Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Speaking of Emptiness

When the Tathagata has spoken of the Golden Excellence Mantra, Buddha continues to speak of Emptiness to benefit the great bodhisattvas and help the assembly- devas, human, understand the supreme method, very profound and truthful. Buddha uses the following verses to elucidate the meanings:

The Tathagata has vividly spoken of

The Excellent meaning of Emptiness

In various other Sutra

Now, in this Sutra, the king of Sutra

Buddha will speak of the meaning of Emptiness

Which is Supreme and surpassing all thoughts

Towards the profound and great

Meaning of Emptiness

The lay person is unable to know and understand

As such, the Tathagata will speak of it here

The great meaning

To help them understand and become awaken

Those with great compassion

Who pity the sentient beings

As such they use the benign means

As the excellent cause (seeds for future results)

As such, the Tathagata will now

Speak of the meaning of Emptiness

In this assembly

Emptiness is to this body

As the empty town to the 6 kinds of bandits

Who abide there

Yet they do not know one another

The kinds of bandits belonging to the 6 circumstances (realms)

Relying on the 6 senses

Yet they do not know one another

It is just the same

The visual sense often looks at

The realm of forms

The auditory sense often listens

To various sounds

The olfactory sense

Often smells in the realm of smell

The sense of taste

Abides in the beauty of that particular realm

The sense of touch receives

Soft and gentle touch  

The sense of thought

Never tired of the methods

As such the six senses

Arise according to their elements

And their particular realms of perception

Thus, distinction is born

The mind, consciousness is like a transformed illusion

Which is not real

It relies on the scenes and circumstances (realms)

And attaches itself to want

Just like a person

Who travels near and far in an empty village

The six consciousnesses are just like that

They rely on the six senses

Consciousness is ever moving, inconstant

And change according to its position

Relying on the senses and attaching to (dependent on) the scenes

Thus it knows the world:

Indulged in beautiful forms and gentle scent

Drunk with the methods of touch (sensory)

And in particular with (peculiar to) the method

It searches endlessly

Consciousness follows the causes (roots)

And travels with the six senses

Just like a bird

Flying in space

Yet it has to rely on the senses

As a dwelling place

Consciousness becomes aware

Of the scenes

It is not a knower

Nor a doer

The body is not permanent and strong

It is made from the elements

All are born from misunderstood (confused) distinction

Just like a machine

That moves because of Habits (karma)

Earth, Water, Fire and Wind

Combine to make a body

And depending on the elements

The results are different

Yet when they abide in the same body

They harm one another

Just like the 4 poisonous snakes

That live in the same box

The 4 great elemental snakes

Have different characters

In the same body

They manifest in terms of rise and fall

Either up or down

Throughout the entire body

As such they meet their own destruction

Such four poisonous snakes

The four great elements

Earth and Water are the two

That tends to sink down

Fire and wind are the two

That tends to sublimate (rise)

Because of their conflicting characters

Sicknesses are born

Consciousness relies on such a body

To create virtuous or non-virtuous deeds

In all kinds of forms

And in the deva and human realms

Or the 3 evil realms

That body receives the results accordingly

Depending on the karma

That body becomes sick

And then dies

For sickness, there is defecation and urination

For death, there is the final decomposition

Fearful maggots and bugs

Thrown to the cemetery

Like a rotten log

The assembly should see

The body as such

Why attach to self, and (the concept of) a living being?

You should know that all methods

Are impermanent

All set into motion

By the power of ignorance

The 4 kinds of elements

Are all empty and false

Their characters (nature) are unreal

And they do not give birth to a true body

As such the Tathagata says

That all elements are Empty

As such, you know that they are false

And not real

And the nature of ignorance

Is empty in itself

If there exists a “form”

It is just the combinations of elements

As such, the true wisdom is lost

Thus the Tathagata calls it “Ignorance”

From practice (habits) and consciousness

There arise names and forms

The 6 entries and sensory

Are also born from that

As a result of love, and the thought of having a self

Birth, old age and death come

Suffering and worries

Pursue sentient beings endlessly

Suffering from the ripening of evil deeds

Which keeps sentient beings in the bondage

Of birth and death, cyclic existence

As such, it does not rest

Its true nature is non-possessing

The nature is empty

Because it is not like the method,

And born from distinction (differentiate)

The Tathagata has eliminated

All kinds of defilement

Often lives according to

The righteous mind and wisdom

Buddha knows that the house of the 5 skandals

Is all empty

And moves on to the true Bodhi

The only true and real place

Buddha opens the gates

Of the castle of sweet dew of immortality

And shows its content

Replete with the miraculous dews

Buddha has acquired His own dews (cam lộ)

The true taste of dews of immortality

And now give to others

That same taste of dews of immortality

Buddha sounds the great Dharma drum

Blow the great Dharma conch

Light the Supreme Dharma torch

And let down rains of the supreme Dharma

Conquer all defilements

Together with all hatred and attachment (oán kết)

Buddha sets up the supreme banners of the Dharma

From the ocean of samsara

Buddha salvage all sentient beings

Buddha closes the doors

To the three evil realms

The great fire of defilement

Which burns and scorches sentient beings

And there is none who can save them

Nor is there a place of refuge

Buddha gives them the sweet and cool dews

That satisfies all their wishes

Their burned body and scorched mind

Are all solaced, and their sufferings eliminated

Thus the Buddha

In countless eons

Have respectfully given offerings

To the past Tathagatas

And also steadfast in keeping the precepts

Stepping forward to Bodhi (enlightenment)

Buddha has the wish to attain the Dharma body

And manifest the state of happiness and bliss

Buddha has also given away

Ears, eyes, arms and legs

Wives and children,

All given away without any regret

Properties, gold, pearls and jewels

Buddha offers them all  

To those who need them

Buddha cultivates fully

The 6 paramitas

And completes the 10 grounds

After that, Buddha attains the state of enlightenment

As such, others reverently call Buddha

The Supremely Wise

No one else can know the Tathagata

Suppose the earth and soil

In the great heavenly worlds

Everywhere in there sprouts up trees and plants

Bushes and forests

Rice plants, sesame, bamboos and reeds

Together with other kinds of plants

All such plants

Are cut and ground into the size of atoms

All such atoms

Gathered into a mount

Even till that mount fills up space completely

All world systems in the 10 directions

In there are countless many great heavenly worlds

And the land in there

Also ground to dust

There is no means to calculate the number of dust particles there

Suppose the wisdom of all sentient beings in the world

Is concentrated in the wisdom of one person

And there are numerous such beings

These people can calculate

The number of dust particles said above

However, even if they ponder together

For countless eons, and in many lives

A fraction of a second of the Tathagata’s thought and wisdom

They are unable to know and understand

Only learning a little of it

At this time, when the assembly has heard the Tathagata speaks of the profound meaning of emptiness, countless sentient beings consummate the fact that the 4 elements and the 5 skandals are all empty, and that the 6 senses and 6 scenes are only falsely related (connected) to each other. Everyone has the wish to abandon samsara, and correctly practice the means of liberation; everyone rejoices and practice just as what the Tathagata has taught.