The Enlightened One of the Śūraṅgama Breakthrough

To establish perception and cognition is the root of fundamental ignorance. To be without perception and cognition is nirvana. Once, someone repunctuated these two phrases from the Shurangama Sutra: "Perception and cognition established, this knowing is the root of fundamental ignorance. Perception and cognition absent, this seeing is nirvana." Afterward, he attained enlightenment. What did he realize? The meaning of the first phrase is this: having the knowing that perceives the six dusts (objects of the senses), and establishing this knowing as real, is fundamental ignorance.

This knowing is an impermanent, illusory dharma—it is the knowing of the seventh consciousness mind, including the knowing that perceives the dharmas of various meditative states, which is the knowing of the sixth consciousness mind, such as knowing that one has entered samadhi. If one considers this state of mind to be empty and identical to the emptiness of the Tathagata's storehouse, believing it to be the state of enlightenment, then one has misunderstood. This mistaken recognition is precisely fundamental ignorance. The meaning of the second phrase is this: there is a mind that has no perception or cognition, that does not know the six dusts, that does not perceive the six dusts—this mind is the nirvanic mind. Nirvana neither arises nor ceases. It does not engage with the six dusts, does not give rise to afflictions, is without fundamental ignorance, and is inherently pure. To find this mind and realize it is to attain enlightenment—the realization of the inherently pure nirvanic mind. Thus, that person awakened to the Way, and later generations named him "Po Lengyan" (Breaking the Shurangama).