Surangama Sutra Discourse 085 by Living Buddha Lian Sheng 20251228

Emotion and thought, union and separation, continually transform into one another. Bound by their own karma, they rise or sink. Through such causes and conditions, sentient beings continue in succession.

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Sutra Text

“Furthermore, Purna, this delusive luminosity arises from itself; it is the fault of awareness seeking illumination. Once delusion is established, luminosity is confined. Due to this conditioning, hearing does not go beyond sound, and seeing does not transcend form. Forms, scents, tastes, and touches—the six delusions are completed.

“From them arise the distinctions of seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing. Shared karma entangles beings; union and separation give rise to transformation. Form appears when light is seen; when seeing illumines, thought is formed.

“Differing views give rise to aversion; shared thoughts give rise to love. Love flows as seed; thought gathers as womb. Through union, birth arises, drawing in those of the same karma. Thus, through causes and conditions, beings arise as kalala, arbuda, and the like.

“Birth by womb, egg, moisture, or transformation follows: egg from thought, womb from emotion, moisture from combined sensation, and transformation from separation and response.

“Emotion and thought, union and separation, continually transform into one another. Bound by their own karma, they rise or sink. Through such causes and conditions, sentient beings continue in succession.

Summary

Sentient beings do not refer only to humans, but also include all those born through womb, egg, moisture, or transformation. Once come into being, they continue endlessly throughout the rebirth cycle.

Sentient beings arose due to a single delude thought related to sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and all mental formations, along with eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—which give rise to seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing. A single thought of delusion is the source of the existence of sentient beings. In other words, sentient beings are born through ignorance—lack of illumination.

Like a magnet, for example—it can attract or repel. Attraction and repulsion arise through the six senses and consciousnesses.

Different states of bardo beings will result in the different types of birth. When a bardo being sees the sexual union of a man and a woman, being attracted to the man, it’ll enter the womb as a female, and if it’s attracted to the woman, it enters as a male. This is womb birth.

Moisture birth occurs when one has a strong attachment to moisture and dampness, giving rise to beings that dwell in water. Transformation birth refers to beings drawn to novelty and change, rejecting what is old. Those with shared karma come together, and those without go separate ways. In this way, causes and conditions of sentient beings continue to turn, and the cycle goes on endlessly.

The Buddha emphasizes that sentient beings continue to cycle in birth and death due to delusion and lack of wisdom. When the six dusts (forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects) meet the six sense faculties (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind), they give rise to the six consciousnesses. As these connections repeatedly form and dissolve, the cycle of existence continues without end.