best efforts, it is nonetheless the case that mental activity transpires in the mind, so that it is in a particular state – happy, sad, angry, desirous. Now what?

Even though a particular state of mind has arisen, the understanding here is that the practitioner is nonetheless mindful and aware of that state. Why not simply let it go and not attend to the mind state? Possibly that would work, but now there is more activity and the allure and seductiveness of the mind state has risen to the point where there is temptation. What kind of temptation? It is the temptation to add a sense or concept of “I,” to insert one’s own viewpoint. The translation says “add discrimination,” but it could also mean to “add understanding or knowledge,” that is, to further conceptualize.

How would this work in real life? Let’s say you are at a meeting at work and have given a presentation and a colleague is disparaging your work, unfairly, as you perceive. Your state of mind is anger. Here many of us would say, “I’m angry,” or “you’ve made me angry.” However, a more skillful response or acknowledgement, is that “anger has arisen in me.” “I’m not anger itself.” There are many more examples of how you could add discrimination, such as giving your opinion when it’s not called for or acting out of lust or power when it’s not appropriate.

If you were by yourself and meditating, any kind of state of mind might arise. There might be a temptation to analyze rather than just witness it. You might make some clever observations about the state of mind and relate it to other experiences that you’ve had and you might feel very proud of yourself, or if you found that your state of mind escalated and you couldn’t control it, you might become angry at yourself.

The mind can move from simple thoughts to subtle and complex states of mind. Single thoughts may be more noticeable, but subtler states are harder to detect because they can be fainter and yet more pervasive. They endure longer than single thoughts. States of minds are a kind of mental environment where it is easy to add observations, ideas, make determinations and judgements.

The sutra alerts us to be aware of these subtle states.

Amidst non-discrimination they should not distinguish true reality.

This is the last and most subtle line of the core teaching about illusory states of mind. It is understood that you are following the earlier instructions and you are aware of concepts and states of mind and you are not adding discrimination. I wouldn’t exactly call this a state of nondiscrimination, as stated in the translation, but the effort not to discriminate is being made. What can be left in the mind now, if you are not attaching to thoughts and they are self-extinguishing and you’re not adding judgement to any given state of mind? There is still discrimination itself, still consciousness and awareness, still subject and object. There is still dualism – this is real, this is not. I am here, you are there. This is a very subtle level, very strong and pervasive, at the deepest, uttermost core of our conditioning. Shifu makes an analogy comparing this most subtle state to someone looking out of a window. Everything outside is perceived clearly, but there is still a window. At the last stage, the window is completely removed. This is a state beyond conceptions and illusions, so the sutra states: If you say there is or is not enlightenment, then you’re wrong. Eradicate labeling and attachment. Remember, the sutra says that “ ‘attaining’ illumination and realization is a hindrance. Thus, a great bodhisattva is constantly in realization without abidance, where the illumination and the illuminator simultaneously become quiescent and vanish… The teachings of the sutras are like the finger that points to the moon. When one sees the moon, one realizes that the finger is not the moon.” We are cautioned not to make a too literal interpretation of the teachings.

If sentient beings upon hearing this Dharma method,
Believe in, understand, accept, and uphold it and do not generate alarm and fear,
They are ‘in accordance with the nature of enlightenment.’

These last three lines contextualize all the lines that have come before. They stand back from these intense instructions of how the mind works and give some perspective about how this teaching should be encountered and understood and what its implications are.

Cutting to the chase, so to speak, diving into the heart of the matter, the sutra shakes the listener into waking up to what has been presented. So, when you hear this Dharma door (that is a direct teaching by the Buddha that when followed can lead to liberation), how do you react? If somehow you are struck or moved by this teaching, if it makes sense and seems like it could be explored, then perhaps you believe it, you investigate it to the point where you understand it, realize the implications of that understanding, and you accept it. You then try to integrate it into your life, and seek to become more familiar with it. Finally, you will try to uphold it – master the sutra so that you can explain it to other people. That’s one reaction.

Another reaction is that you find the whole thing unsettling. Nonduality? That’s too much for me. Give up my thoughts and prejudices, my likes and dislikes? I would lose my identity. I wouldn’t recognize myself. It’s really too difficult to understand.

By the way, I don’t think that this second reaction is unreasonable. You really must have the right set of causes and consequences, the proper interest, mindset and timing before you can give a method like this the proper attention. And if it is unacceptable today, that doesn’t mean that it will be unacceptable tomorrow.

But to someone who does take up the challenge, if you will, then the sutra says that when you follow these teachings and integrate them into your mind and life, then you will comport yourself in such a way that you are in accord with the awakened mind. 

The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment explains that it provides both gradual and sudden teachings to adapt to the needs of sentient beings. In practice, we may find ourselves practicing, partially practicing, and sometimes forgetting to practice at all. We may find that sometimes the sutra makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. We may try and give up, try, and give up, two steps forward, one step backwards. This is a very natural process. The sutra calls this teaching a Dharma door. We each have to find our own door.

Bibliography

Complete Enlightenment: Translation and Commentary on The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment, by Ch’an Master Sheng-yen, Shambhala, Boston and London, 1999.