Diamond Sutra – there is really no Dharma to gain
In a typical learning process, we receive some information, digest it intellectually or follow it experimentally, then it become part of us as an integrated part of our life. Very often, we consider it a gain after we learn something. However, in this sutra, after telling us that there is really no Dharma to teach, and that there is no Buddha who had taught any Dharma, the Buddha shared in this chapter that in his realization, there is really no Dharma to gain… Why is it so?
Furthermore, in our earlier discussion, we also recalled that the Buddha said that everything is teaching to enlightenment. So in the end, is there a Buddha who shared the state of enlightenment and pathway towards it? … If there is really nothing being shared and no one who can really gain from these teachings, how can we as spiritual students received and integrate these information into our lives?
A possible way to resolve the above paradoxes is shared in our earlier post: how does bodhisattva do charity. If we can apply the same approach we use to do charity in learning, then we can proceed safely without deepening our confusion to/from the temporary self.
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无法可得分第二十二
NO DHARMA CAN BE OBTAINED, TWENTY-TWO
须菩提白佛言：世尊！佛得阿耨多罗三藐三菩提，为无所得耶？
Subhuti said to the Buddha: “World Honored One, does your (own) attainment of Supreme Enlightenment (Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi) mean that you have not gained anything whatsoever?”
如是，如是。须菩提！
我于阿耨多罗三藐三菩提乃至无有少法可得，是名阿耨多罗三藐三菩提。
The Buddha replied: “Just so, Subhuti, just so, I have not gained even the least Dharma from Supreme enlightenment, and this is called Supreme Enlightenment.”
If there is no dharma to gain…. then perhaps is the Buddha telling us that rather than gaining something that we must instead empty ourselves of all that is unnecessary and stops us from being enlightened? Is not the path to enlightenment one of freeing oneself from and not binding one’s self to… a process of removing the unnecessary baggage in order to see what was already there and perfect in every sense to start with? Are the sages not telling us that by focusing on gaining anything, even dharma, that we lose the opportunity to lose that which is in the way of our spiritual progress?