Shurangama Mantra with Verses and Commentary

by Venerable Tripitaka Master Hsuan Hua

116. PHẠT RA NI

伐囉尼

 

 

Trí huệ ngu si vô nhị tướng

Bồ Tát ngoại đạo bổn nhất như

Phàm phu phân biệt chủng chủng pháp

Học giả liễu ngộ Ly Ngôn Thuyết.

 

智慧愚癡無二相

菩薩外道本一如

凡夫分別種種法

覺者了悟離言說

Wisdom and stupidity are not two marks;

Bodhisattvas and externalists are basically one  suchness.

Common folks discriminate various dharmas,

But the Enlightened One is completely awake and leaves the spoken word.

Ngô tảo niên lai tích học vấn,

Diệc tằng thảo sớ tầm kinh luận.

Phân biệt danh tướng bất tri hưu,

Nhập hải toán sa đồ tụ khốn.

 

Khước bị Như Lai khổ kha trách,

Sổ tha trân bảo hữu hà ích.

Tòng lai thặng đặng giác hư hành,

Ða niên uổng tác phong trần khách.

TEXT:

IN MY EARLY YEARS, I SET OUT TO ACQUIRE LEARNING,
AND I STUDIED COMMENTARIES AND INQUIRED INTO SUTRAS AND SHASTRAS.
DISTINGUISHING AMONG TERMS AND CHARACTERISTICS,
I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP.

ENTERING THE SEA TO COUNT THE SANDS I EXHAUSTED MYSELF IN VAIN.
BUT THE THUS COME ONE REPRIMANDED THIS FOLLY:
WHAT BENEFIT IS THERE IN COUNTING OTHER'S TREASURES?!
UNSUCCESSFUL ALL ALONG, I FELT I HAD PRACTICED IN VAIN.
MANY YEARS I WASTED AS A TRANSIENT, LIKE DUST IN THE WIND.

COMMENTARY:

IN MY EARLY YEARS, I SET OUT TO ACQUIRE LEARNING. Here the Great Master Yung Chia speaks about himself. "In the past, when I was young, I amassed a great deal of learning and sought after knowledge. I cultivated the teachings and contemplations of the T'ien T'ai. I never felt tired; I never wearied of it."

AND I STUDIED COMMENTARIES AND INQUIRED INTO SUTRAS AND SHASTRAS. I also research the commentaries and explanations of the ancient worthies, as well as the doctrines and principles of the Tripitaka (the Sutras, the Vinaya, and the Shastras).

DISTINGUISHING AMONG TERMS AND CHARACTERISTICS, I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP. All day long I made distinctions among the meanings of names and characteristics, not knowing how to stop, wasting my time futilely, letting the months and years slip by. How lamentable!

ENTERING THE SEA TO COUNT THE SANDS I EXHAUSTED MUSELF IN VAIN. It was like entering the great sea to try to count the sand in it, to the last grain. How could it be done? In the sea of teaching, the terms and characteristics are as numerous as the sands of the ocean. Therefore, he says, "I exhausted myself in vain."

BUT THE THUS COME ONE REPRIMANDED THIS FOLLY. I forsook the root to pursue the branches, searching far outside, for I did not know that I should turn the light around and illumine within. Therefore, I was scolded by the Thus Come One.

WHAT BENEFIT IS THERE IN COUNTING OTHERS' TREASURES? Counting others' jewels all day long, without even half a penny of your own, is a mistakes; it is failure to cultivate the Dharma. To cultivate the Way, one must actually practice it personally and not pass one's time emptily, vainly wasting the months and years.

UNSUCCESSFUL ALL ALONG, I FELT I HAD PRACTICED IN VAIN. From the beginning, I had gone nowhere with my time; I had wasted the years. There was not a hair's breadth of achievement. I felt that a whole life of practice was for nothing.

MANY YEARS I WASTED AS A TRANSIENT, LIKE DUST IN THE WIND. For many years I hurried to the east and ran to the west, interviewing in the south and paying visits in the north; wandering the wrong roads, uselessly, like a transient who is dust in the wind. Alas! What a shame, and how sorrowful! We should ponder these words.

 

Chủng tánh tà, thố tri giải,

Bất đạt Như Lai viên đốn chế.

Nhị thừa tinh tấn một đạo tâm,

Ngoại đạo thông minh vô trí huệ.

 

Diệc ngu si, diệc tiểu ngãi,

Không quyền chỉ thượng sanh thực giải.

Chấp chỉ vi nguyệt uổng thi công,

Căn cảnh pháp trung hư niết quái.

 

Bất kiến nhất pháp tức Như Lai,

Phương đắc danh vi Quán Tự Tại.

Liễu tức nghiệp chướng bổn lai không,

Vị liễu ưng tu hoàn túc trái.

Cơ phùng vương thiện bất năng san,

Bệnh ngộ y vương tranh đắc sái.

TEXT:

WHEN THE NATURE OF THE SEED IS DEVIANT,
ONE'S KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING WILL BE WRONG.
ONE WILL NOT ATTAIN THE THUS COME ONE'S COMPLETE AND
SUDDEN MEASURE.
THOSE OF THE TWO VEHICLES ARE VIGOROUS, BUT LACK THE
HEART OF THE WAY.

THOSE OF EXTERNAL PATHS MAY BE INTELLIGENT, BUT THEY LACK WISDOM.
THEY ARE STUPID, PETTY, AND FOOLISH.
THEY MISTAKE THE EMPTY FIST AND POINTING FINGER AS PRODUCING GENUINE KNOWLEDGE;
BUT BECOMING ATTACHED TO THE FINGER AS BEING THE MOON IS A WASTE OF EFFORT.

AMIDST THE DHARMAS OF SENSE ORGANS' STATES,
IT IS BLAMEWORTHY TO MAKE EMPTY FABRICATIONS.
NOT TO PERCEIVE A SINGLE DHARMA: THIS IS THE THUS COME ONE.
THEN ONE MAY BE CALLED "ONE WHO CONTEMPLATES AT EASE."

ONCE ONE HAS UNDERSTOOD, KARMIC OBSTRUCTIONS ARE BASICALLY EMPTY.
BEFORE ONE HAS UNDERSTOOD, DEBTS FROM THE PAST MUST BE REPAID.
THE FAMISHED ENCOUNTER THE ROYAL BANQUET, YET CANNOT EAT.
THE SICK MEET THE PHYSICIAN KING, YET HOW CAN THEY BE CURED?

COMMENTARY:

WHEN THE NATURE OF THE SEED IS DEVIANT, ONE'S KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING WILL BE WRONG. When the seed is improperly planted or cultivated, the root-nature will be deviant. One's views and understanding will be wrong, but one will suppose them to be correct, and one won't know to reform.

ONE WILL NOT ATTAIN THE THUS COME ONE'S COMPLETE AND SUDDEN MEASURE. Since one's knowledge and understanding are wrong, one cannot see clearly and penetrate through to the mind-dharma of the world honored One, to the great measure and degree of the wonderful principle of the Perfect and Sudden, where one fathoms the essential path from beginning to end.

THOSE OF THE TWO VEHICLES ARE VIGOROUS, BUT LACK THE HEART OF TE WAY. Though the dull-rooted Arhats of the Two Vehicles practice with vigor, they lack the wisdom to awaken to the way.

THOSE OF EXTERNAL PATHS MAY BE INTELLIGENT, BUT THEY LACK WISDOM. The intelligence of most people who take side doors and external paths does mot go beyond worldly knowledge and cleverness in debate. By no means is it Ultimate, Perfect, Sudden, and Genuine Wisdom.

THEY ARE STUPID, PETTY, AND FOOLISH. They are stupid, and yet self-satisfied. They are base, yet they like to act authoritatively. They do not like to learn with an open mind, and do not have the earnestness to learn from those beneath them. Like animals, their behavior ia vague and dull. This describes the dull-rooted living beings, who all consider themselves to be extraordinary.

THEY MISTAKE THE EMPTY FIST AND POINTING FINGER AS PRODUCING GENUINE KNOWLEDGE. It is like the Buddha's empty fist that saved the little child, or like seeing the moon because of the finger that pointed to it. How could anyone who comes later gain genuine understanding from an empty fist or a pointing finger?

BUT BECOMING ATTACHED TO THE FINGER AS BEING THE MOON IS A WASTE OF EFFORT. If one becomes attached to the pointing finger as being the moon--not realizing that the finger is basically not the moon, but that one merely makes use of the finger to see the moon--then one might cultivate the Way for a myriad aeons, but it would be a total waste of effort.

AMIDST THE DHARMAS OF SENSE ORGANS' STATES, IT IS BLAMEWORTHY TO MAKE EMPTY FABRICATIONS. The dharmas of the states of the six sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind), and their objects--forms, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, and dharmas--are empty fabrications, and imaginary creations.

NOT TO PERCEIVE A SINGLE DHARMA: THIS IS THE THUS COME ONE. The eighty-four thousand Dharma-doors are all established to counteract the sicknesses of the eighty-four thousand kinds of afflictions of living beings. When their diseases are cured, the medicines have no further use. It is the same with the Buddha's speaking Dharma.

THEN ONE MAY BE CALLED "ONE WHO CONTEMPLATES AT EASE." Those who can speak the Dharma, and the Dharma that is spoken, are in substance basically empty, and completely without a nature of their own. Upon awakening to the basic substance of the source of the Dharma, not a single dharma is established, and the ten-thousand dharmas are all thus. One totally understands the great functions of the entire substance. And when people and dharmas are both forgotten, this is contemplating at ease.

ONCE ONE HAS UNDERSTOOD, KARMIC OBSTRUCTIONS ARE BASICALLY EMPTY. After one has understood the mind and seen the nature, there are basically no karmic obstructions in the inherent nature. When this principle is understood, one knows that all karmic hindrances are basically empty, formless, shapeless, and without a nature of their own.

BEFORE ONE HAS UNDERSTOOD, DEBTS FROM THE PAST MUST BE REPAID. If one has not yet been able to understand this principle of the original source of all dharmas, then one will be summoned by one's past karma to undergo the retribution.

THE FAMISHED ENCOUNTER THE ROYAL BANQUET, YET CANNOT EAT. The Buddha is like a king. Although he has rare delicacies of a hundred flavors at his table, no one dares eat of them if the king does not permit it.

THE SICK MEET THE PHYSICIAN KING, YET HOW CAN THEY BE CURED? The Buddha is like a physician king; although he has woderful, life-prolonging medicine, people who have no wisdom are unwilling to take it. How then can their illnesses be cured?

Song of Enlightenment

Chứng Đạo Ca

Sa-Môn Huyền Giác soạn