15.This eliminated the disciple’s false seeing. ânanda had heard the Buddha’s teaching and had
believed that the discriminating mind vanished as soon as all causal sense data ceased to exist and
so realized that it was not True Mind. Therefore, his previous seeing of the Buddha was false.
Hence he asked Him to reveal the wondrous Bright Mind so as to open his Tao eye which alone
could put an end to his false seeing. This inverted perception was due to his inner Sixth
Consciousness clinging to his outer body as an Ego, and was precisely his attachment to the dual
reality of Ego and dharma; this discriminative attachment to the duality of Ego and dharma is called
discriminative perception (as opposed to inborn or natural perception). Now the organ of his Sixth
Consciousness, that is his Seventh Consciousness, clung to the characteristic Perception of the
inner Eighth Consciousness as an Ego and was his inborn grasping at the duality of Ego and
dharma. It is called one’s Inborn Perception. Since sense organ and consciousness depend on each
other, this is the field of wrong thinking; hence the two hindrances that caught ânanda.
Before teaching the elimination of falsehood, the Buddha sent out, from the sauvastika on His
chest, a radiant multi-coloured Light to stress that wrong thinking was originally the great Wisdomlight
of the True Mind in the Tathàgata store which, under delusion, turned into false thinking, and
so transformed this Wisdom-light into false seeing. This Light illuminated all the ten directions to
show its manifestation. As this Brightness is self-possessed by both the saintly and the worldly, it first
shone on the heads of the Buddhas and then reached ânanda and the whole assembly. He who
seeks the True Mind and True Perception should only cognize this Brightness which, under
delusion, turns into false thinking and seeing. Now to change the latter into the fundamental
Brightness which is self-possessed, it is only necessary to change the false into the true. He who
awakens to this True Light achieves instantly the wondrous pure Bright Mind and realizes the Eye
that is pure and clean, so that his mind and perception become true. This was the Great Dharma
banner set up by the Buddha.
16. This is the secret of Ch’an Transmission according to which Function should be returned to Substance
for realization of mind and perception of self-nature. Readers are urged to pay particular attention
to the profound meanings of these two idioms, Substance and Function, in their ch’an training.