Perfect Enlightenment 28: Purifier of All Karmic Hinderances: Revealing the Nature of Dharma

Chinese:

於是淨諸業障菩薩在大眾中即從座起，頂禮佛足右繞三匝，長跪叉手而白佛言：「大悲世尊！為我等輩廣說如是不思議事一切如來因地行相，令諸大眾得未曾有，覩見調御歷恒沙劫勤苦境界，一切功用猶如一念，我等菩薩深自慶慰。世尊！若此覺心本性清淨，因何染污，使諸眾生迷悶不入？唯願如來廣為我等開悟法性，令此大眾及末世眾生作將來眼。」說是語已五體投地，如是三請終而復始。

English:

Then the bodhisattva Purifier of All Karmic Hindrances arose from his seat in the great assembly. He bowed to the Buddha’s feet, and circumambulated him three times to the right. He then knelt down with his hands clasped and addressed the Buddha, saying: “Greatly Compassionate World Honoured One, you have explained at length for all of us this inconceivable matter of the aspects of the practice of the causal stage of all Tathāgatas, enabling all in the great assembly to gain that which they have never had. Having had this chance to see the Tamer, all of their passage through realms of suffering for countless kalpas seems as if it were but an instant of thought. We bodhisattvas have been greatly encouraged.”

“World Honoured One, if this enlightened mind is originally pure, what kind of defilements cause sentient beings to be suffer in delusion and not enter? My only request is that you thoroughly reveal the nature of phenomena [dharmas], and cause those in this great assembly and sentient beings of the degenerate age to create the future eye.” After finishing this speech, he prostrated himself to the ground. He asked this three times in succession.

The nature of awareness is about its essence. For a practitioner, when the primordial awareness has awakened, a function has come into action, such that there is an awareness of the realm of dharmakaya. There are many entrances towards this realm: dharmakaya and the Buddha-Within (both of which are part of five main topics here, see the preface). There are also the teaching of non-duality, the profound prajñāpāramitā, suchness, the moment of now, reality, and much more. These realms are an awareness of the primordial awareness. The nature of primordial awareness is the nature of awareness. This nature is also awareness itself.

The nature of phenomena is the true essence of all phenomena. What are all phenomena? They are inclusive of phenomena of all different space-time. They are called phenomena (dharma), they refer to the infinitely many conceptualizations and sophistry. These conceptualizations and sophistry are in turn based on further words and conceptualizations. By eliminating all the conceptuality and sophistry, the realization of the nature of phenomena is the true essence of all phenomena, the ultimate characteristic of all phenomena. In terms of appearances, we call it suchness; in terms of nature, then we call it emptiness in accordance with the establishment of the emptiness of dharmakaya, the nature of emptiness as the primordial nature; in terms of function, we call it the great compassion, the virtue of dharmakaya. Because there are many different names established as the nature of phenomena, there are also many different teachings established accordingly.

Purifier’s question was rooted in the impression that because of obscurations, the primordial awareness cannot be awakened in sentient beings. However, if the nature of phenomena is revealed, then there is no longer obscuration and confusion, through the primordial awareness, one thusly enters the realm of wisdom, hence the question to Buddha on causing “those in this great assembly and sentient beings of the degenerate age to create the future eye.”