The Lankavatara Sutra

朝議大夫直龍圖閣權江淮荊淛等路制置鹽礬兼發運副使上護軍賜紫金魚袋蔣之奇撰

Written by Jiang Zhiqi, Grand Master for Court Deliberation, Direct Scholar of the Longtu Pavilion, Acting Commissioner for Salt and Alum in Jiang, Huai, Jing and Zhe and concurrently Assistant Transport Commissioner, Senior Defender-in-Chief, granted the purple robe and golden fish-pouch.

之奇嘗苦《楞伽經》難讀又難得善本，會南都太子太保致政張公施此經，而眉山蘇子瞻為書而刻之板，以為金山常住。金山長老佛印大師了元持以見寄，之奇為之言曰：佛之所說經總十二部，而其多至於五千卷。方其正法流行之時，人有聞半偈、得一句而悟入者，蓋不可為量數。至於像法、末法之後，去聖既遠，人始溺於文字，有入海算沙之困，而於一真之體乃漫不省解，於是有祖師出焉，直指人心見性成佛，以為教外別傳，於動容發語之頃，而上根利器之人已目擊而得之矣。故雲門至於罵佛，而藥山至戒人不得讀經，皆此意也。由是去佛而謂之禪，離義而謂之玄，故學佛者必詆禪而諱義者，亦必宗玄二家之徒更相非而不知其相為用也。且禪者六度之一也，顧豈異於佛哉？

Zhiqi once struggled with the Lankavatara Sutra for being hard to read, and good editions were also hard to come by. It happened that Lord Zhang of the Southern Capital, retired as Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince, donated this sutra, and Su Zizhan of Meishan wrote it out and had it carved on wooden blocks, to serve as permanent property of Jinshan Temple. The elder of Jinshan, Great Master Foyin Liaoyuan, took it and sent it to me. Zhiqi said of it: The sutras spoken by the Buddha number twelve divisions in all, and as many as five thousand scrolls. In the time when the true Dharma flourished, there were people who awakened on hearing half a verse or gaining a single line, too many to count. After the age of the semblance and last Dharma, when the time of the sages had grown far off, people sank into letters and were as worn out as someone entering the sea to count grains of sand, and about that one true substance they were dazed and without understanding. Then the Patriarchs arose, pointing directly to the human mind, seeing one's nature and becoming a Buddha, as a special transmission outside the teachings; in the moment of a look or a word, people of the highest capacity grasped it at a glance. That is why Yunmen even went so far as to scold the Buddha, and Yaoshan even forbade people to read the sutras, all with this meaning. From this, those who left the Buddha called it Chan, and those who left the doctrine called it the profound; so those who study the Buddha must slander Chan, and those who avoid doctrine must hold to the profound; the followers of the two camps criticize each other, not knowing they serve one another. Moreover, dhyana is one of the six perfections; how could it be different from the Buddha?

之奇以為，禪出於佛，而玄出於義，不以佛廢禪，不以玄廢義，則其近之矣。冉求問：「聞斯行諸？」孔子曰：「聞斯行之。」子路問：「聞斯行諸？」曰：「有父兄在。如之何？」其聞斯行之，求也退故進之，由也兼人故退之。說豈有常哉？救其偏而已。學佛之敝至於溺經文、惑句義而人不體玄，則言禪以救之；學禪之敝至於馳空言、玩琦辯而人不了義，則言佛以救之。二者更相救，而佛法完矣。

Zhiqi holds: Chan comes from the Buddha, and the profound comes from doctrine; if one does not abandon Chan because of the Buddha or abandon doctrine because of the profound, one comes near. Ran Qiu asked: "Should I act on what I hear?" Confucius said: "Act on what you hear." Zilu asked: "Should I act on what I hear?" Confucius said: "With your father and elder brother alive, how can you do so?" Acting on what one hears: Ran Qiu held back, so he pushed him forward; Zhong You was eager to win, so he held him down. How could teaching have a constant, unchanging form? It only corrects an imbalance. The fault of studying the Buddha reaches the point where people sink into the text of the sutras and are confused by the meaning of phrases and cannot embody the profound, and it is corrected by speaking of Chan; the fault of studying Chan reaches the point where people race about in empty words and play with clever eloquence and cannot grasp the meaning, and it is corrected by speaking of the Buddha. When the two correct one another, the Buddha's Dharma is complete.

昔達磨西來，既已傳心印於二祖，且云：「吾有《楞伽經》四卷，亦用付汝。即是如來心地要門，令諸眾生開示悟入。」此亦佛與禪並傳而玄與義俱付也。至五祖始易以《金剛經》傳授，故六祖聞客讀《金剛經》而問其所從來。客云：「我從蘄州黃梅縣東五祖山來。五祖大師常勸僧俗，但持《金剛經》即自見性成佛矣。」則是持《金剛經》者始於五祖。故《金剛》以是盛行於世，而《楞伽》遂無傳焉。

In former times when Bodhidharma came from the West, having already passed on the mind-seal to the Second Patriarch, he said: "I have the Lankavatara Sutra in four scrolls, and I also entrust it to you. This is the key gate of the Tathagata's mind-ground, to let beings open up, awaken and enter." This too was transmitting the Buddha and Chan together, and entrusting the profound and doctrine together. It was the Fifth Patriarch who changed to transmitting with the Diamond Sutra, so when the Sixth Patriarch heard a traveler reading the Diamond Sutra, he asked where he came from. The traveler said: "I come from Mount Wuzu, east of Huangmei county in Qizhou. The Great Master the Fifth Patriarch often urged monks and laity that if they only uphold the Diamond Sutra, they can see their nature and become a Buddha." So upholding the Diamond Sutra began with the Fifth Patriarch. For this reason the Diamond Sutra became widespread in the world while the Lankavatara had no one to transmit it.

今之傳者，寔自張公倡之。之奇過南都謁張公，親聞公說《楞伽》因緣。始張公自三司使翰林學士出守滁，一日入琅琊僧舍，見一經函發而視之，乃《楞伽經》也。恍然覺其前生之所書，筆畫宛然，其殆神先受之甚明也。之奇聞：羊叔子五歲時，令乳母取所弄金鐶。乳母謂之：「汝初無是物。」祜即自詣隣人李氏東垣桑木中探得之。主人驚曰：「此吾亡兒所失物也。云何持去？」乳母具言之，知祜之前身為李氏子也。白樂天始生七月，姆指之無兩字，雖試百數不差；九歲諳識聲律，史氏以為篤於才章蓋天稟，然而樂天固自以為宿習之緣矣。

What can be handed down today truly began with Lord Zhang's promotion. When Zhiqi passed through the Southern Capital and visited Lord Zhang, I heard the lord himself tell the story of the Lankavatara. At first Lord Zhang, from the posts of Commissioner of Finance and Hanlin Academician, was sent out to govern Chuzhou, and one day entered a monastery at Langya and saw a sutra case; opening it, it was the Lankavatara Sutra. He suddenly felt that it was something he himself had written in a former life, with every stroke familiar; probably his spirit and consciousness had received it so clearly beforehand. Zhiqi has heard: when Yang Shuzi was five, he told his nurse to fetch a gold ring he had played with. The nurse told him: "You never had such a thing." Yang Hu went by himself to the mulberry tree by the east wall of his neighbor Li's house and felt it out. The householder was startled and said: "This was lost by my dead child; why have you taken it?" The nurse explained it in full, and it was known that Yang Hu's former body was the child of the Li family. When Bai Letian was only seven months old, the nurse pointed at the two characters 'zhi' and 'wu', and even after a hundred trials he was never wrong; at nine he was familiar with tones and rhymes. The historians thought his depth in letters was natural endowment, but Letian himself regarded it as the affinity of past habit.

人之以是一真不滅之性，而死生去來於天地之間。其為世數，雖折天下之草木以為籌箸，不能算之矣。然以淪於死生，神識疲耗不能復記，惟圓明不昧之人知焉。有如張公以高文大冊再中制舉登侍從，秉鈞軸出入朝廷逾四十年，風烈事業播人耳目，則其前身嘗為大善知識，無足疑者。其能記憶前世之事，豈不謂信然哉。故因讀《楞伽》新經，而記其因緣於經之端雲。

A person, relying on this one true nature that neither arises nor ceases, dies and lives, goes and comes between heaven and earth. The number of ages passed through could not be counted even if all the grass and trees under heaven were broken up to make counting rods. But because he sinks in birth and death and his spirit is worn out, he cannot remember again; only those who are perfectly bright and unclouded know. As for Lord Zhang, who passed the highest examinations again and again with grand writings and great policies, entered attendance on the throne, held the pivots of government, and moved in and out of the court for more than forty years, with his fiery achievements spread before people's eyes and ears, it is beyond doubt that his former body was a great good spiritual friend. That he can recall things of a former life, how can one still not believe? So because of reading this newly carved Lankavatara, I have recorded this affinity at the head of the sutra.

朝奉郎新差知登州軍州兼管內勸農事騎都尉借緋蘇軾書

Written out by Su Shi, Gentleman for Court Service, newly appointed Prefect of Dengzhou and concurrently in charge of encouraging agriculture within the prefecture, Cavalry Commandant, with borrowed scarlet.

《楞伽阿跋多羅寶經》——先佛所說微妙第一真實了義，故謂之佛語心品。祖師達磨以付二祖曰：「吾觀震旦所有經教，惟《楞伽》四卷可以印心。」祖祖相授，以為心法。如醫之《難經》，句句皆理、字字皆法。後世達者神而明之，如盤走珠、如珠走盤，無不可者。若出新意，而棄舊學以為無用，非愚無知，則狂而已。近歲學者各宗其師，務從簡便，得一句一偈，自謂了證，至使婦人孺子抵掌嬉笑爭談禪悅。高者為名，下者為利，餘波末流無所不至，而佛法微矣。譬如俚俗醫師，不由經論直授方藥以之療病，非不或中；至於遇病，輒應懸斷死生，則與知經學古者不可同日語矣。世人徒見其有一至之功，或捷於古人，因謂《難經》不學而可，豈不誤哉！

The Lankavatara Sutra: spoken by the former Buddhas, wondrous and foremost, true and of definitive meaning, and so called the Chapter on the Buddha's Word as Mind. The Patriarch Bodhidharma entrusted it to the Second Patriarch, saying: "Of all the scriptures and teachings in China, I see only the Lankavatara in four scrolls that can seal the mind." Passed from patriarch to patriarch, it served as the mind-Dharma. Like the Nanjing of the physicians, every line is principle and every word is method. Later people who were thoroughly versed brought it to divine clarity, like a pearl running on a tray, or a tray where the pearl runs, with nothing that cannot be done. If one brings out one's own new ideas and throws away the old learning as useless, one is either ignorant or arrogant. In recent years scholars each follow their own teacher and strive for simplicity and ease; having got a line or a verse, they say they have already realized it, until women and children clap their hands and laugh and compete to talk of Chan joy. The higher seek fame, the lower seek profit, and the ripples and the dregs go everywhere, and the Buddha's Dharma has declined. It is like a common doctor who, without going through the classics and treatises, gives prescriptions and medicines directly to treat illness; it is not that he never hits the mark by chance, but when he meets illness and answers it, and judges life and death out of thin air, he is not to be spoken of in the same breath as one who has mastered the classics and studied the ancients. People of the world see only that he has had an effect in one place, or perhaps is quicker than the ancients, and say that the Nanjing need not be studied; is that not a mistake!

《楞伽》義輒幽𦕈，文字簡古。讀者或不能句，而況遺文以得義，忘義以了心者乎？此其所以寂寥於世，幾廢而僅存也。太子太保樂全先生張公安道，以廣大心，得清淨覺。慶曆中嘗為滁州，至一僧舍，偶見此經，入手恍然如獲舊物。開卷未終，夙障冰解，細視筆畫，手跡宛然。悲喜太息，從是悟入，常以經首四偈發明心要。軾遊於公之門三十年矣，今年二月過南都，見公於私第。公時年七十九，幻滅都盡，惠光渾圜，而軾亦老於憂患百念灰冷。公以為可教者，乃授此經，且以錢三十萬使印施於江淮間。而金山長老佛印大師了元曰：「印施有盡，若書而刻之則無盡。」軾乃為書之，而元使其侍者曉機走錢塘，求善工刻之板，遂以為金山常住。

The principles of the Lankavatara are winding and deep (the character in the base text is a rare one, and is read here as deep and subtle), and its language is terse and archaic. Readers sometimes cannot even divide the sentences, to say nothing of dropping the text to get the meaning, or forgetting the meaning to understand the mind. This is why it has been quiet and nearly abandoned in the world and has only barely survived. Lord Zhang Andao, Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince and known as Master Lequan, attained pure awareness with his vast mind. In the Qingli years he once governed Chuzhou, came to a monastery and happened to see this sutra, and as he took it in hand he felt as if he had found a long-lost thing. Before he finished a scroll, his old obstructions melted like ice, and looking closely at the strokes, the handwriting was plainly his own. Grieved and joyful, he sighed, and from that moment awakened, and often used the four verses at the head of the sutra to bring out the essence of the mind. Shi has studied under the lord for thirty years. This year in the second month I passed through the Southern Capital and saw the lord at his private residence. The lord was seventy-nine then, with illusions all exhausted and the light of wisdom whole and round, while Shi too had grown old in sorrows with a hundred thoughts gone cold. The lord thought I could be taught and handed this sutra to me, and also brought out three hundred thousand cash to have people print and distribute it between the Jiang and Huai rivers. The elder of Jinshan, Great Master Foyin Liaoyuan, said: "Printing and distributing has its limit; but if it is written out and carved on blocks there is no limit." Shi therefore wrote it out for this purpose, and Liaoyuan had his attendant Xiaoji hurry to Qiantang and seek fine craftsmen to carve the blocks, and so it became permanent property of Jinshan Temple.

元豐八年九月九日

The ninth day of the ninth month of the eighth year of Yuanfeng.

宋天竺三藏求那跋陀羅譯

Translated by the Tripitaka Master Gunabhadra of India in the Liu Song dynasty.

一切佛語心品第一之一

Chapter One, Part One: The Buddha's Word as Mind

如是我聞：

Thus I have heard:

一時佛住南海濱楞伽山頂，種種寶華以為莊嚴，與大比丘僧及大菩薩眾俱，從彼種種異佛剎來。是諸菩薩摩訶薩，無量三昧自在之力，神通遊戲，大慧菩薩摩訶薩而為上首。一切諸佛手灌其頂，自心現境界，善解其義。種種眾生、種種心色，無量度門，隨類普現。於五法自性、識、二種無我，究竟通達。

At that time the Buddha was dwelling on the summit of Mount Lanka by the southern sea, adorned with all kinds of precious flowers, together with a great assembly of monks and Bodhisattvas, who had come from various different buddha-lands. These Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas (great Bodhisattvas) had the power of sovereignty in countless samadhis (right concentration), played with spiritual powers, and Mahamati Bodhisattva-Mahasattva was their leader. All the Buddhas with their own hands had anointed his head, so he was skilled in understanding the meaning of the realms manifested by his own mind. Beings of all kinds, minds and forms of all kinds, countless gates of deliverance, he showed himself everywhere according to kind. Regarding the five dharmas, self-nature, consciousness and the two kinds of no-self (this sutra uses a set of interlocking terms to analyze mind and its objects: the five dharmas are appearance, name, discrimination, right wisdom and suchness; the self-natures are the imagined, the dependent and the perfected; consciousness means the eight consciousnesses; the two no-selves are the no-self of person and the no-self of dharmas), he understood them all thoroughly.

爾時大慧菩薩與摩帝菩薩，俱遊一切諸佛剎土，承佛神力，從坐而起偏袒右肩，右膝著地，合掌恭敬，以偈讚曰：

Then Mahamati Bodhisattva and Mati Bodhisattva, who had together roamed through all the buddha-lands, by the Buddha's spiritual power rose from their seats, bared the right shoulder, knelt with the right knee on the ground, joined their palms in reverence, and praised him in verse:

「世間離生滅，猶如虛空華，

"The world is free of birth and death, like flowers in empty space,

智不得有無，而興大悲心。

wisdom cannot grasp being or non-being, and yet great compassion arises.

一切法如幻，遠離於心識，

All dharmas are like illusions, far from mind and consciousness,

智不得有無，而興大悲心。

wisdom cannot grasp being or non-being, and yet great compassion arises.

遠離於斷常，世間恆如夢，

Far from annihilation and permanence, the world is always like a dream,

智不得有無，而興大悲心。

wisdom cannot grasp being or non-being, and yet great compassion arises.

知人法無我，煩惱及爾炎，

Knowing the no-self of person and dharmas, afflictions and the knowable (jneya),

常清淨無相，而興大悲心。

always pure and without marks, and yet great compassion arises.

一切無涅槃，無有涅槃佛，

There is no nirvana at all, no nirvana Buddha,

無有佛涅槃，遠離覺所覺。

no Buddha's nirvana, far from enlightenment and the enlightened.

若有若無有，是二悉俱離，

Whether it exists or does not exist, both of these are left behind,

牟尼寂靜觀，是則遠離生，

the Muni quietly contemplates, and so is far from birth,

是名為不取，今世後世淨。」

and this is called non-grasping, pure in this world and the next."

爾時大慧菩薩偈讚佛已，自說姓名：

Then, when Mahamati Bodhisattva had finished praising the Buddha in verse, he declared his own name:

「我名為大慧，通達於大乘，

"My name is Mahamati, I have mastered the Great Vehicle,

今以百八義，仰諮尊中上。」

and now with one hundred and eight meanings I look up and ask the highest among the honored."

世間解之士，聞彼所說偈，

The Knower of the World, hearing the verses he recited,

觀察一切眾，告諸佛子言：

looked over the whole great assembly and said to the sons of the Buddha:

「汝等諸佛子，今皆恣所問，

"You sons of the Buddha, may now all ask as you wish,

我當為汝說，自覺之境界。」

and I will explain for you the realm of self-awakening."

爾時大慧菩薩摩訶薩，承佛所聽，頂禮佛足，合掌恭敬以偈問曰：

Then Mahamati Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, having received the Buddha's permission, bowed with his head at the Buddha's feet, joined his palms in reverence, and asked in verse:

「云何淨其念？云何念增長？

"How are thoughts purified? How do thoughts grow?

云何見痴惑？云何惑增長？

How is delusion seen? How does delusion grow?

何故剎土化，相及諸外道？

Why do the lands change, and the marks of the various outsiders?

云何無受欲？何故名無受？

How is there no taking of desire? Why is it called non-reception?

何故名佛子？解脫至何所？

Why are they called sons of the Buddha? Where does liberation arrive?

誰縛誰解脫？何等禪境界？

Who is bound, who is liberated? What is the realm of meditation?

云何有三乘？唯願為解說。

How are there three vehicles? I beg you to explain.

緣起何所生？云何作所作？

From where does dependent arising come? What are the doer and the done?

云何俱異說？云何為增長？

What are the doctrines of sameness and difference? What is growth?

云何無色定，及以滅正受？

What is the formless concentration, and the cessation attainment?

云何為想滅？何因從定覺？

What is the cessation of thought? By what cause does one awaken from concentration?

云何所作生，進去及持身？

How are things done born, entering and sustaining the body?

云何現分別？云何生諸地？

How do discriminations appear? How are the stages born?

破三有者誰？何處身云何？

Who breaks the three existences? Which body, and how?

往生何所至？云何最勝子？

Where does rebirth arrive? What is the most excellent son?

何因得神通，及自在三昧？

By what cause are spiritual powers gained, and sovereign samadhi?

云何三昧心？最勝為我說。

What is the samadhi mind? Most Excellent One, please explain.

云何名為藏？云何意及識？

Why is it called the storehouse? What are mind (manas) and consciousness?

云何生與滅？云何見已還？

What are birth and ceasing? How does one see and then return?

云何為種姓，非種及心量？

What are lineages, non-lineage, and the measure of mind?

云何建立相，及與非我義？

How are marks established, and the meaning of non-self?

云何無眾生？云何世俗說？

How are there no beings? What is conventional speech?