Summary

1.     Mahāmati, by the buddha's power, pays homage to the Buddha and declaring the world to be neither existent nor non-existent he declares the same with regards to the Buddha's wisdom & compassion, the self of beings or things, and the dwelling of the Buddha in nirvana or not in nirvana: beholding in this non-arising way is non-attached dwelling.

2.     Mahāmati introduces himself and after requesting to ask questions, the Buddha accepts: 

a.     Mahāmati asks generally about states of mind, phenomena, types of designations or terms related to persons, and various teachings. He asks what they are, how they arise or cease, how they are known, who knows of them, and why and how they are taught. He also asks various other questions of miscellaneous trivia.

b.     The Buddha replies that he shall reveal the answer as buddhas of the past did with truths that transcend words.

3.     The Buddha declares that any statement about any of the matters on which he was questioned is a statement about the negation of that matter (e.g. a statement about birth is about no birth) (RP notes, "They are nothing more than arbitrary designations behind which nothing is real."): this is what bodhisattvas should study.

4.     Mahāmati asks how various forms of consciousness arise, persist, and cease:

a.     The Buddha replies that they arise, persist and cease as a continuity or as a characteristic (underlying and surface: as ocean and waves). They also have an unfolding (produced), karmic (producing), and intrinsic aspect (neither produced nor producing).

b.    Also, the eight consciousnesses are summarised as: true consciousness (transformed ālāyavijñāna/Dharmakāya), perceiving consciousness

(unfolding aspect, arises from habit mixed with imperceptible transformations & produces separations), and object projecting consciousness (karmic aspect, arises from habit and grasping phenomena).

c.     Cessation of characteristics is cessation of projection; cessation of continuity is cessation of the habit energy of begnningless projections from the mind: these obscure the ālāyavijñāna.

d.    The mind's intrinsic (ālāyavijñāna) aspect is neither separate nor not separate from the unfolding/habitual aspects of mind (like particles of dust that make up a lump of clay): they are the same mind, but they can be separated and the former purified.

e.     If continuity of consciousness would cease with cessation of polluted mind, this would be the nihilism of other paths: it is absurd as the intrinsic aspect is beginningless. The other extreme are those who clam consciousness arises and ceases dependent not on consciousness itself, but on an external power (e.g. particles or gods).

5.     There are seven kinds of self-existence (svabhāva) (RP: either posited by those of other paths, or as skilful means of the Buddha): origination, existence, characteristics, material elements, causes, conditions, and completion.

6.     There are seven kinds of higher truths: the realms of mind, wisdom, knowledge, views, beyond dualistic views, beyond bodhisattva stages, and the buddha's personal attainment, which is the mind of self-existent higher truth of all awakened ones through which, with the wisdom eye, their characteristics are established free from the projections of one's own mind (which are teachings of other schools). The Buddha will now teach the cessation of suffering that arises from the projection of illusion.

7.     In attempting to explain causation, some argue that whatever arises, ceases; and thus, as a broken jug no is longer being projected in the mind as a jug, mental factors that arise and cease don't continue to arise: but the existence of consciousness could arise from non-existence just due to the threefold conjunction,[1] if so, a tortoise could grow hair and all we do is meaningless. Views of causation, based only on the threefold conjunction, are mistaken results of logic based on habit energy. 

a. On the other hand, those who see all things as devoid of existence and as projections of the mind, without any origination, duration, or cessation, are bodhisattvas who realise the identity of samsara and nirvana. They see the three realms as illusory and attain the Samadhi of the Illusory.[2]

Being free from projections they dwell in the Perfection of Wisdom, attain the Diamond Samadhi, and transcending the consciousnesses they gradually develop the Buddha's body. Thus, abandon views related to causation.

8.     Seeing the three realms as projections and buddhahood as freedom from projections, one can enter the thoughts of other beings and teach them "nothing but mind" and establish them in the stages.

9.     Mahāmati asks the Buddha to clarify the mind, consciousness, suchness, and the waves of repository consciousness. 

a. The Buddha explains:

i. Four causes that result in functioning of visual consciousness:

1.     Ignorance that the grasped is a perception of one's own mind

2.     Attachment to the habit-energy of erroneous fabrications of the past

3.     Existence of consciousness

4.     Desire to see a multiplicity of forms ii. Consciousness too arises together with sensory objects, sensory material of the organs, and the external realms like images in a mirror (static consciousness) or waves in the ocean (dynamic consciousness): externality stirs the sea of mind. Differences are the result of attachment to what arises from karma. So:

1.     From ignorance of form, five sensory consciousnesses function.

2.     Due to differentiation therein (from habit/karma, these give rise to conceptual consciousness).

3.     Appearances change due to attachment to projections, but these consciousnesses are not aware of that.

4.     Through the changes in awareness, different realms appear and cease. iii. Meditators mistakenly may think consciousness ceases in samadhi, but it does not if they haven't destroyed subtle seeds of habit-energy, which happens after they no longer grasp changes in external realms.

iv.     Only buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas can understand the full subtlety of the repository consciousness, as well as the other aspects of the path.

v.      Practitioners, regardless of their practice, who see how projections flow from their mind, will have their foreheads anointed by the buddhas and be surrounded by the bodhisattvas.

vi.     External phenomena and the mind, like waves and the ocean, are neither separate nor not separate: seven consciousnesses arise with

the mind (8th). Even the mind (8th), will (7th), and consciousness (6th) are ultimately not different: 8 gathers karma, 7 considers what's gathered, 6 is conscious of/projects five "apparent" worlds.

b. Mahāmati asks what differentiation means, the Buddha explains:

i. Different things (e.g. blue and red) are not found in other "waves," but karma/habits are not real: these are really just one, I.e. mind. Differentiation is how karma/habits appears.

c. Mahāmati asks why the Buddha doesn't teach the same truth to all beings, he replies:

i. There would then be no truth in beings' minds, which focus on the wave, not ocean, because the consciousnesses keep going, except in meditation. As paintings are not reality, they are to please beings, the truth is not in the words: the Buddha makes distinctions for beginners, but for bodhisattvas he teaches a truth to realise themselves: a realm of inner realisation, without projection.

10.  Bodhisattvas who wish to understand the projection of their own minds should avoid social interaction and cultivate mindfulness during the three periods of the night, avoiding other teachings and becoming versed in the characteristics of their own projections.

11.  Cultivation of buddha knowledge has three aspects:

i.        Freedom from projections (erroneous appearances) (comes from practices of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas)

ii.      The power of the vows made by all buddhas (comes from past buddhas)

iii.     The personal realisation of the ultimate knowledge of buddhas (comes from obtaining the Samādhi of the Illusory (with illusory projection body, see section 57)).

a.     Achieving these one is on the eighth stage.

b.    Mahāmati asks the Buddha to explain how to understand buddha knowledge and the characteristics of the imagined reality into which bodhisattvas enter:

i. So we can understand absence of self and dharmas. ii. So we can rid projections and see the buddha realms.

iii. So we can let go of the five dharmas and achieve the buddha body.

12.  The Buddha points out that some people get attached to the view that things don’t exist because the causes aren’t present (rabbit horns), whereas others get attached to the view that if there is an underlying entity behind something, it must exist (ox horns). Both are false: appearance and non-appearance are projections of the mind. All things transcend existence and non-existence: thus, don’t imagine things as existing or not. 

a.     The Buddha tells Mahāmati that denial of existence (of, e.g., rabbit horns) is not due to lack of discrimination (between, e.g., existence and non-existence), but because they don’t see that existence and non-existence are neither separate nor not separate (i.e. non-dual).

b.    Likewise, while space and form are conceptualised as separate, they are in fact the same (both are projections).

c.     Anything you examine can be analysed down to the finest particle: can one still say an ox horn exists after doing that?

d.    Thus, reflect on perceptions of your own minds, and teach other bodhisattvas about them too.

13.  In verse the Buddha reiterates:

a.     All arises from the 8th consciousness.

b.    The teaching is on three minds, five dharmas, and the two no-selves.

c.     Dualities are false.

d.    Analysis does not prove form, but deluded people aren’t pleased by that.

e.     The teaching is the realm of self-realisation.

14.  Mahāmati asks if the stream of perceptions in beings’ minds is purified gradually or instantly. The Buddha replies:

a. Gradually and not instantly:

i. Like a fruit ripening, a pot made by a potter, the earth that gives rise to life, and artistic skill: thus, tathāgatas purify the stream of perceptions of beings’ minds gradually.

b. Instantly and not gradually:

i. Like a mirror’s reflection, the sun and moon’s illumination, consciousness’ distinguishing of perceptions, or the Niṣyanda (resultant) Buddha manifested by the Dharmatā Buddha: the tathāgatas reveals wisdom of the formless and undifferentiated and leads them to Akaniṣṭha Heaven instantly. 

15.  Regarding Buddha types, the Buddha points out that:

a. The dharmatā-niṣyanda (dharma-nature resultant) Buddha teaches that the characteristics of all things are due to habit energy and attachment to illusions that cannot really be grasped.

i. Imagined realities arise from attachment to a dependent reality: attachment to false projections that arise based on the habit-energy of attachment to such projections.

b.    The dharmatā (dharma-nature) Buddha establishes the realm transcending self-existent appearances of mind, upon which personal realisation of buddha knowledge depends. This Buddha is free from objective support established by personal-realisation—achieved by putting an end to views/perceptions of mind.

c.     The nirmita-nirmāṇa (created transformation) Buddha teaches the pāramitās, detachment, liberation from projections, and transcending of views.

[1] Sense object, sense faculty, sense consciousness.

[2] RP: Where one attains an illusory body: I.e. the ability to teach in manifestation form.