All Phenomena Returnable to Causes Are Unreal
Ananda then arose from his seat, put his palms together, knelt on both knees, and said to the Buddha, “Your Holiness, if seeing and hearing are indeed neither produced nor extinguished, then why did the Buddha say we are people who have lost our true nature and who go about things in an upside-down manner?”
The Buddha let his golden arm fall so that his wheeled fingers pointed downward, and asked Ananda, “You see my mudra-hand: is it right-side up or upside down?”
Ananda said, “I know living beings in the world take it to be upside down. But I do not know what is right-side up and what is upside down.”
The Buddha said, “If people of the world take this as upside down, what do they take to be right-side up?”
Ananda said, “They call it right-side up when the Buddha raises his hand with his fingers pointing upward in the air.”
阿難即從座起。禮佛合掌，長跪白佛。世尊，若此見聞，必不生滅，云何世尊，名我等輩，遺失真性，顛倒行事。願興慈悲，洗我塵垢。
The Buddha then held up his hand and said: “Worldly people are doubly deluded when they discriminate between an upright hand and an inverted hand. In exactly the same way they make distinctions between your body and the Buddha’s pure Dharma body, saying that the Buddha’s body is correct universal view, while yours is inverted view. Now examine your body closely and answer this: what exactly does the term ‘upside down’ refer to?”
即時如來垂金色臂，輪手下指，示阿難言。汝今見我母陀羅手，為正為倒。阿難言：世間眾生，以此為倒，而我不知誰正誰倒。佛告阿難。若世間人，以此為倒，即世間人，將何為正，阿難言：如來豎臂，兜羅綿手，上指於空，則名為正。佛即豎臂，告阿難言：若此顛倒，首尾相換。諸世間人，一倍瞻視。則知汝身，與諸如來清淨法身，比類發明，如來之身，名正遍知。汝等之身，號性顛倒。隨汝諦觀。汝身佛身，稱顛倒者，名字何處，號為顛倒。
Ananda and the entire great assembly were dazed, and they stared unblinking at the Buddha. They did not know in what way their bodies and minds were upside down.
Seeing it, the Buddha’s compassion arose, and he spoke to the great assembly in a voice that swept over them like the ocean-tide: “All of you good people, I have often said that form and mind and all conditions, as well as dharmas pertaining to the mind – all the conditioned dharmas – are merely manifestations of the mind. Your bodies and your minds all appear within the wonder of the bright, essential, true mind.“
“Why do I say that you have lost track of what is fundamentally wonderful in you, the perfect, enlightened, true nature, and that you have mistaken the false for the real because of ignorance and delusion?” The Buddha went on:
“Because mental dimness and confusion turn into dull emptiness. The emptiness then unites with the confusion to become form. Stimulated by false thinking, the form takes the shape of a body. As causal conditions come together there are perpetual internal disturbances which tend to appear as outward manifestations. Such inner disturbances are often mistaken for the nature of mind.”
“The primary misconception about the mind and body is the false view that the mind dwells in the physical body.” The Buddha concluded and then elaborated:
“You do not know that the physical body, as well as the mountains and rivers, the empty space and the great earth are all within the wonderful, bright, true mind.“
“It is like ignoring hundreds of thousands of clear pure seas and taking notice of only a single bubble, seeing it as the entire ocean, as the whole expanse of great and small seas.“
“You people are doubly deluded among the deluded. Such delusion does not differ from the inversion of my lowered hand. You truly are the most pitiable.”
於時阿難與諸大眾，瞪瞢瞻佛，目睛不瞬，不知身心，顛倒所在。佛興慈悲，哀愍阿難及諸大眾。發海潮音，遍告同會。諸善男子，我常說言，色心諸緣，及心所使諸所緣法，唯心所現。汝身汝心，皆是妙明真精妙心中所現物。云何汝等，遺失本妙，圓妙明心，寶明妙性。認悟中迷。晦昧為空，空晦暗中，結暗為色。色雜妄想，想相為身。聚緣內搖，趣外奔逸。昏擾擾相，以為心性。一迷為心，決定惑為色身之內。不知色身，外洎山河虛空大地，咸是妙明真心中物。譬如澄清百千大海棄之。唯認一浮漚體，目為全潮，窮盡瀛渤。汝等即是迷中倍人。如我垂手。等無差別。
Buddha Mind 