44. Why is the Śūraṅgama Sūtra said to be the first Buddhist scripture to perish?

Answer: The Śūraṅgama is originally beyond arising and ceasing. When those who are to be liberated have been liberated, and the conditions for liberation in this period have come to an end, this is called “perishing.”

45. Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva is not one of the bodhisattvas who “consult to resolve doubts,” is he?

Answer: In fact, including Venerable Ānanda, they are all here to “consult and resolve doubts” for us.

Question: So Ānanda and the others were actors all along! I had thought there really was such a fortunate layperson.

46. The Seven Searches for the Mind and the Ten Revelations of Seeing

Question: Earlier in this sūtra, the seven searches and examinations directly point to the mind; later, the twenty-five paths to bodhi broadly gather in the gradual approaches. The Buddha’s gate is indeed vast!

Answer: The seven searches for the mind—when one seeks the mind, it cannot be found—one cannot grasp it. The ten revelations of seeing—the true mind is everywhere—one cannot cast it aside.

To truly recognize that which cannot be grasped or cast aside is called “seeing one’s true nature.”

Question: If there is explosion, fragmentation, clarity, or spiritual knowing—that is grasping; if there is utter emptiness and nothing at all—that is casting aside.

Answer: I suggest changing the word “there is” above to “grasping.” If one grasps at explosion, fragmentation, clarity, or spiritual knowing, that is grasping; if one rejects explosion, fragmentation, clarity, or spiritual knowing, that is casting aside.

47. Originally pure and fundamentally so: how do mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise?

Answer: Originally pure and fundamentally so—how do mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise!

Anyone who has greatly awakened through the foregoing questions and answers must certainly possess right samādhi. Consider the following passage of yours:

[Second Moon]: The reason “I” become deluded is that I take these appearances, which are originally relative, unreal, and without before or after, to be absolute, real, and to have before and after. Such concepts lead to misjudgments about phenomena; misjudgments lead to still more deluded comparisons. Thus, link after link becomes entangled, circumstance after circumstance becomes mutually conditioned, as though there were no end.

—You speak of “relative, unreal, with before and after,” but in their very presence they are “absolute, real, without before or after”! You see mountains, rivers, and the great earth; I see original purity.

48. “In accordance with the minds of sentient beings, responding to the measure of what they know”

Question: Please use posting messages as an example to explain “in accordance with the minds of sentient beings, responding to the measure of what they know.”

Answer: Oh! When replying to your post, one should accord with your mind and respond to the measure of what you know. To accord with your mind means not departing from your question.

To respond to the measure of what you know means not saying what you already know, nor saying what you cannot possibly accept.

Question: So that is what “respond” means. It seems that, when posting messages, one must aim for the horse’s mouth.

Answer: Otherwise, it is the sickness of “contrivance”—creating something of one’s own. Put more pleasantly, it is the “establishing words” in “establishing merit, establishing virtue, and establishing words.” The Buddhadharma establishes no words—whenever there are words, they are not the ultimate meaning.