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The Lankavatara Sutra Is One of the Most Significant and Most Sophisticated of the Surviving Scriptures of the Sanskrit Buddhist Canon

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The Lankavatara Sutra Is One of the Most Significant and Most Sophisticated of the Surviving Scriptures of the Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Lankavatara Sutra The Heart of Buddhism Translated from the original Sanskrit By Thomas Cleary Contents Translator’s introduction Lankavatara Sutra I. Ravana’s Request for Instruction II. A Collection of All 36,000 Teachings III. Impermanence IV. Realization V. Implications of Eternity or Impermanence of the Realized VI. The Momentary VII. Projection VIII. Meat Eating IX. Spells X. Summation in Verse Glossary Translator’s Introduction The Lankavatara sutra is one of the most significant and most sophisticated of the surviving scriptures of the Sanskrit Buddhist canon. Its full title is Saddharma-Lankavatara-sutra, meaning scripture on the entry of true teaching into Sri Lanka. Of comparatively late composition, it provides keys to contextualization and interpretation of different doctrines and practices of pan- Buddhism, particularly in distinguishing dogmatism from design: “This scripture has multiple meanings to guide recipients of all dispositions, not disputation that is actually contradictory.” “The teachings indicated in all the scriptures are appeasements for subjective imaginations of ignorant people, not disputation intended to establish ultimate knowledge as it is in reality. Therefore one should follow meaning, not adherence to the expression of teachings.” “The word of the Buddha has no statement.” “Ultimate truth is not a statement, nor is ultimate truth what is expressed by a statement.” “The leading principle of the goal is distinguished by first-hand experience, beyond speech, imagination, and words, reaching the realm where there is no impulse, the inherent characteristic of arrival at the stage of first-hand realization, excluding all the destructive forces of speculation and dogmatism.” “The leading principle of instruction is discerning accommodation to people’s conditions.” “The teachings are not literal, and yet Buddhas do not present them for no reason. They present them in consideration of mental construction. Without material to use, instruction in all the teachings would disappear. …. The great bodhisattvas should be free of obsession with the articulation of the recital of teaching. The recital of teaching has different meanings on account of the engagement of people’s mentalities.” “Just as if someone points out something to someone with a finger, and the latter looks only at the fingertip, in the same way ignorant ordinary people, as if of infantile disposition, will go to their death adhering to the fingertip of meaning as articulated, and will not arrive at the ultimate meaning beyond the fingertip of expression. …. Just as the ignorant one fixated on the pointing fingertip does not apprehend the moon, so does one attached to the letter not know my truth.” “As a physician prescribes the type of treatment according to the illness, and there is no division in the science but treatment is distinguished by the type of illness, so do I teach the family of beings according to the afflictions with which they are troubled, after having ascertained the powers of beings’ capacities.” In general, this scripture emphasizes emancipation from deception by understanding of the non-objective character of conditioned subjectivity immersed in acquired habits of thought mistaking cognitive interpretation for external reality: “The occurrence of thought is bound by impressions of imagination; for what is attributed to the world is only mental but appears external to people.” “One imagines falsely when thought, intellect, and cognitive consciousness are immersed in the appearance of self-existence of external things.” “Cognition with mind tied to objects takes place in thought. Insight, though, operates in the domain of essence without image. Imagined identity imposed on the relative is not really there; the imagined is grasped by confusion; the relative is not imagined.” Taken in fragments, this teaching has historically been confused with subjective idealism, or interpreted to deny the reality of the external world, or to say that nothing exists. Chan Buddhist classics make a particular point of demonstrating the error of this type of exaggeration, in part because Chinese translations of the Lankavatara do not distinguish certain critical Sanskrit terms and thus are more prone to misinterpretation. The original scripture rigorously rejects nihilism and does not ultimately deny either self or world: “A square is established; how could it be, if there is no form? If there is no inside and outside, consciousness does not operate.” “Beans don’t sprout from sesame seed, rice does not produce barley, wheat and corn are of different kinds.” “A totality of conditions starts and stops; no separate existent is born or passes away from the totality. There is no separate existence at all relative to the totality as a unity, singly, as imagined by philosophers.” “Though form is there, there is no vision in the formless realm. Its absence is not the aim, nor the vehicle, nor the journey.” “The inherent formation of matter is due to conditions, without a true state; the supreme ultimate existence, Brahma, I say is this matter.” “Confused thinkers without guidance are in a cave of consciousness running hither and thither seeking to explain the self. The pure self has to be realized first hand; that is the matrix of realization, inaccessible to speculative thinkers.” “If there is no self, how can phenomena such as illusion be or not be?” “The mind is naturally shining; intellect and so on are otherwise—the actions accumulated by them are why they both are afflicted. The shining self is defiled by adventitious afflictions without beginning, and when in that condition is cleaned like a garment. Just as clothing, or gold, freed of defect by absence of impurity, does not disappear but remains, likewise the self without faults.” “This explanation of self, standing out like the blaze at the end of an eon, outshines the forest-fire of selflessness, freed from the faults of dogma.” The Lankavatara sutra was composed in a time known for developments in mathematics, astronomy, logic, philosophy, religion, and law. Conscious of this, the scripture uses associated categories of thought to turn human consciousness on itself. Early on in the discourse the scripture indirectly illustrates its central concern by posing unanswered questions designed to draw attention to relativity and context in definitions, structures, measures, and measurement. The scripture also plays with a complex multiplicity of meanings for one and zero to show the many roles that underlying attitudes of affirmation and denial may play in the formation of consciousness, social organization, cultural development, and their relation to each other and the material world. The scripture applies the same analysis to mental states and phenomena associated with meditation and mysticism. This is often addressed to yogis and Buddhist “hearers,” or followers of the lesser path leading to individual nirvana: “Extinction of perception and sense is not suitable for transcending the conditions of subjective mental objects, because of being mental content.” To yogis, the scripture describes those who “elicit super-knowledges seeking godhood,” as “ignorant,” and for Buddhists it differentiates practitioners of Mahayana or Great Vehicle Buddhism from the hearers who are “seekers of nirvana for their own pleasure.” Buddha declares, “I do not attain nirvana by a thing, an act, or a form; I attain nirvana when consciousness grounded in false imagination ceases. On its account, having seized on it, connected to the course of the intellect, it gives rise to thought and fixated consciousness.” The habit of propitiating deities for personal or political profit, resurgent in the era of the scripture’s composition, is also attributed by this analysis to exploitation of the influence of suggestion: “The materialist inspiration of various formulas deludes the unenlightened by various expressions of purpose. It is not reasonable, or beneficial, yet he teaches any nonsensical prattle whatever; for this reason it is called the inspiration of sundry spells of the materialist.” The primarily pragmatic nature of the Buddha’s renunciation of hallowed dogma, emphasized in this Lankavatara scripture, is illustrated with concrete examples in a story told in the Buddhist scripture Mahaparinirvana-sutra, which was composed in the same historical era. This story lampoons the ad hoc usage of philosophical and religious constructs to rationalize or justify destructive human actions. The scripture tells of a “corrupt and evil king who liked killing, who violated all precepts of speech, whose mind was inflamed with greed, anger, and folly, who only saw the present and didn’t see the future, only associated with bad people, and was fixated on the pleasures of the present world.” He was so bad he “murdered his innocent father,” but afterwards he was “consumed by guilt” and stopped consorting with his courtesans. This spontaneous revolution of conscience represents a glimpse of the enlightened nature believed to be inherent in all beings. Losing his ability to enjoy ordinary pleasures, the guilt-ridden king also broke out in sores all over his body, sores so foul smelling that no one could get near him. The king’s mother applied a variety of medicaments, but the sores only got worse. The king told her that his disease was mental in origin, not physical, so he couldn’t be cured. Then a minister of state came to the king and asked why he was so worn out with sadness and looked so unhappy—was it physical pain or mental
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