Surangama Sutra as Spoken (楞嚴經如說)

Surangama Sutra Prologue

The wondrous nature, true reality—this is called the Great Buddha Crown. Great Concentration, firm and unshakable—this is named Shurangama. Beginning, middle, and end cannot differ; past, present, and future cannot alter it. Yet the perfect penetration of the faculties leads to but a single path, while cultivation and realization necessarily rely on ten thousand practices. Therefore, using the fruit as the cause—the cause is called the hidden cause. Riding the cause to attain the fruit—the meaning is called the definitive meaning. Practicing this, one can become a Buddha; being ignorant of this, there is no way to bring the sutra to completion. Yet Shariputra received the secret prediction of nirvana, and pratyekabuddhas and shravakas were all included together. Ananda requested the foremost skillful means, and though inwardly secret and outwardly manifested, both were omitted. This is because the Lotus Sutra's work was accomplished and the position already supreme, so it traced back to what was traversed along the middle way. The Shurangama Sutra, undertaken for study with a will that presses forward without prior attainment, beforehand cuts off the thought of the conjured city. The compilers, clear-eyed and sharp-rooted, discarded the small and raised what is essential. They set forth the meaning without waiting for its conclusion; opening the sutra, they already reveal its ultimate point. Encompassing the fifty-five stages, they drew upon a few phrases about the Buddha-son's excellent transcendence, and the Dharma of perfect penetration is already seen before. Within the twenty-five sages, they cited six venerable ones including Maudgalyayana and Gaushika, and could the people of perfect penetration be outside this? Famous masters ancient and modern have divided into groups to establish meanings, exhausting their strength to investigate the subtle. Yet the meaning is profound and deep, and it is not easy for those who understand it. Even the wording is ingenious, and many are those who find it obscure. Recently, Master Sanhuai, with unobstructed eloquence, did not annotate a single sutra. When people asked why, he said: "My literary skill is not superior—how would I dare annotate sutras?" If compelled, using a scholar's brush in place of a monk's tongue might perhaps complement each other. How true these words are—they come close to non-self! Now, the wondrousness of the running text and the difficulty of understanding the sutra are already like this. How much more so when analyzing the depths of principle and the subtlety of the essential mind! Yet if we summarize the general outline, something can still be said. The root of birth and death has two aspects: the conditioned mind is the coarsest, and the karmic consciousness is the subtlest—how could they be allowed to remain undifferentiated? The path of enlightenment has not many roads: the true mind alone is revealed, and seeing one's nature naturally removes the rest—how could both be preserved without being discarded? Turning away from the false and attaining the patience of non-arising—what is turned away, is it not the mind refuted in the seven examinations? Abandoning the still and reaching the unshakable—what is abandoned is precisely the boundary of the eighth consciousness. When does one see the seeing? It is the moment when the Tathagata illuminates the mark of production, the ignorance of production. What Dharma does one hear in hearing? This is the gate by which the bodhisattva enters the stillness and cessation that is present before one. From refuting self, refuting other, refuting both, and refuting without cause, one realizes the fundamental non-arising of production and cessation; therefore it is called hearing, thinking, cultivating, and being like an illusion—realizing that perfect penetration is not separated. However, present karma can only be dissolved by practice; past transgressions cannot be opposed without a mantra. Since it emerges from the crown, it is the Buddha-body itself; at once the demons flee—how could that depend on the name of a demon? Words and thoughts are already cut off, and realization is thereby preserved. The sudden and gradual before the equivalent and wondrous stages—the stages are naturally clear; the shallow and deep after dry wisdom—people mostly confuse them. The celestial beings' causes are not true—how could they be relied upon for the sages who have turned back their minds? The two vehicles' taking of the path is not wrong—how could they fall into the stream of wrong views? Just these few points of awakening and delusion concern the clarity or obscurity of the whole sutra. Not measuring my stubborn dullness, I vainly hoped for faith and understanding; I studied and investigated for five years, dwelling in and searching the many texts. Upasaka He's second son, with wisdom-nature and eloquence, a deep mind and broad learning, formerly gathered at Baomen and expounded several times; afterward he came to the Fujian office and stripped away for forty days, distinguishing cause and effect in this sutra and analyzing similarities and differences among the teachings—clear as seeing fruit, delightful as twirling a flower. He said that what was contained in his heart could not be proclaimed without my brush, and he also feared it would be lost; he earnestly compiled the commentary, changing drafts several times before the book was completed. The Upasaka came to Chu, and we again reviewed it in detail; humbly receiving his approval, I took the sutra's phrase "as it is, as it is spoken" and therefore named it "As Spoken."

Written by Zhong Xing (courtesy name Bojing) of Jingling, a Buddhist disciple, in the jiazi year of the Tianqi reign (1624).