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those who are in the habit of listening to the discriminations and views of the philosophers will regard
things born as non-existent and those destroyed by causation as existent. It is like a mirror relfecting
colors abd images as determined by conditions but without any partiality. It is like the echo of the wind
that gives the sound of a human voice. It is like a mirage of moving water seen in a desert. In the same
way the discriminating mind of the ignorant which has been heated by false-imaginations and
speculations is stirred into mirage-like waves by the winds of birth, growth and destruction. It is like the
magician Pisaca, who by means of his spells makes a wooden image or a dead body to throb with life,
through it has no power of its own. In the same way the ignorant and the simple-minded, committing
themselves to erroneous philosphical views become thoroghly devoted to the ideas of oneness and
otherness, but their confidence is not well grounded. For this reason, Mahamati, you and other
Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas should cast off all discriminations leading to the notions of birth, abiding, and
destruction, of oneness and otherness, of bothness and not-bothness, of being and non-being and thus
getting free of the bondage of habit-energy become able to attain reality realisable wihtin yourselves of
Noble Wisdom.
* * *
Then said Mahamati to the Blessed One: Why is it that the ignorant are given up to discrimination and the
wise are not?
The Blessed One replied: it is because the ignorant cling to names, signs and ideas; as their minds move
along these channels they feed on multiplicities of objects and fall into the notion of and ego-soul and
what belongs to it; they make discriminations of good and bad among appearances and cling to the
agreeable. As they thus cling there is a reversion to ignorance, and karma born of greed, anger and folly,
is accumulated. As the accumulation of karma goes on they become imprisioned in a cocoon of
discrimination and are thenceforth unable to free themselves from the round of birth and death.
Because of folly they do not understand that all things are like maya, like the reflection of the moon in
water, that there is no self-substance to be imagined as an ego-soul and its belongings, and that all their
definite ideas rise from their false discriminations of what exists only as it is seen of the mind itself. They
do not realise that things have nothing to do with qualify and qualifying, nor with the course of birth,
abiding and destruction, and instead they assert that they are born of a creator, of time, of atoms, of some
celestial spirit. It is because the ignorant are given up to discrimination that they move along with the
stream of appearances, but it is not so with the wise.
Chapter II
False-Imaginations and Knowledge of Appearances
Then Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva spoke to the Blessed One, saying: You speak of the
erroneous views of the philosophers, will you please tell us of them, that we may be on our guard against
them?
The Blessed One replied, saying: Mahamati, the error in these erroneous teachings that are generally held
by the philosophers lies in this: they do not recognise that the objective world rises from the mind itself;
they do not understand that the whole mind-system also arises from the mind itself; but depending upon
these manifestations of the mind as being real they go on discriminating them, like the simple-minded
ones that they are, cherishing the dualism of this and that, of being and non-being, ignorant to the fact that
there is but one common Essence.
One the contrary my teaching is based upon recognition that the objective world, like a vision, is a
manifestation of the mind itself; it teaches the cessation of ignorance, desire, deed and casualty; it teaches
the cessation of suffering that arises from the discriminations of the triple world.
There are some Brahman scholars who, assuming something out of nothing, assert that there is substance
bound up with causation which abides in time, and that the elements that make up personality and its
environment have their genesis and continuation in causation and after thus existing, pass away. Then
there are other scholars who hold a destructive and nihilistic view concerning such subjects as
continuation, activity, breaking-up, existence, Nirvana, the Path, karma, fruition and Truth. Why?
Because they have not attained an intuitive understanding of Truth itself and therefore they have no clear
insight into the fundamentals of things. They are like a jar broken into pieces which is no longer able to
fuction as a jar; they are like a burnt seed which is no longer capable of sprouting. But the elements that
make up personality and its environment which they regard as subject to change are really incapable of
uninterrupted transformations. Their views are based upon erroneous discriminations of the objective
world; they are not based upon true conceptions.
Again, if it is true that something comes out of nothing and there is the rise of the mind-system by reason
of the combinations of the three effect-producing causes, we could say the same of any non-existing
thing: for instance, that a tortoise could grow hair, or sand produce oil. This proposition is of no avail; it
ends up in affirming nothing. It follows that the deed, work and cause of which they speak is of no use,
and so also is their reference to being and non-being, if they argue that there is a combination of the three
effect-producing causes, they must do it on the principle of cause and effect, that is, that something comes
out of something and not out of nothing. As long a world of relativity is asserted, there is an ever
recurring chain of causation which cannot be denied under any circunstance, therefore we cannot talk of
anything comming to and end or of cessation. As long as these scholars remain on their philosophical
ground their demostration must conform to logic and their textbooks, and the memory habit of erroneous
intellection will ever cling to them. To make the matter worse, the simple-minded ones, poisoned by these
erroneous view, will declare this incorrect way of thinking taught by the ignorant, to be the same as that
presented by the All-knowing One.
But the way of instruction presented by the Tathagatas is not based on assertions and refutations by means
of words and logic. There are four forms of assertion that can be made concerning things not in existence,
namely, assertions made about individual marks that are not in existence; about objects that are not in
existence, about a cause that is non-existent; and about philosophical views that are erroneous. By
refutation is meant that one, because of ignorance, has not examined properly the error that lies at the
base of these assertions.
The assertion about individual marks that really have no existence, concerns the distinctive marks as
percived by the eye, ear, nose, etc., as indicating individuality and generality in the elements that make up
personality and its external world; and then, taking these marks for reality and getting attached to them, to
ge into the habit or affirming that things are just so and not otherwise.
The assertion about objects that are non-existent is an assertion that rises from attachment to these
associated marks of individuality and generality. Objects in themselves are neither in existence nor in
non-existence and are quite devoid of the alternative of being and non-being; and should only be thought
of as one thinks of the horns of a hare, a horse, or a camel, which never existed. Objects are discriminated
by the ignorant who are addicted to assertion and negation, because their intelligence has not been acute
enough to penetrate into the truth that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself.
The assertion of a cause that is non-existent assumes the causeless birth of the first element of the mind-
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