The Śūraṅgama Sūtra: A New Translation

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The Śūraṅgama Sūtra: A New Translation; With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsüan Hua

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Translations of Sutras (Chi-Eng)

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

For over a thousand years, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra — the "Sutra of the Indestructible” — has been held in great esteem in the Mahāyāna Buddhist countries of East and Southeast Asia. In China the Sutra has generally been considered as important and has been as popular as the Lotus Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Heart Sūtra, and the Diamond Sūtra. The appeal of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra lies in the broad scope of its teachings and in the depth and clarity of its prescriptions for contemplative practice. Because of its wealth of theoretical and practical instruction in the spiritual life, it was often the first major text to be studied by newly ordained monks, particularly in the Chan school. Many enlightened masters and illustrious monastic scholars have written exegetical commentaries on it. To this day, for both clergy and laity in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra continues to be the object of devout study, recitation, and memorization.
      More specifically, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra has traditionally been regarded as a complete and practical manual for spiritual practice that will eventually lead to enlightenment. It gives instruction in the correct understanding of the Buddha-nature, which is the potential within all beings for becoming a Buddha. The Sutra explains how and why this true nature is hidden within our ordinary experience of ourselves and of the world, and it shows how we can uncover this nature and recognize that it is our own true mind. The Sutra also explains that personal integrity and purity of conduct are essential prerequisites for spiritual awakening. It presents the general principles of Buddhist meditation, introduces several specific meditation methods, and recommends which methods are the most effective and the easiest to practice. Further, a considerable portion of the Sutra is devoted to guidelines for discerning what understandings and practices are correct and which deviate into wrong ones. It explains how our own intentional acts, whether physical, verbal, or mental, directly result in our experiences, including our future rebirths at various levels of being, both human and nonhuman. It shows how correct action can also lead to initial awakenings and eventually to the perfect enlightenment of the Buddhas.
      Much of the Sutra is devoted to the Buddha Śākyamuni's instructions to the monk nanda, whose personal story provides a narrative frame for the entire discourse. Joined by several of his enlightened disciples, the Buddha shows nanda how to turn the attention of his sense-faculties inward in order to achieve a deeply focused state of meditation known as samādhi. He tells nanda that by practicing a particular form of samādhi, the Śūraṅgama Samādhi, he and anyone else who also maintains purity of conduct and develops right understanding can gain an awakening that is equal to the awakening experienced by all Buddhas.
      At the heart of the Sutra is the Śūraṅgama Mantra. The Sutra promises that the practice of reciting this mantra, in the context of the other practices taught in the Sutra, can succeed in eliminating whatever internal or external obstacles may lie in the way of spiritual progress. To this day, monks and nuns in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, as well as many practitioners among the laity, recite the mantra every morning as an essential aspect of daily practice. (Buddhist Text Translation Society, introduction, 1. Overview)

Notes in this description have been omitted due to missing characters in the electronic version.

Citation

Buddhist Text Translation Society, trans. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra: A New Translation; With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsüan Hua. Burlingame, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 2009.

Publisher Link

https://www.buddhisttexts.org/collections/sutra-texts/products/the-surangama-sutra-with-excerpts-from-the-commentary-by-the-venerable-master-hsuan-hua

Table of contents

Forewordx
Introductionxiii

Prologue I: The Nature and Location of the Mind

1. The Request for Dharma13
2. The Location of the Mind16
- A. Ananda Proposes That the Mind Ts in the Body16
- B. Ananda Proposes That the Mind Is Outside the Body17
- C. Ananda Proposes That the Mind ls in the Eye-faculty19
- D. Ananda Reconsiders Seeing Inside and Seeing Outside20
- E. Ananda Proposes That the Mind Comes into Being in Response to Conditions22
- F. Ananda Proposes That the Mind ls in the Middle25
- G. Ananda Proposes That the Mind Has No Specific Location27
3. The Conditioned Mind and the True Mind29

II: The Nature of Visual Awareness

1. It Is the Mind That Sees41
2. Visual Awareness Does Not Move43
3. Visual Awareness Does Not Perish48
4. The True Nature of Visual Awareness ls Not Lost51
5. Visual Awareness Is Not Dependent upon Conditions54
6. Visual Awareness Is Not a Perceived Object59
7. Visual Awareness Has Neither Shape nor Extension64
8. Visual Awareness ls Both Separate and ot Separate from Objects66
9. Visual Awareness Arises either on Its Own nor from Causes72
10. True Visual Awareness75
11. Distortions in Visual Awareness Based on Karma78
12. Visual Awareness Exists Neither Through Inhering nor in Conjoining84

III: The Matrix of the Thus-Come One

1. The Five Aggregates Are the Matrix of the Thus-Come One89
- A. The Aggregate of Form90
- B. The Aggregate of Sense-Perception91
- C. The Aggregate of Cognition92
- D. The Aggregate of Mental Formations93
- E. The Aggregate of Consciousness94
2. The Six Faculties Are the Matrix of the Thus-Come One95
- A. The Eye-Faculty95
- B. The Ear-Faculty96
- C. The Nose-Faculty97
- D. The Tongue-Faculty98
- E. The Body-Faculty100
- F. The Cognitive Faculty101
3. The Twelve Sites Are the Matrix of the Thus-Come One103
- A. The Eye-Faculty and Visible Objects103
- B. The Ear-Faculty and Sounds104
- C. The Nose-Faculty and Odors105
- D. The Tongue-Faculty and Flavors105
- E. The Body-Faculty and Objects of Touch106
- F. The Cognitive Faculty and Objects of Cognition107
4. The Eighteen Constituents Are the Matrix of the Thus-Come One109
- A. The Coming into Being of the Eye-Consciousness109
- B. The Coming into Being of the Ear-Consciousness110
- C. The Coming into Being of the Nose-Consciousness111
- D. The Coming into Being of the Tongue-Consciousness113
- E. The Coming into Being of the Body-Consciousness115
- F. The Coming into Being of the Mind-Consciousness117
5. The Seven Primary Elements Are the Matrix of the Thus-Come One119
- A. The Primary Element Earth121
- B. The Primary Element Fire123
- C. The Primary Element Water124
- D. The Primary Element Wind126
- E. The Primary Element Space127
- F. The Primary Element Awareness129
- G. The Primary Element Consciousness132
6. Ananda's Vow135

IV: The Coming into Being of the World of Illusion

1. Adding Understanding to Understanding141
2. The Buddhas' Enlightenment Is Irreversible151
3. The Interfusing of the Primary Elements153
4. Delusion Has No Basis: The Parable of Yajñadatta159

V: Instructions for Practice

1. Five Layers of Turbidity169
2. Choosing One Faculty in Order to Liberate All Six175
3. The Example of the Bell's Sound185
4. The Analogy of the Six Knots196

VI: Twenty-Five Sages

1. Twenty-Five Sages Speak of Enlightenment205
2. The Bodhisattva Who Hears the Cries of the World234
3. The Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī's Recommendation248

VII: Four Clear and Definitive Instructions on Purity

1. On Sexual Desire263
2. On Killing267
3. On Stealing270
4. On Making False Claims274

VllI: The Śūraṅgama Mantra

Establishing a Place for Awakening279
The Śūraṅgama Mantra288
The Powers of the Mantra299
Vows of Protection308

IX: Levels of Being

1. The Coming into Being of the World of Illusion313
2. Twelve Classes of Beings318
3. Three Gradual Steps323
- A. Avoiding the Plants of the Onion Group323
- B. Ending Any Violation of the Fundamental Rules of Behavior325
- C. Avoiding Intentional Engagement with Perceived Objects327
4. The Fifty-Seven Stages of the Bodhisattva's Path329
- A. Arid Wisdom329
- B. Ten Stages of Stabilizing the Mind329
- C. Ten Abodes331
- D. Ten Practices333
- E. Ten Dedications336
- F. Four Additional Practices339
- G. Ten Grounds340
- H. Two Final Stages341
5. Naming the Discourse344
6. The Hells346
- A. Ananda Requests Instruction346
- B. The Roles of Emotion and Thought348
- C. Ten Causes and Six Retributions350
7. The Destiny of Ghosts364
8. The Destiny of Animals367
9. The Destiny of Humans370
10. The Destiny of the Ascetic Masters373
11. The Destiny of the Gods376
- A. The Gods of the Six Heavens of Desire376
- B. The Gods of the Eighteen Heavens of Form: The First Dhyana378
- C. The Gods of the Eighteen Heavens of form: The Second Dhyana379
- D. The Gods of the Eighteen Heavens of Form: The Third Dhyana380
- E. The Gods of the Eighteen Heavens of form: The Fourth Dhyana381
- F. The Gods of the Eighteen Heavens of Form: The Pure Abodes382
- G. The Gods on the Four Planes of Formlessness383
12. The Destiny of Asuras386
13. The Seven Destinies Are the Result of Karma387

X: Fifty Demonic States of Mind

1. Dangers May Arise with Advanced Practice391
2. Ten Demonic States of Mind Associated with the Aggregate of Form396
3. Ten Demonic States of Mind Associated with the Aggregate of Sense-Perception402
4. Ten Demonic States of Mind Associated with the Aggregate of Cognition411
5. Ten Demonic States of Mind Associated with the Aggregate of Mental Formations429
6. Ten Demonic States of Mind Associated with the Aggregate of Consciousness444
7. The Five Aggregates Arise from Delusion457
8. The Merit of Teaching the Surailgama Dharma463

Appendix: A Brief Biography of the Venerable Master Hsüan Hua465
Index471

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Full translation of

Bhagavaduṣṇīṣamahā [भगवदुष्णीषमहा]. bcom ldan 'das kyi gtsug tor chen po de bzhin gshegs pa'i gsang ba sgrub pa'i don mngon par thob pa'i rgyu byang chub sems dpa' thams cad kyi spyod pa dpa' bar 'gro ba'i mdo le'u stong phrag bcu pa las le'u bcu pa [བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་ཀྱི་གཙུག་ཏོར་ཆེན་པོ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་གསང་བ་སྒྲུབ་པའི་དོན་མངོན་པར་ཐོབ་པའི་རྒྱུ་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་དཔའ་བར་འགྲོ་བའི་མདོ་ལེའུ་སྟོང་ཕྲག་བཅུ་པ་ལས་ལེའུ་བཅུ་པ།]. [The Tenth Chapter from Amongst the Ten Thousand Chapters of the Sūtra on the Heroic Way (84000)]. Translated by Pāramiti. Kangyur, RKTSK 236 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=236&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Śūraṃgamasūtra. (T. Dpa' bar 'gro ba'i mdo; C. Shoulengyan jing; J. Shuryōgongyō; K. Sunǔngǒm kyǒng 首楞嚴經). A Chinese indigenous scripture (see apocrypha), usually known in the West by its reconstructed Sanskrit title Śūraṃgamasūtra, meaning "Heroic March Sūtra." Its full title is Dafoding rulai miyin xiuzheng liaoyi zhu pusa wanxing Shoulengyan jing, in ten rolls. (This indigenous scripture should be distinguished from an early-fifth century Chinese translation of the Śūraṃgamasamādhsūtra, attributed by Kumārajīva, in two rolls, for which Sanskrit fragments are extant.) According to the account in the Chinese cataloguer Zhisheng's Xu gujin yijing tuji, the Śūraṃgamasūtra was brought to China by a śramaṇa named Pāramiti. Because the Śūraṃgamasūtra had been proclaimed a national treasure, the Indian king had forbidden anyone to take the sūtra out of the country. In order to transmit this scripture to China, Pāramiti wrote the sūtra out in minute letters on extremely fine silk, then he cut open his arm and hid the small scroll inside his flesh. With the sūtra safely hidden away, Pāramiti set out for China and eventually arrived in Guangdong province. There, he happened to meet the exiled Prime Minister Fangrong, who invited him to reside at the monastery of Zhizhisi, where he translated the sūtra in 705 CE. Apart from Pāramiti's putative connection to the Śūraṃgamasūtra, however, nothing more is known about him and he has no biography in the Gaoseng zhuan ("Biographies of Eminent Monks"). Zhisheng also has an entry on the Śūraṃgamasūtra in his Kaiyuan Shijiao lu, but there are contradictions in these two extant catalogue accounts of the sūtra's transmission and translation. The Kaiyuan Shijiao lu merely records that the śramaņa Huidi encountered an unnamed Western monk at Guangdong, who had with him a copy of the Sanskrit recension of this sūtra, and Huidi invited him to translate the scripture together. Since the names of this Western monk and his patron Fangrong are not mentioned, the authenticity of the scripture has been called into question. Although Zhisheng assumed the Śūraṃgamasūtra was a genuine Indian scripture, the fact that no Sanskrit manuscript of the text is known to exist, as well as the inconsistencies in the stories about its transmission to China, have led scholiasts for centuries to questions the scripture's authenticity. There is also internal evidence of the scripture's Chinese provenance, such as the presence of such indigenous Chinese philosophical concepts as yin-yang cosmology and the five elements (wuxing) theory, the stylistic beauty of the literary Chinese in which the text is written, etc. For these and other reasons, the Śūraṃgamasūtra is now generally recognized to be a Chinese apocryphal composition. The sūtra opens with one of the most celebrated stories in East Asian Buddhist literature: the Buddha's attendant Ānanda’s near seduction by the harlot Mātaṅgī. With Ānanda close to being in flagrante delicto, the Buddha sends the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī to save him from a pārājika offense, by employing the śūraṃgama dhāraṇī to thwart Mātaṅgī's seductive magic. The Buddha uses the experience to teach to Ānanda and the congregation the śūraṃgamasamādhi, which counters the false views about the aggregates (skandha) and consciousness (vijñāna) and reveals the tathāgatagarbha that is inherent in all sentient beings. This tathāgatagarbha, or buddha-nature, is made manifest through the śūraṃgamasamādhi, which constitutes the "heroic march" forward toward enlightenment. The Śūraṃgamasūtra was especially influential in the Chan school during the Song and Ming dynasties, which used the text as the scriptural justification for the school's distinctive teaching that Chan "points directly to the human mind" (zhizhi renxin), so that one may "see the nature and achieve buddhahood" (jianxing chengfo). Several noted figures within the Chan school achieved their own awakenings through the influence of the Śūraṃgamasūtra, including the Ming-dynasty master Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), and the sūtra was particularly important in the writings of such Ming-dynasty Chan masters as Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615). The leading Chan monk of modern Chinese Buddhism, Xuyun (1840-1959), advocated the practice of the Śūraṃgamasūtra throughout his life, and it was the only scripture that he ever annotated. As a mark of the sūtra's influence in East Asian Buddhism, the Śūraṃgamasūtra is one of the few apocryphal scriptures that receives its own mention in another indigenous sūtra: the apocryphal Foshuo fa miejin jing ("The Sūtra on the Extinction of the Dharma") states that the first sūtra to disappear from the world during the dharma-ending age (mofa) will in fact be the Śūraṃgamasūtra. The Tibetan translation of this Chinese apocryphon was produced during the Qianlong era (1735-1796) of the Qing dynasty; the scripture was apparently so important in contemporary Chinese Buddhism that it was deemed essential for it to be represented in the Tibetan canon as well. (Source: "*Śūraṃgamasūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 873–74. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

1 Teaching based on

Bhagavaduṣṇīṣamahā [भगवदुष्णीषमहा]. bcom ldan 'das kyi gtsug tor chen po de bzhin gshegs pa'i gsang ba sgrub pa'i don mngon par thob pa'i rgyu byang chub sems dpa' thams cad kyi spyod pa dpa' bar 'gro ba'i mdo le'u stong phrag bcu pa las le'u bcu pa [བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་ཀྱི་གཙུག་ཏོར་ཆེན་པོ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་གསང་བ་སྒྲུབ་པའི་དོན་མངོན་པར་ཐོབ་པའི་རྒྱུ་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་དཔའ་བར་འགྲོ་བའི་མདོ་ལེའུ་སྟོང་ཕྲག་བཅུ་པ་ལས་ལེའུ་བཅུ་པ།]. [The Tenth Chapter from Amongst the Ten Thousand Chapters of the Sūtra on the Heroic Way (84000)]. Translated by Pāramiti. Kangyur, RKTSK 236 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=236&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Śūraṃgamasūtra. (T. Dpa' bar 'gro ba'i mdo; C. Shoulengyan jing; J. Shuryōgongyō; K. Sunǔngǒm kyǒng 首楞嚴經). A Chinese indigenous scripture (see apocrypha), usually known in the West by its reconstructed Sanskrit title Śūraṃgamasūtra, meaning "Heroic March Sūtra." Its full title is Dafoding rulai miyin xiuzheng liaoyi zhu pusa wanxing Shoulengyan jing, in ten rolls. (This indigenous scripture should be distinguished from an early-fifth century Chinese translation of the Śūraṃgamasamādhsūtra, attributed by Kumārajīva, in two rolls, for which Sanskrit fragments are extant.) According to the account in the Chinese cataloguer Zhisheng's Xu gujin yijing tuji, the Śūraṃgamasūtra was brought to China by a śramaṇa named Pāramiti. Because the Śūraṃgamasūtra had been proclaimed a national treasure, the Indian king had forbidden anyone to take the sūtra out of the country. In order to transmit this scripture to China, Pāramiti wrote the sūtra out in minute letters on extremely fine silk, then he cut open his arm and hid the small scroll inside his flesh. With the sūtra safely hidden away, Pāramiti set out for China and eventually arrived in Guangdong province. There, he happened to meet the exiled Prime Minister Fangrong, who invited him to reside at the monastery of Zhizhisi, where he translated the sūtra in 705 CE. Apart from Pāramiti's putative connection to the Śūraṃgamasūtra, however, nothing more is known about him and he has no biography in the Gaoseng zhuan ("Biographies of Eminent Monks"). Zhisheng also has an entry on the Śūraṃgamasūtra in his Kaiyuan Shijiao lu, but there are contradictions in these two extant catalogue accounts of the sūtra's transmission and translation. The Kaiyuan Shijiao lu merely records that the śramaņa Huidi encountered an unnamed Western monk at Guangdong, who had with him a copy of the Sanskrit recension of this sūtra, and Huidi invited him to translate the scripture together. Since the names of this Western monk and his patron Fangrong are not mentioned, the authenticity of the scripture has been called into question. Although Zhisheng assumed the Śūraṃgamasūtra was a genuine Indian scripture, the fact that no Sanskrit manuscript of the text is known to exist, as well as the inconsistencies in the stories about its transmission to China, have led scholiasts for centuries to questions the scripture's authenticity. There is also internal evidence of the scripture's Chinese provenance, such as the presence of such indigenous Chinese philosophical concepts as yin-yang cosmology and the five elements (wuxing) theory, the stylistic beauty of the literary Chinese in which the text is written, etc. For these and other reasons, the Śūraṃgamasūtra is now generally recognized to be a Chinese apocryphal composition. The sūtra opens with one of the most celebrated stories in East Asian Buddhist literature: the Buddha's attendant Ānanda’s near seduction by the harlot Mātaṅgī. With Ānanda close to being in flagrante delicto, the Buddha sends the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī to save him from a pārājika offense, by employing the śūraṃgama dhāraṇī to thwart Mātaṅgī's seductive magic. The Buddha uses the experience to teach to Ānanda and the congregation the śūraṃgamasamādhi, which counters the false views about the aggregates (skandha) and consciousness (vijñāna) and reveals the tathāgatagarbha that is inherent in all sentient beings. This tathāgatagarbha, or buddha-nature, is made manifest through the śūraṃgamasamādhi, which constitutes the "heroic march" forward toward enlightenment. The Śūraṃgamasūtra was especially influential in the Chan school during the Song and Ming dynasties, which used the text as the scriptural justification for the school's distinctive teaching that Chan "points directly to the human mind" (zhizhi renxin), so that one may "see the nature and achieve buddhahood" (jianxing chengfo). Several noted figures within the Chan school achieved their own awakenings through the influence of the Śūraṃgamasūtra, including the Ming-dynasty master Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), and the sūtra was particularly important in the writings of such Ming-dynasty Chan masters as Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615). The leading Chan monk of modern Chinese Buddhism, Xuyun (1840-1959), advocated the practice of the Śūraṃgamasūtra throughout his life, and it was the only scripture that he ever annotated. As a mark of the sūtra's influence in East Asian Buddhism, the Śūraṃgamasūtra is one of the few apocryphal scriptures that receives its own mention in another indigenous sūtra: the apocryphal Foshuo fa miejin jing ("The Sūtra on the Extinction of the Dharma") states that the first sūtra to disappear from the world during the dharma-ending age (mofa) will in fact be the Śūraṃgamasūtra. The Tibetan translation of this Chinese apocryphon was produced during the Qianlong era (1735-1796) of the Qing dynasty; the scripture was apparently so important in contemporary Chinese Buddhism that it was deemed essential for it to be represented in the Tibetan canon as well. (Source: "*Śūraṃgamasūtra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 873–74. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)