The Avataṃsaka Sūtra says, “The mind, like a skillful painter, creates the various aggregates. In all the world there is nothing which does not follow the creations of the mind.”⁴⁰⁹ “The painter” in our case is the ignorant mind, and “all the world” is the ten dharma realms which are the lands of conventional reality.

The treatises are not all consistent in clarifying the content of the mind from which all the dharmas emerge. One says that “the ālayavijñāna is the true consciousness from which all dharmas emerge.”⁴¹⁰ Another says that “The ālayavijñāna is the consciousness which never perishes [ālaya]. It is neutral and ignorant yet all dharmas emerge from it.”⁴¹¹

If one insists on being attached to a substantial nature,⁴¹² he will fall into arousing the [mistaken] concept of an “original Being” and thence the concept of a substantial self will be mistakenly aroused. If one does not realize that even the conditioned co-arising of the world as conceptually understood does not truly arise, how then will one be able to realize the trans-worldly conditioned co-arising which is beyond conceptual understanding?

There are no delusions in the realm which is beyond conceptual understanding. How then can the understanding which overturns delusions be able to realize non-conceptual wisdom?⁴¹³ The way to destroy these [various delusions and other assorted obstacles to enlightenment] is explained in the Mo ho chih kuan [The Great Calming and Contemplation].⁴¹⁴

409

This phrase has already been quoted numerous times. In T’ien-t’ai this is interpreted not in the sense of a mind-only idealism, but that there is nothing we experience which we do not perceive through the conceptual constructions produced by our minds. It is not a denial of the reality of the outside objective world. return

410

Chihi does not identify the text, school, or scholar which he is quoting, but in this era the southern Ti-lun (Daśabhūmika Sūtra Śāstra) school, taught that the ālayavijñāna was a pure and undefiled consciousness identical with tathatā. return

411

The Shakusen kōgi identifies this quote as being from the “Liang” translation of the Mahāyāna Saṃgraha, section 11-6, which must mean Paramārtha’s translations which are extant in T. 31, Nos. 1593 and 1595. However, I was unable to locate this quotation in these works. In any case Chih-i here is referring to the position of the She-lun school and the northern Ti-lun school (more precisely: Hui-yüan and his Ta Ch’eng i chang—see chapter 5) which taught that the ālayavijñāna is defiled and posited a ninth pure amalavijñāna. Actually it is difficult to know what this She-lun school really did teach, since the writings of the She-lun scholars are not extant. Weinstein quotes Chan-jan’s comments in the Fa hua hsüan i shih ch’ien [Annotations on The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra] as follows: “The Northern School regarded the ālaya as that upon which phenomena depend (for their production), whereas the Southern School held that it was the tathatā which was the source. Both schools followed the teachings of Vasubandhu. Yet their interpretations were as incompatible as fire and water” (Weinstein 1964, 40). return

412

Such as a “true consciousness” or a “defiled consciousness.” return

413

In other words, “the understanding which overturns delusions” is sufficient for realizing the truth at the lower level, but not for the higher level of non-conceptual wisdom. return

414

See in particular the section on “Destroying (Deluded) Dharmas.” return