The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment is closely related in content to other East Asian works such as the Awakening of Faith 大乘起信論, the Śūraṃgama-sūtra 首楞嚴經, and the Anthology of Yongjia 永嘉集. Translated into English by Luk (1962) and Muller (1999).

Summary

The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment is arranged in twelve chapters, plus a short introductory section. The introductory section describes the scene of the sermon and lists the major participants. The location is a state of deep meditative concentration (samādhi 正受) and the participants are the Buddha and one hundred thousand great bodhisattvas, among whom twelve eminent bodhisattvas act as spokesmen. Each one of the twelve gets up one by one and asks the Buddha a set of questions about doctrine, practice and enlightenment. The structure of the sutra is such that the most 'essential' and suddenistic discussions occur in the earlier chapters and the more 'functional' and gradualistic dialogues occur later. This kind of structure reflects a motif associated with the doctrine of the Huayan school 華嚴宗, which affirms that the Buddha delivered the abstruse Huayan jing 華嚴經 as his first sermon, in an effort to directly awaken those whose 'roots of virtue' were well-matured. The terminology that Zongmi 宗密 and Gihwa 己和 use to describe these advanced practitioners is that they possess the capacity for the teaching of 'sudden enlightenment' —a direct awakening to the nonduality of reality, which necessarily precludes gradualist, 'goal-oriented' practice. In the first two chapters (the chapters of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra), the Buddha holds very strictly to the sudden position 頓教, denying the possibility of enlightenment through gradual practice. In the third chapter he begins to allow for a bit of a gradual view, and the next several chapters become mixtures of the two. The final few chapters offer a fully gradualist perspective.

Gihwaʼs primary standard of categorization of the chapters is according to the 'three capacities'  三根 of practitioners: superior, middling and inferior. According to Gihwa, the first three chapters are aimed at those of superior capacity, the next seven for those of middling capacity and the final two for those of inferior capacity. However, this method of categorization does not necessarily mean that the later chapters become gradually easier to read and understand. In fact some of the most difficult discussions come in the later chapters. Most notable in this regard is the discussion of the 'four traces' of Self 我相, Person 人相, Sentient Being 衆生相 and Life 壽命相 in Chapter Nine. Since the distinction between each of these four is extremely subtle, and the wording of the text itself is not that clear, this turns out to be one of the most difficult chapters to digest.

The crux of Chapter One, the chapter of Mañjuśrī 文殊, is a discussion of the meaning of the term 'ignorance'  無明, in which the Buddha warns against perceiving ignorance ontologically—seeing it as a self-existent entity. He describes ignorance using the metaphor of 'sky-flowers'  空華 (or a 'second moon' )—flowers one mistakenly perceives in the sky due to an optical malady such as cataracts. This perception of sky-flowers is compared to the perception of cyclic existence—"life and death" (saṃsāra) by unenlightened people. When the visual malady is corrected, the sky-flowers disappear spontaneously. There is no point in trying to 'gradually' remove the sky-flowers from the sky. The nature of this 'ignorance' is also compared to the situation of a person who is temporarily disoriented in terms of the four cardinal directions. There is no entitative blockage to be overcome: it is merely a state of mistaken perception, and all the person has to do is realize that East is East and West is West. In this kind of situation, there is no system of 'practice' that needs to be installed. One merely needs to 'see' things as they are.

Since, in his answer to Mañjuśrī, the Buddha has asserted that the human body and mind and all of saṃsāra are nothing but illusory sky-flowers, the bodhisattva Samantabhadra 普賢, in the second chapter, has to ask how, if all things are illusion, one is supposed to 'remedy illusion using illusion.' In other words, if everything is illusion, how is it possible to even practice? And if people become discouraged by such a prognosis and do not practice, how can they possibly escape illusion? The Buddha begins his reply by hinting for the first time that there is 'something else' besides illusion—that when illusion is erased, the 'unchanging mind' does not disappear. He then approves the possibility of 'using illusion to remedy illusion' by instructing his listeners how to 'separate themselves from illusion,' comparing this practice to the rubbing together of two sticks to produce fire. The sticks ("illusion") ignite, and both burn up and disappear. But when they are gone, there is still 'awareness.' He nonetheless concludes this lesson by clearly stating 'there is no such thing as gradual practice.'

The third chapter, that of the bodhisattva Universal Vision 普眼, is the longest and probably the best-known of the chapters, as it is even circulated by itself as a separate text for study in Korean Seon 禪 monasteries. Universal Vision asks the Buddha to relax his insistence on the sudden view and compassionately offer some expedient methods for the sentient beings to practice. More specifically, he asks 'how should we think and abide?' In other words, what sort of mental cultivation, or contemplation should be carried out? The Buddhaʼs response is a long, guided meditation starting with an early Indian Buddhist analysis of the body and mind as defiled and baseless, followed by a Consciousness-only/Huayan exercise in the visualization of interpenetration. He finishes with a Chan-characteristic exercise in 'nonabiding'  無住 i.e. the development of the ability to remain continually 'unstuck' in any sort of paradigmatic framework. The end of this third chapter, constitutes, according to Gihwa, the end of the 'teaching for those of superior capacities.'

The introduction in the prior three chapters of the paradoxical coexistence of the doctrine of original enlightenment and original ignorance causes Vajragarbha 金剛 Bodhisattva, in the fourth chapter, to question how these seemingly contradictory positions are simultaneously possible. Furthermore, he asks, if ignorance is once quelled, is it possible for it to re-arise? The Buddha begins his answer by once again reiterating his fundamental nondualistic stance. It is by nature impossible for a disturbed, saṃsāric mind to find its way out of its condition. He provides some metaphors of disorientation caused by relative motion, such as the tendency for a person in a boat to perceive the shore as in motion, or the mistaken feeling of the motion of the moon when clouds are passing by. He also retells the sky-flower simile in terms of the impossibility of the sky to actually be the 'cause' of the sky-flowers. But the most important simile in this chapter is that of 'purifying gold ore.' The gold, a symbol for enlightenment, is already contained in the ore (original enlightenment)—it is not something that is newly created by the smelting. Nonetheless, once the smelting is accomplished (realization of enlightenment), gold (enlightenment) never reverts back to the condition of ore (ignorance). The realization of enlightenment in sentient beings can be understood in the same way. The Buddha concludes the chapter with another admonishment about the impossibility of meeting enlightenment through discursive or saṃsāric methods.

As in each of the prior chapters, the bodhisattva in the fifth chapter, Maitreya 彌勒, formulates his first question based on the conclusion of the immediately prior discussion. And since the Buddha admonished Vajragarbha about the impossibility of escaping saṃsāra while using saṃsāric views, Maitreya asks, "how do we sever the root of saṃsāra?" He also makes a more direct request for the teaching of expedient (gradual) methods, an indication that we are now well into the midst of the teaching for those of middling capacities. He furthermore queries regarding the types of distinctions that exist between the natures of sentient beings, in terms of their capacity for enlightenment. The Buddha answers the first question by attributing the empowerment of saṃsāra 生死 to the forces of 'attached love'  愛 and 'desire'  欲, which mutually enhance each other. In order to overcome saṃsāra, it is necessary to sever these two. The Buddha goes on to distinguish the capacities of sentient beings into 'five natures' that are a play on the five natures theory of Yogâcāra. He distinguishes each of these five types of people in terms of their relative degree of freedom from the two hindrances, which are called in this text, 'the phenomenal hindrances'  事障 and 'the cognitive hindrances' (or 'hindrances of principle' ) 理障 and which correspond to the 'hindrances of affliction'  煩惱障 and 'hindrance of the knowable'  所知障 of the Yogâcāra school 瑜伽行派. He concludes this chapter by teaching the vow of the bodhisattvas to save all sentient beings, and explaining that since due to this vow, bodhisattvas must enter the world of desire, it becomes necessary for them to devise expedient methods to help people. The people, on the other hand, need to seek out a teacher who is not himself enmeshed in desire.

As the discussion continues, the questions of the bodhisattvas tend further toward distinctions in discriminated practice. Thus, in chapter six, the bodhisattva Pure Wisdom 淸淨慧 asks the question "what differences are there between that which is grasped and actualized by sentient beings, bodhisattvas and World Honored Tathāgatas?" The Buddha begins his answer by reminding the bodhisattvas once again, that since such things as distinctions in nature are based on illusory views to begin with, such a thing as valuation is ultimately impossible. But he then proceeds to distinguish between levels of attainment in terms of the degree to which practitioners are able to avoid being trapped by the traces of their own enlightenment experiences. These four levels are those of unenlightened worldling, lower-level bodhisattva, higher-level bodhisattva and Buddha. The overriding message of the chapter is that which is given in the passage that summarizes the four stages: what is most important is for the practitioner to learn the practice of 'nonabiding' —not to be trapped in oneʼs views or experiences, no matter how sublime they may be.

The bodhisattva of the seventh Chapter, Power and Virtue Unhindered, continues to question on the theme of gradations in practice, emphasizing the fact that he and his colleagues, while teaching, find that there are many different paths that one may follow to arrive at the same destination of enlightenment. The Buddha responds by teaching three types of meditation practice, which are defined by the Sanskrit terms śamatha 奢摩他, samāpatti 三摩拔提 and dhyāna 禪那, understood as techniques applicable to practitioners of varying inclinations. The practice of śamatha is defined in a way very close to its original connotation of 'mental stabilization' or 'calm abiding,' referring to a practice of stilling the mind in single-minded concentration on an object. The term samāpatti, normally just a general term for concentration or meditation and not so different in meaning from śamatha, is here accorded a special interpretation that is equivalent to the concept of vipaśyanā 毘婆舍那, usually translated into English as 'observation' or 'analytical meditation'  觀. This type of meditation is necessary for the bodhisattvaʼs practice of compassion, since through this meditation, he can perceive and properly utilize the phenomenal world of dependent arising. He also gives a special interpretation to the term dhyāna, which is also normally used as a general term for meditation. Here it refers to a nondualistic practice that simultaneously contains and transcends the prior two forms of meditation.

In the chapter of the bodhisattva Voice of Discernment (the eighth chapter) these three forms of meditation are taught again, this time in terms of various possibilities of application in conjunction with each other, based on more specific distinctions in the inclinations of meditation practitioners. The three are woven together in intricate combinations that result from all the possible variant orderings of these three practices yielding twenty-five formats, called 'wheels' (輪 translated in this text as 'applications' ). Thus, the Buddha has gone from an explanation of three general types of inclinations in practice to twenty-five.

In Chapter Nine the discussion moves away from explications of methods of meditation back to matters of the operation of consciousness, similar to chapters five and six. As mentioned earlier, the chapter of Purifier of All Karmic Hindrances Bodhisattva is one of the most difficult chapters in the text to grasp because of the subtlety of the distinctions implied in the explanation of the Four Traces 四相 of Self 我, Person 人, Sentient Being 衆生, and Life. These Four Traces are also discussed in the Diamond Sutra 金剛經, but with different connotations. Here each one is explained on one hand as a level of enlightened awareness, but on the other hand, if any one of them is allowed to reify in the consciousness, it will become an impediment to enlightenment. In the final stage of overcoming these four, the destruction of oneʼs conception of self is compared to the situation of ice melting away in a bath of hot water.

The centerpiece of the tenth chapter, that of the bodhisattva Universal Enlightenment, is the explanation of the 'Four Maladies'  四病. These are four avenues that are normally associated with religious practice, and to which practitioners often attach as 'the Way.' These are: (1) 'contrivance'  作 or the notion that one can 'arrange' his life and practice toward the attainment of enlightenment; (2) 'naturalism' —任 a type of 'Daoist' view of just letting all things be as they are; (3) 'stopping' or 'cessation;'  止 the view that enlightenment is to be attained by single-minded concentration and stilling of thought and (4) 'annihilation'  滅 the view that one should attain enlightenment by observing the emptiness of all things, thereby extinguishing all afflictions. The one who is not constrained by any one of these attitudes, but who holds to the correct Buddhist practice of nonabiding and yet consistently demonstrates a highly moral behavior is fit to be a teacher, and it is this sort of person that students should seek out. However, once they find such a teacher, they should not expect him/her to cater to their selfs. The student should keep a steadfast attitude, regardless of whether the Genuine Teacher 善智識 establishes an intimate or distant relationship. Finally, the Buddha teaches the vow that practitioners should make toward the attainment of enlightenment.

The chapter of Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattva, which is the eleventh chapter of the sutra, finishes up the main body of the teaching. In this chapter, which is clearly aimed at 'sentient beings of the age of the degenerate dharma'  末法 of inferior capacity, the Buddha teaches elementary expedients of entry into the three types of meditation for those who are having difficulty getting their practice on track. He advises them to practice long and concentrated confession to help them to overcome their past heavy karma that is currently impeding their practice. This chapter also teaches the mechanics of setting up and entering into a meditation retreat, which can be of three lengths: eighty, one hundred or one hundred and twenty days.

The sutra concludes with the questions of Most Excellent of Worthies Bodhisattva, who invites the Buddhaʼs enumeration of the inconceivable virtues of the sutra, along with a listing of the names by which it is to be known. This chapter takes the format common to the final chapters of many Mahāyāna texts (流通分 called the 'dissemination' chapter) wherein numerous types of supernatural beings appear to give their guarantee of protection to the text and those people who embrace it and practice it.

The original popularization of the SPE in China is in large part due to the efforts of Zongmi (宗密; 780–841), who commented on this scripture extensively. His commentaries on this text include:

Yuanjue jing da shu.  圓覺經大疏. (Great Commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 12 fasc. Z 243.9.324a-418b.

Yuanjue jing da shu chao.  圓覺經大疏鈔 (Subcommentary to the Great commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 26 fasc. Z 245.9.460-757.

Yuanjuejing dashu chaoke.  圓覺經大疏鈔科. (Outline to the Subcommentary of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 3 fasc. (first two fascicles missing). Z 244.9.419-459.

Yuanjue jing daochang xiuzheng yi.  圓覺經道場修證儀. (Manual of Procedures for the Cultivation of Realization of Ritual Practice According to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) Zongmi. 18 fasc. Z 1475.74.375-512.

Yuanjue jing lueshu chao.  圓覺經略疏鈔. (Abridged Subcommentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) Zongmi. Z 248.9.821-959.

Yuanjue jing lueshu zhu.  圓覺經略疏註. (Abridged commentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 4 fasc. Zongmi. T 1795.39.523b-576b; Z 247.9.789-821

Yuanjuejing lueshu ke.  圓覺經略疏科. (Outline of the Abridged Commentary) Zongmi. Z 246.9.758-788.

Besides the influential commentaries by Zongmi and Gihwa, extant Chinese commentaries include:

Yu zhu yuan jue jing.  御注圓覺經 (The Emperorʼs Commentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment). Z 251.10.151-166.

Yuanjue jing chao bian yi wu.  圓覺經鈔辯疑誤 (Treating Doubts and Errors in the Subcommentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 2 fasc. Guanfu (Song). Z 249.10.1-11.

Yuanjue jing zhe yi shou.  圓覺經折義疏 (Discerning the Meaning of the Commentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 4 fasc., Tongli (Qing). Z 263.10.694-770.

Yuanjue jing ji zhu.  圓覺經集註 (Collected Notes on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 2 fasc. Jujian (Song), Yuancui (Song), Zongmi. Z 257.10.437-479.

Yuanjue jing zhi jie.  圓覺經直解 2 fasc. Deqing (Ming). Z 258.10.480-509. Deqingʼs commentary has been translated into English by Luk Kuan Yü together with his translation of the sutra.

Yuanjue jing jin shi.  圓覺經近釋. (A Close Exegesis of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 6 fasc. Tongrun (Ming). Z 259.10.510-542.

Yuanjue jing jin song ji jiangyi.  圓覺經夾頌集講義. (Collected Lectures of Jiao on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 12 fasc. Zhouqi (Song) Z 253.10.238-377.

Yuanjue jing jing jie xu lin.  圓覺經精解評林. (Seminal Explanations on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 2 fasc. (first fascicle only extant) Jiaokuang (Ming) Z 261.10.573-599.

Yuanjue jing zhu shi zheng bai.  圓覺經句釋正白. (Correct Explanation of the text of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) Hongli (Qing). Z 262.10.599-693.

Yuanjue jing xin jing.  圓覺經心鏡. (The Mind-mirror of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 6 fasc. Jicong (Song). Z 254.10.378-432.

Yuanjue jing xu zhu.  圓覺經序註. (Notes on the Preface to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 1 fasc. Rushan (Song) Z 255.10.433-435.

Yuanjue jing lian zhu.  圓覺經連珠. (String of Jewels of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) Jingting (Qing).

Yuanjue jing lue shou xu zhu.  圓覺經略疏序註. (Notes on the Preface to Zongmiʼs Abridged Commentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 1 fasc. Rushan (Song). Z 256.10.435-438.

Yuanjue jing leijie.  圓覺經類解. (Various Understandings of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 8 fasc. Xingting (Song). Z 252.10.167-237.

Yuanjue jing shou chao sui wen yao jie.  圓覺經疏鈔隨文要解. (Explanations of Pivotal Passages of the Text of Zongmiʼs Subcommentary) 12 fasc. Qingyuan (Yuan). Z 250.10.12-151.

Yuanjue jing daochang lue ben xiuzhengyi.  圓覺經道場略本修證儀. (Yuanjue jing daochang lue ben xiuzhengyi) 1 fasc. Jingyuan (Song). Z 1476.74.512-517.

Yuanjue jing yao jie.  圓覺經要解. (Understanding the Essentials of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment) 2 fasc. Jizheng (Ming). Z 260.10.543-573.

References:

Sheng-yen. 1997. Complete Enlightenment. Elmhurst, N.Y.:  Dharma Drum.

Gregory, Peter N. 2005. Apocryphal Scriptures. Berkeley:  Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research.

Lu, K'uan Yü (Charles Luk). 1962. Ch'an and Zen Teaching. Berkeley:  Shambhala Publications.

Muller, A. Charles. 1999. The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment: Korean Buddhismʼs Guide to Meditation (with the commentary by the Sŏn monk Kihwa). Albany, New York:  SUNY Press.