The Śūraṅgama on Seeing

Engo's commentary on the case

Setchō quotes incompletely. The fuller scripture begins: “If seeing were an object, you could see my seeing. If we saw the same thing, that would be called seeing my seeing,” then continues with this case. Ānanda reasons that world, lantern, and exposed pillar can all be named; he wants the World-Honored One to point out the wondrous essential original brightness as an object so he may see the Buddha's intent. The Buddha says, “I see the incense platform.” Ānanda agrees and calls that the Buddha's seeing. The Buddha asks how Ānanda sees when he does not see it. Ānanda answers that his own nonseeing is seeing the Buddha. The Buddha replies: “My saying ‘I do not see’ is my own knowing; your saying it is yours. How can you know another's place of nonseeing?” Here one can only know for oneself and cannot explain it to another. If seeing is recognized as an object, tracks remain. When the Buddha does not see, it is like an antelope hanging its horns—sound, trace, and breath entirely cut off. Where can you search? The scripture first breaks by release and afterward breaks by taking away. Setchō displays a doctrinal eye but verses neither object nor seeing/nonseeing; he directly verses seeing Buddha. The many blind people touching an elephant and reporting different parts comes from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra. Kyōzan explained his circle containing “ox” by asking which thing teachers identify as buddha-nature: speech, silence, neither, all, or none. Fix on any and one resembles a person touching only tail, ear, trunk, or legs; reject all and one abandons the elephant for an emptiness view. Do not merely “touch the elephant.” Do not say seeing-awareness is it or is not it. A patriarch says bodhi originally has no tree and the mirror no stand; another says the Way has no form and wisdom is the Way. A clear-eyed person sees the elephant's whole body as a buddha sees nature. The “whole ox” comes from the Zhuangzi. Cook Ding no longer sees a solid whole ox; following its natural patterns, his blade moves freely and remains sharp after nineteen years. Yet Setchō says even whole elephant and whole ox are no different from an eye-film. Even true adepts cannot grope it out. From Kāśyapa through Indian and Chinese patriarchs and all old teachers, there is only naming and tracing. Setchō says: if you want to see the yellow-faced elder, see immediately. Seek and you are a thousand miles away. “Realm after realm, dust after dust, remains halfway.” A saying places a buddha-realm in each mote and a Śākyamuni on each leaf. See the whole billion-world universe within one dust mote and you are still halfway; another halfway remains beyond. Where? Old Śākyamuni does not know—how could this mountain monk say?