Translated by Upasaka Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk)

1 EBUDDHANET'SBOOKLIBRARYE-mail: site: Dharma Education Association by Upasaka Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk)The Surangama SutraThe Surangama SutraThe ra gama S tra(Leng Yen Ching)Chinese Rendering byMaster Paramiti of CentralNorth India at Chih Chih Monastery,Canton, China, 705 Commentary(abridged) byCh an Master Han han (1546-1623) Translated byUp saka Lu K uan Yu (Charles Luk) CommentEnlightenment in Mah y na buddhism consists in transmut-ing the mind into the Great Mirror Wisdom. And so the ra gama S tra points directly at the Mind which whenstirred by the first thought creates the basic illusion of an egoand splits the Whole into subject and object.

2 In consequenceit is still a primary source for the Ch an or Zen this s tra the Buddha began by stripping nanda ofthis attachment to the illusory body and mind before reveal-ing the One Mind. To teach how this One Mind can be real-ised he asked twenty-five Bodhisattvas to describe thedifferent methods by which each had attained Enlighten-ment. Avolokitesvara s method was judged the most suitablefor mankind Buddha disclosed the cause of transmigrationthrough the six worlds and of the attainment of the four saintlyplanes, describing these ten regions in some detail.

3 Finally hedetailed and warned against clinging to the various mentalstates experienced when practising the ra gama Sam in the West know of the Creation according to theBible, but readers will now find in this s tra how man and hisworld came into being as taught by the Design: Miao YinvTranslatorLu K uan Yu s translation from the Chinese of this importants tra is based on Ch an Master Han Shan s late sixteenthcentury commentary, portions of which are included in K uan Yu was born in Canton in 1898.

4 His firstMaster was the Hutuktu of Sikong, an enlightened GreatLama. His second Master was the Venerable Ch an MasterHsu Yun, the Dharma-successor of all five Ch an sects K uan Yu now lives in Hong Kong and devotes him-self to presenting as many Chinese Buddhist texts as possibleso that buddhism can be preserved at least in the West,should it be fated to disappear in the East as it seems to of the ra gama S traComment .. iiiTranslator .. vPreface .. 15 IThe Noumenon in the Tath gata Store.

5 24 nanda s Weakness The Reason for this Sermon .. 25 Meditative Study of All as Void ( amatha) .. 26 Wiping Out the Five Aggregates & Eight Consciousnesses to Expose the Unreality of Ego .. 27 Revealing the Bright Sam dhi .. 38 Origin of Inversion .. 39 Actual Inversion .. 41 The Inverted Mind .. 41 Probe into the false mind .. 41 Thinking is unreal .. 41 The sixth consciousness is empty .. 42 The seventh consciousness is unreal .. 43 Refuting all inversion .. 45 The Inverted Perception.

6 45A bright Light to reveal the One Reality .. 46 Returning perception to Mind .. 46 Inverted Men .. 48 The worlding's inverted views .. 49 The Hinayanist s inverted views .. 50 The heretics inverted view of annihilation .. 52 The inverted behaviour .. 55 Delusion and Enlightenment are of the same source .. 56viiWiping Out the Unreal .. 59 The Non-existence of Discriminative Perception .. 59 nanda s wrong view .. 59 Unreality of illusory causes .. 59 Falseness of both sense organs and consciousness.

7 60 All phenomena returnable to causes are unreal .. 61 Borrowing The Essence Of Perception To Pick Out Causal Externals .. 61 Setting up the essence of perception .. 62 Picking out causal externals .. 62 The nature of perception .. 63 The (Underlying) Nature of Perception is Not the Essence of Perception .. 63 The capacity of perception .. 64 Picking out causal objects .. 64 The essence of perception .. 65 The Essence of Perception Mistaken for Externals .. 65 Refuting this misconception.

8 65 True perception .. 66 Wiping Out the Capacity of Perception to Reveal the True Mind .. 66 The capacity of seeing .. 66 Breaking up the capacity of seeing .. 67 Revealing the Real .. 67 Eradicating Attachment to the Ego to Reveal the One Reality .. 68 Rooting Out nanda s Misconception of Objects Being and NOT BEING Perception .. 69 Misconception of objects BEING perception .. 69 Misconception of objects NOT BEING perception .. 70Ma ju r s Helpful Interposition .. 72 Wiping Out laya s Self-Evidencing to Reveal One Reality.

9 74 nanda s Discrimination .. 74viiiWiping Out nanda s Discrimination .. 74 Rooting out the self as such .. 74 Eliminating cause and condition .. 75 Revealing the essential Bodhi .. 75 Brushing away wrong assumptions .. 76 Eliminating the Essence of Perception to Reveal Inceptive Enlightenment 76 Wiping Out nanda s Discrimination .. 76 Revealing the Inceptive Bodhi .. 77 Individual Karma .. 80 Collective Karma .. 81 Revealing the Independent Basic Bodhi to Expose the Unfettered Absoluteness (Bh tatathat ).

10 83 Wiping Out All Traces of the False to Enter the Abstruse to Reveal the Bh tatathat .. 84 Direct Pointing to the One Mind .. 86 Fusing Myriads of Things with the Absolute to Reveal the Identity of Phenomenon with Noumenon .. 87 Fusing the Five Aggregates .. 87 The First Aggregate R pa .. 87 The Second Aggregate Vedan .. 88 The Third Aggregate Sa j a .. 89 The Fourth Aggregate Sa sk ra .. 90 The Fifth Aggregate Vi na .. 90 Fusing the Six Entrances .. 91 Entrance through the Eyes.