Segment 1 / the Diamond Sutra
“Thus have I heard: At one time, the Buddha was residing in the Jetavana Grove in the city of Shravasti, accompanied by a large assembly of 1,250 monks. When the time for the midday meal arrived, the Blessed One donned his robes, took his alms bowl, and entered the great city of Shravasti to beg for food. After completing his alms round in the city and gathering food in the prescribed manner, he returned to his residence. Following the meal, he set aside his robes and alms bowl, washed his feet, lay out a seat and sit down.”
All Buddhist sutras begin with the phrase, “Thus have I heard.”
Historically, during the Buddha’s lifetime, his teachings were not yet transcribed into written texts. Instead, his disciples learned by listening to and memorizing his words. After the Buddha’s Parinirvana, his disciples convened to compile all his teachings. As the Buddha’s close attendant accompanying the Buddha all the time, esteemed Ānanda was renowned for his exceptional ability to hear and retain information, earning him the distinction of being foremost in memory among the disciples. He possessed an extraordinary capacity to recall everything he had witnessed and heard.
Thus, esteemed Ānanda recited and transmitted the Buddha’s teachings, while the other disciples recorded and validated them. This process of narration and recording resulted in the compilation of the sutras we possess today.
Since almost every sutra was recited by Ānanda; therefore, Buddhist sutras had formed a standardized format. That is, the opening passages always start with “Thus have I heard”, which means this is what I have heard.
This Segment then introduces the time, place, and the assembly of people present at the Dharma gathering. Almost all Buddhist sutras follow this uniform time reference, “At one time”, which signifies “At that particular time.”
Why, then, does the Buddha refrain from specifying the exact year, month, or day of his teachings? There are two explanations: First, in Buddhism, time and space are regarded as illusory and unreal, existing only in relation to the consciousness of beings within the Three Realms and Six Paths.
From the perspective of conventional truth, even though Buddhism aims to universally liberate all beings in the six realms, the perceptions and experienced dimensions of time and space differ among the six realms at the same moment.
Within the human realm, there are time differences across nations. Thus, the Buddha does not give a precise year, month, or day but instead states, “At that particular time.” The other explanation comes from a historical perspective: India traditionally does not emphasize a rigid, fixed concept of time. However, there is no point to argue these. Let us now proceed with the next part of the sutra.
The location where the Buddha delivered this sutra is Jeta’s Grove in the city of Shravasti. The name, though somewhat cumbersome, is composed of names of two individuals, Jeta and Anathapindika. According to legend, Jeta was a prince of Shravasti, and the Anathapindika was a wealthy man from the same region.
Anathapindika sought to build a monastery for the Buddha, where He could stay and teach. After careful investigation, he chooses one Grove owned by Prince Jeta. Prince Jeta, who didn’t lack money and wouldn’t sell his favorite garden for no reason. So the prince jestingly remarked, “If you cover my entire garden with gold coins, I will sell it to you at that price”. Unexpectedly Anathapindika really did it. When cartloads of gold coins were brought to the garden, Prince Jeta was amazed. He was eager to understand what unique charm Shakyamuni Buddha possessed that could inspire Anathapindika to do this and even exhaust his fortune in support of the Buddha.
Upon realizing then Buddha’s wisdom, Prince Jeta immediately donated the garden, saying to Anathapindika, “You may build the monastery here, and consider it your offering to the Buddha. The trees in the garden, I will donate.” Thus, after the monastery was constructed, it was named “Jeta Grove, Anathapindika’s Park,” signifying that Prince Jeta had donated the trees, while Anathapindika had donated the monastery. This was the location where the Buddha delivered the Diamond Sutra.
The sutra notes that the attendees of this Dharma assembly numbered 1,250. During the Buddha’s lifetime, there were 1,250 disciples who formed the regular assembly, constantly accompanying him. This group followed the Buddha wherever he went, practicing and learning in his presence. Very few were absent when the Buddha gave teachings.
At the beginning of the Diamond Sutra, a scene from the Buddha’s daily life in the monastic community on earth is depicted. It describes a moment precisely at the time for the midday meal, when the World-Honored One was about to go out for alms. The sutra recounts: Around noon, the World-Honored One donned his robe, took his alms bowl, and walked slowly from the monastery into the great city of Shravasti.
In the city, he went door to door, to collect alms from seven households. After completing his alms round, he returned to the monastery, finished his meal, and put away his robe and alms bowl. During his alms rounds, his feet got mud on, the World-Honored One washed his feet. He then arranged his cushion, sat upright, and ready for meditate and rest.
At that time, the Buddhist monastic community adhered to the practice of having only one meal per day, with no food consumed after noon. Moreover, they needed to go out and collect alms for themselves. In their alms rounds, the monks made no distinction between the rich and the poor, or the high and the low. They would visit seven households in succession. After the seventh household, regardless of whether they had gathered sufficient food, they would cease seeking alms and return to the monastery to continue their practice and cultivation. Monks who had collected food would, of course, share with those who had not received alms.
Everyone here just studied the Lotus Sutra recently. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha would manifest auspicious signs before He began His teaching. That is, a white hair-mark light emitted from between his eyebrows illuminated infinite lands to the east.
In many Mahāyāna sutras’ opening passages, the Buddha always emitted light, accompanied by awe-inspiring and earth-shaking signs. Some of these lights served to subdue the forces of Mara, preventing them from disrupting the teaching. Other lights were meant to attract dragon and celestial protectors as well as beings in the Six Realms for their attention. Upon witnessing the Buddha’s light, some beings were drawn to come to listen to the Dharma or to offer protections. Of course there were other causes and conditions that we may not comprehend fully.
However, the Diamond Sutra holds a significant position in the dissemination of the Dharma, especially after the formation of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Since hearing the phrase in the Diamond Sutra, “Not attach to anything, the self-nature will arise,” the Sixth Patriarch Huineng became a monk and emerged as the grandmaster in the spread of Chan Buddhism. As Chan Buddhism gained widespread influence, the Diamond Sutra also became well-known with the enlightenment story of the Sixth Patriarch, Master Huineng.
Furthermore, the Diamond Sutra is relatively concise, with just over 5,000 characters, making it a most favored sutra for those who print sutras to accumulate merit, as well as for beginners in their study of Buddhism.
In the practice and realization of Buddhist teachings, this sutra holds great significance and continues to be of immense value for the future development of Buddhism. However, the Buddha manifested as a most ordinary human being, devoid of miraculous signs. He dressed himself, carried his alms bowl, and went out to collect alms. His feet, would become soiled with dust, mud, or cow dung. Upon returning, he would wash his feet before sitting down and arranging his seat himself.
This is the Buddha on earth, no different from you or me.
Why, then, did the Buddha not manifest any miraculous powers or create awe-inspiring phenomena within the Three Realms and Six Paths at the outset of such an important sutra? The answer is, in fact, quite simple: the Diamond Sutra is breaking all attachments. Every manifestation of the Buddha served solely to assist sentient beings in attaining liberation. When the Buddha’s disciples break through the attachment, there was no longer any need for the Buddha to display miraculous powers.
Why is this so? For sentient beings who aspire to attain Buddhahood, the most common attachment is to the image of a Buddha with boundless power. Even among the disciples of Arhats, there is attachment to the Buddha’s attributes, such as the thirty-two marks and eighty secondary characteristics. We often feel that we are not Buddhas because, in our minds, we hold numerous fantastical ideas about the Buddha’s limitless power. Arhat disciples are unable to abide in emptiness because they believe their own merits are incomplete and continue to envision a more perfect Buddha in their minds.
In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha declares: “All dharmas are equal, none is higher or lower, that is unsurpassed, complete equal and complete awareness (Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi).” As long as you cling to the Buddha’s form or the forms of sentient beings, you have lost your sense of equality. If you are unable to recognize your own Buddha-nature in the Buddha’s ordinary appearance, you will similarly be unable to perceive your self-nature in the Buddha’s miraculous manifestations.
Next, I will address a few concepts that may cause confusion when studying the Diamond Sutra. First, let us clarify what is meant by “form,” as the concepts of “attachment to form” and “breaking the attachment to form” will frequently arise in the study of this sutra. What is meant by “form”? In the Diamond Sutra, the term “form” encompasses the appearance, shape, experience, definitions, perceptions, information, time, and space, etc.
For instance, when the word “apple” is mentioned, those who have eaten apples will immediately form a mental image of an apple, recall its taste, and distinguish between different varieties of apples. Furthermore, in their minds, there will be preferences, whether they like apples or not, or whether they desire to eat one. When hearing the word “apple,” you carry all the associated information of an apple. This is referred to as “attachment to the form of words.”i.e. attachment to the concepts.
Human cognition of “form” is generally rooted in a three-dimensional perspective, limited by eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. This perspective represents a flawed worldview and outlook on life. Thus, when individuals affirm and become attached to these “forms,” they obstruct their understanding of the true nature of the universe. This attachment confines the mind to a three-dimensional space-time, and, due to ignorance in perception, leads to the suffering associated with birth, aging, illness, death, and the impermanence of arising and ceasing.
In subsequent passages of the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha deconstructs various “forms,” of self, person, sentient beings, aging, Buddha, Arhat, Bodhisattva, merit, Dharma, annihilation, wisdom, and the state of Buddhahood etc.
The Buddha addresses these “forms” because his disciples are particularly prone to attachment to them along the path of practice. Such attachment often leads them to mistakenly grasp at these forms, believing them to be real or inherent. This misperception not only hinders one from returning to the true, empty nature of the Tathāgata’s realm but also transforms the Bodhisattva path into mere worldly deeds and rewards. As a result, it becomes exceedingly difficult for practitioners to make genuine progress on the Bodhisattva path.
The second point concerns certain sentence structures in the Diamond Sutra that may cause confusion for readers, such as “is what, not what, is named as what.”
When the Buddha deconstructs a form, he often employs another name or form as a tool for this process. This can be likened to using a needle to pick out a splinter; the needle is a borrowed form, and its purpose is to remove the splinter. However, the Buddha also recognizes that once the splinter has been removed, you may become attached to the needle itself or its form. To prevent this, the Buddha explains the needle in terms that disarm attachment: “The needle is not the needle, it is merely named as the needle.” Similarly, in illustrating the illusory nature of all phenomena or forms, even the act of pricking is described as “the prick is not the prick, it is merely named as the prick.” Master Kumārajīva used this structure in his translation to emphasize that all names, and words are conventionally and temporarily established. The aim is to counteract attachment and misconceptions that arise in the mind.
The third point addresses the Buddha’s titles. three titles for the Buddha appear in this text: “Buddha,” “World-Honored One,” and “Tathāgata.” These titles have no difference in its meaning, then why are all three titles used together in the text?
In the text, the title “Buddha” generally refers to the Buddha’s physical form as he addresses his disciples during the teaching. This is because the disciples must first encounter the Buddha’s form in order to receive his teachings.
When the Buddha seeks to explain the essence of Dharma, which is formless shapeless, and non-duality of form and emptiness, he uses the title “Tathāgata” for this. In my explanation, I have rendered this as “self-nature,” “Tathāgata,” or “true emptiness,” hoping listeners are not attached to these word-forms of the Buddha or Tathagata.
The term “World-Honoured One” is a title used by Subhūti to address the Buddha with the highest respect. In Buddhist studies, the Buddha is understood through three aspects: the Reward Body Buddha, the Transformation Body Buddha, and the Dharma Body Buddha.
The “Reward Body Buddha” refers to the body form of a realized being who has fully cultivated and perfected the Buddhist path, having completed merits in the human realm and achieving boundless supernatural powers.
The “Transformation Body Buddha” refers to the Buddha’s various manifestations in various worlds, assuming diverse forms to guide and liberate sentient beings according to causes and conditions. For instance, in the human realm, Shakyamuni Buddha manifested as an Arhat of detaching from attachments and desires.
The “Dharma Body Buddha” refers to the formless, intrinsic nature that is inherent in all beings. However, I did not use these terms in my explanations for the sutras because the Buddha is imparting the wisdom of Prajna, the non-duality wisdom of emptiness and form. I wish to avoid fostering an understanding of the Buddha with the distinctions between essence and form.
The Reward Body, Transformation Body, and Dharma Body are simply conceptual distinctions that help disciples study and comprehend the teachings. For those who have realized Buddhahood, these three are one.
Seeing form is seeing emptiness. There is no way to discard forms to perceive emptiness separately; it can only be realized through non-attachment to forms. Nevertheless, readers should understand these concepts.