In reading Chinese Master Hsuan Hua’s 14-volume commentary on the Lotus Sutra – I’m currently on the fourth volume, which covers Chapter 3, A Parable – I have come across several references to the Vajra Sutra.

For example, in discussing the term Tathāgata, Hsuan Hua says:

What is meant by Tathāgata? The Vajra Sūtra says:

The Tathāgata does not come from anywhere,
nor does he go anywhere.
That is why he is called the Tathāgata.

Or in discussing Chapter 2 he says:

Since nothing can be grasped, why does the text say “to attain the Buddha’s Path”? The so-called “Buddha’s Path” is not attained from the outside. As it says in the Vajra Sūtra, when the Tathagata received the Dharma of anuttara samyaksaṃbodhi from the Buddha Dīpaṃkara, Burning Lamp, he in fact received nothing.

Being unfamiliar with the sutra, I went back to the Buddhist Text Translation Society’s website and picked up a copy of “The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, A General Explanation.”

I took a break from Hsuan Hua’s commentary on the Lotus Sutra to read his commentary on the Vajra Sutra.

This is very esoteric stuff, the sort of stuff one would expect a Chinese Chan master to explore. Consider this discussion of “true prajña” – true direct insight or true wisdom:

Once Subhūti was sitting in a cave cultivating and a god came scattering flowers.

“Who has come to scatter flowers?” asked Subhūti.

“The god Sakra,” came the reply. “Sakra has come to scatter flowers.”

“Why have you come here to scatter flowers?” asked Subhūti.

Sakra said, “Because the Venerable One speaks prajña well, I have come to make offerings.”

Subhūti said, “I have not said one word. How can you say I speak prajña?”

Sakra replied, “The Venerable One has not spoken and I have not heard a thing. Nothing spoken and nothing heard: that is true prajña.”

You think it over. Nothing spoken and nothing heard is true prajña. Have you heard prajña? If not, that is true prajña.

The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p156

In considering what to make of this, I was reminded of similar statements made in the Threefold Lotus Sutra.

In the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings Bodhisattva Fully Composed addresses the Buddha:

“World-honored One! For more than forty years, ever since achieving enlightenment, the Tathāgata, for the benefit of living beings, has continuously discoursed on the principle of the four modes of all phenomena, the meaning of suffering, and the meaning of emptiness; on ever changingness, nonexistence of self, non-greatness, non-smallness, non-origination, and non-cessation; on the formlessness of all things; and on the natures and aspects of phenomena being intrinsically empty and tranquil—neither coming nor going, neither appearing nor disappearing.

Or in Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra, when the Buddha explains:

All that I say is true, not false, because I see the triple world as it is. I see that the triple world is the world in which the living beings have neither birth nor death, that is to say, do not appear or disappear, that it is the world in which I do not appear or from which l do not disappear, that it is not real or unreal, and that it is not as it seems or as it does not seem. I do not see the triple world in the same way as [the living beings of] the triple world do. I see all this clearly and infallibly.

The Vajra Sutra is concerned with “marks” or characteristics and how to avoid clinging to them. There are four marks: the mark of self, the mark of others, the mark of living beings and the mark of life.

Hsuan Hua explains in his commentary:

Because Subhūti had cultivated good roots for limitless kalpas, it was not difficult for him to believe. He realized, however, that anyone in the Dharma Ending Age, at the time when people are Strong in Fighting, who could believe, understand, receive, and hold the sūtra, would be a foremost individual and very rare. And why? Such people will have no mark of self, meaning they have no greed. No mark of others, meaning they have no anger. No mark of living beings, meaning they are not stupid. No mark of a life, meaning they have no desire. They have no greed, anger, stupidity, or desire, these four kinds of attachments. The four marks are without a mark. No mark is real mark. Real mark is no mark. And why? Because real mark is also distinct from all which has no marks. If you can obtain real mark, that is obtaining the principle substance of the self-nature of all Buddhas. Those who have relinquished all marks are called Buddhas. Therefore you too can certainly become a Buddha.

The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, p111

Over the next several days I’m going to post excerpts from Hsuan Hua’s commentary on the Vajra Sutra.