The Diamond Sutra (Part One) - Spiritual Guidance

The Diamond Sutra represents one of Buddhism’s most profound and transformative teachings. This exploration will guide you through its essential wisdom, showing how this remarkable text can revolutionize your understanding of reality and daily experience.

Opening Verse

All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;
Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;
Thusly should they be contemplated.

Historical Context

The Diamond Sutra stands as a perfected distillation of the vast Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, which include the renowned Heart Sutra. Over nineteen years, the Buddha taught what would become this comprehensive body of work. Its designation as the ‘Diamond’ Sutra stems from its remarkable ability to cut through all delusion – a claim that bears profound truth rather than mere hyperbole.

Accessibility and Challenge

While considered an ‘advanced’ sutra – generally comprehensible only to Bodhisattvas – dedicated practitioners who have reached this text will find it accessible, albeit requiring patience and contemplation. The investment in understanding its teachings guarantees a fundamental transformation of everyday experience.

Understanding Vajra

The Meaning of Diamond

Vajra, meaning both diamond and thunderbolt, deserves special attention at this stage of practice. At our current level of development, we still rely heavily on conceptual experience. While we might recognize our existence within body and mind, thoughts and feelings continue to carry us away.

Conceptual Framework

The concepts taught in this sutra possess a unique quality – they are practically ‘unchallengeable.’ When fully grasped, these teachings become ‘diamond-like,’ capable of shattering habitual attachments as they arise. For example:

When anxiety surfaces about a particular issue
Upon applying the sutra’s wisdom
The delusory concerns dissolve naturally

Personal Experience

My first encounter with the Diamond Sutra occurred about a decade ago through repeated listening to an audio recording. The text’s meaning has gradually unfolded over years of study – highlighting the importance of persistence in understanding its teachings.

Available Resources

Multiple translations exist, each offering unique insights. This exploration uses Alex Johnson’s translation, chosen for its clarity and accessibility. While numerous in-depth commentaries are available, the key is to return to the text periodically, allowing your comprehension to evolve naturally.

The Opening Chapters

1. Convocation of the Assembly

Setting the Scene

One day before dawn, the Buddha clothed himself, and along with his disciples took up his alms bowl and entered the city to beg for food door to door, as was his custom. After he had returned and eaten, he put away his bowl and cloak, bathed his feet, and then sat with his legs crossed and body upright upon the seat arranged for him. He began mindfully fixing his attention in front of himself, while many monks approached the Buddha, and showing great reverence, seated themselves around him.

While these opening paragraphs appear to merely set the scene, every word carries deep significance for Buddhist practice. Hidden within this simple narrative lies perhaps the sutra’s most subtle and crucial point.

The Nature of View

The Diamond Sutra fundamentally addresses the progression of ‘view.’ Different beings perceive reality differently based on their degree of enlightenment. Throughout the text, the Buddha questions his disciple Subhuti about increasingly refined levels of spiritual perception. This progression explains why the sutra initially seems incomprehensible, yet serves as an invaluable learning tool.

The Buddha’s Example

Notice how the text portrays the Buddha’s behavior – entirely functional and devoid of personal desire, offering our first glimpse into enlightened action.

2. Subhuti Requests the Teaching

The Advanced Nature of the Teaching

Most Honoured One, I have a question to ask you. If sons and daughters of good families want to develop the highest, most fulfilled and awakened mind, if they wish to attain the Highest Perfect Wisdom, what should they do to help quiet their drifting minds and help subdue their craving thoughts?

This question establishes the sutra’s advanced nature. Subhuti seeks guidance for practitioners who have completed preliminary training, specifically:

Those who have completed the solitary vehicle (sotapanna to arahant)
Bodhisattvas on the Path of Seeing
Those equivalent to arahants in realization

The Buddha’s Promise

The Buddha confirms the transformative power of these teachings: “Those who follow what I am about to say here will be able to subdue their discriminative thoughts and craving desires. It is possible to attain perfect tranquility and clarity of mind by absorbing and dwelling on the teachings I am about to give.”

3. The Awareness of All Living Beings

The Paradox of Liberation

All living beings, whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; whether they have form or do not have form; whether they are aware or unaware, whether they are not aware or not unaware, all living beings will eventually be led by me to the final Nirvana, the final ending of the cycle of birth and death. And when this unfathomable, infinite number of living beings have all been liberated, in truth not even a single being has actually been liberated.

This seemingly paradoxical statement reveals a profound truth: beings in Samsara inevitably cycle through repeated existences in the six realms. Given enough time, Buddhism arises spontaneously, creating opportunities for all beings to discover liberation.

The Nature of Liberation

The apparent paradox resolves when we understand that enlightenment only seems to liberate ‘beings’ – yet ‘beings’ themselves are conceptual delusions. How can one truly be liberated from something that lacks actual existence? This understanding marks the threshold of advanced practice, accessible only to those who have completely rejected arbitrary concepts of self.

The Path of Non-Attachment

4. Unattached Practice of Charity

The Foundation of Perfect Wisdom

Furthermore, Subhuti, in the practice of compassion and charity a disciple should be detached. That is to say, he should practice compassion and charity without regard to appearances, without regard to form, without regard to sound, smell, taste, touch, or any quality of any kind.

Having established that disciples must transcend habitual conceptions of self, the Buddha now addresses pure conceptual phenomena, using generosity as an exemplar for all practice.

Key Aspects of Detached Practice

No attachment to any part of the giving act
Recognition of giving itself as empty and illusory
Absence of acknowledgment of gift or giver
No attention paid to the process itself

Perfect Selflessness

The Bodhisattva must strive for complete selflessness in all volitional acts. This makes perfect sense – attachment to reward negates true giving. The Buddha uses metaphor to illustrate the vastly greater merit in acting without attachment.

5. Physical Attributes of Buddhahood are Illusive

The Nature of Form

Subhuti, what do you think? Can the Buddha be recognized by means of his bodily form?
No, Most Honored One, the Buddha cannot be recognized by means of his bodily form. Why? Because when the Buddha speaks of bodily form, it is not a real form, but only an illusion.

We now approach the limit of conceptual experience. Through faith and study, we learn that sensory experiences – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking – are illusory manifestations of a singular awareness.

Understanding Form and Emptiness

Form arises through the mixing of ignorance with mental darkness
It represents our mental construction superimposed on conditional reality
Form creates an illusory sense of persistence and permanence
Our mind uses form to build a seemingly solid reality

The Three Bodies of the Buddha

While the Buddha possesses a physical body visible to ordinary beings, from the Buddha’s perspective, this is merely elemental matter. The ‘real’ Buddha manifests as:

Dharmakaya: Pure omniscient awareness (perceivable only by other Buddhas)
Various emanation bodies manifesting this awareness
Different perceptual forms based on the observer’s spiritual maturity

6. Awakening Faith

The Ongoing Potency

The Buddha explains that this sutra’s power continues through time – future disciples who grasp even parts of these concepts will reap significant benefits. However, such understanding only comes through dedicated practice across multiple lifetimes.

The Nature of Merit

Subhuti, any person who awakens faith upon hearing the words or phrases of this Sutra will accumulate countless blessings and merit.

The Balance of Understanding

The Buddha provides crucial guidance about avoiding conceptual traps:

Discard notions of personal self, other selves, and universal self
Also discard notions of the non-existence of such concepts
Avoid mistaking conceptual emptiness for true emptiness

The Middle Way

To progress beyond concepts while avoiding the formless jhanas:

Approach concepts with ambivalence
Balance certainty with uncertainty
Maintain cognitive ambivalence to quell speculation
Remember the metaphor of the raft – leave behind what no longer serves

Advanced Teachings

7. No Attainment, No Teaching

The Deepening Understanding

At this point, the level of comprehension intensifies dramatically. The implications might seem unsettling, yet they reveal essential truths about the nature of enlightenment.

The Critical Exchange

Then Buddha asked Subhuti, ‘What do you think, Subhuti, has the Buddha arrived at the highest, most fulfilled, most awakened and enlightened mind? Does the Buddha teach any teaching?’

Subhuti’s profound response demonstrates deepening wisdom:

As far as I have understood the Buddha’s teachings, there is no independently existing object of mind called the highest, most fulfilled, awakened or enlightened mind. Nor is there any independently existing teaching that the Buddha teaches.

Key Implications

Even the Buddha’s dharma exists only conventionally
All experience in the five senses and discriminative mind is illusory
Academic progress alone cannot lead to true enlightenment
The cognitive self is imaginary

Practical Application

To settle habitual thinking, we must:

Release attachment to personal progress
Embrace cognitive ambivalence
Recognize that being ‘cognitively right’ is impossible
Understand that our task is to quiet the mind, not perfect our thinking

8. Real Merit Has No Merit

The Paradox of Merit

This chapter beautifully illustrates the limits of cognition and duality through a powerful exchange:

Let me ask you Subhuti? If a person filled over ten thousand galaxies with the seven treasures for the purpose of compassion, charity, and giving alms, would this person not gain great merit and spread much happiness?

Subhuti’s response reveals deep understanding:

Yes, Most Honored One. This person would gain great merit and spread much happiness, even though, in truth, this person does not have a separate existence to which merit could accrue.

The Buddha’s Ultimate Teaching

And yet, even as I speak, Subhuti, I must take back my words as soon as they are uttered, for there are no Buddhas and there are no teachings.

9. No Returning and Not Returning

The Progressive Path

This section outlines the Bodhisattva’s journey to Buddhahood through a series of profound exchanges about various stages of enlightenment.

Key Realizations

One must discard outdated concepts like the raft metaphor
The senses of ‘self’ are illusory
Even thoughts of ‘becoming’ enlightened must be abandoned
Neither is enlightenment ‘unbecoming’

The Stream-Enterer’s Understanding

A true disciple entering the stream would not think of themselves as a separate person that could be entering anything. Only that disciple who does not differentiate themselves from others, who has no regard for name, shape, sound, odour, taste, touch or for any quality can truly be called a disciple who has entered the stream.

The Nature of Reality

10. Purify Thoughts from All the Senses

Understanding Sensory Experience

The five senses and discriminative mind lack inherent reality. While we appear to possess distinct sensing capacities, these are impressions of an illusory self.

Practical Examples of Sensory Illusion

1. The Dark Room Paradox

When asked “what do you see?” in complete darkness
We might say “nothing”
Yet we actually see featureless darkness

2. The Silent Room Experience

In a soundproof room, we claim to “hear nothing”
In reality, we hear silence
Silence itself becomes the object of hearing

The Nature of Awareness

Senses only manifest in relation to their objects
Awareness precedes sensory experience
The ‘sense’ arises as a function of object and awareness
Seeing occurs because an object was seen, not because we “see it”

The Buddha’s Guidance

A disciple should develop a mind which is in no way dependent upon sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensory sensations or any mental conceptions. A disciple should develop a mind which does not rely on anything.

11. Merits of this Sutra

The Challenge to Conceptual Experience

This Diamond Cutting Sutra directly confronts the validity of conceptual thinking:

Thinking is the source of suffering
Cessation of thought leads to Nirvana
The sutra promotes rejection of conceptual views
Paradox arises not from irrationality but from transcending conceptual limits

Levels of Understanding

Academic study alone yields confusion
Practice of no-self reveals wisdom
Merit itself is recognized as illusory
Understanding even a few lines surpasses conventional achievements

12. The Most Extraordinary Merit

The Path of the Bodhisattva

The Diamond Sutra provides a complete roadmap to Buddhahood:

Complete understanding equals Buddha’s realization
Each section builds upon previous insights
Progressive development of wisdom
Transcendence of conventional understanding

13. A Diamond that will Cut Away all Arbitrary Conceptions

The Power of Names

This Sutra shall be known as The Diamond that cuts through Illusion… when the Buddha named it, he did not have in mind any definite or arbitrary conception.

The Alchemical Parallel

The Green Lion symbol represents universal solvent
The Diamond Sutra functions similarly for mental constructs
Yet even this metaphor must ultimately be transcended

The Paradox of Teaching

Has the Buddha taught any definite teaching in this Sutra?
No, the Buddha has not taught any definite teaching in this Sutra.

The Ultimate Vehicle

14. A Mind without Attachments

Subhuti’s Realization

Most Honoured One, having listened to this Sutra, I am able to receive and retain it with faith and understanding. This is not difficult for me, but in ages to come – in the last five hundred years, if there is a person who hears this Sutra, who receives and retains it with faith and understanding, then that person will be a rare one.

Key Elements of Understanding

Recognition of cognition as the fundamental obstacle
Understanding that dharma points away from cognition
Appreciation of the teaching’s lasting potency
Transcendence of arbitrary self-concepts

15. The Sutra As a Supreme Vehicle

Comparative Merit

The Buddha presents a powerful comparison:

Giving up one’s life countless times as charity
Versus understanding this sutra with confidence
The latter generating far greater benefit
Teaching it to others producing boundless merit

Conclusion

The Path to No Path

To progress toward Buddhahood:

Find appropriate practice
Recognize when effort becomes counterproductive
Master the art of effortlessness
Understand there ultimately can be no path

The Paradox of the Ultimate Vehicle

The final vehicle cannot be a vehicle
Cognitive maps bring us to cognition’s edge
We must develop a vehicle leading to no vehicle
Understanding arises through letting go

Future Study

The remaining chapters of the sutra continue to explore these paradoxical themes. However, for this stage of practice, further exploration might create confusion. The remainder will be addressed in Rubedo, when practitioners have developed greater familiarity with the Bodhisattva path.

Practice Suggestions

Return to the text periodically
Allow understanding to evolve naturally
Apply teachings to daily experience
Maintain balance between effort and effortlessness