[Buddha-l] on not-dwelling mind (Dan Lusthaus)

[Dan Lusthaus]

Mitchell,

These days what only yesterday -- when some think Buddhism was Buddhism --  
required jaw dropping erudition, can be accomplished in seconds by anyone 
with a computer.

The CBETA database of the Chinese Buddhist Canon (best installed from a CD 
but available for download online) and the SAT database (which includes 
Japanese scriptures not included in the CBETA (based in Taiwan and limited, 
by contract, to only non-Japanese texts) can find terms and phrases 
instantly.

For instance, a CBETA search for 心無所住  yields 150 hits.

I'm not going to reproduce all that, but indicate that sources in which the 
phrase occur include:

Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra
道行般若經 .#224 tr. by Lokakṣema in 179 CE

Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā- prajñāpāramitā-sūtra
光讚經 T#222. tr. by Dharmarakṣa in 286

Aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra
摩訶般若抄經 T#226. tr. by Dharmapriya and (Zhu) Fonian in 382


Karuṇāpuṇḍarīkasūtra
悲華經 T#157. tr. by Dharmakṣema in the early 5th century;


and at least 10 occurrences in Xuanzang's voluminous translation of the 
Prajnaparamita corpus;

I think you get the picture. The phrase, a well established prajnaparamita 
slogan, has been rattling around China since the second century, long before 
anyone got around to thinking about inventing Chan.

If you want to see what the SAT database offers,

go to http://21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/ddb-sat2.php
and paste the phrase into the search box, hit "search" and have fun.

As for how to read the phrase 心無所住, since Chinese works more by syntax 
than grammar, that would depend on context. Taking the whole thing as a 
noun-phrase one might render it "the mind abiding nowhere" (taking the 所 as 
indicating a locus).

Dan