More specifically, the Shurangama Sutra has traditionally been regarded as a complete and practical manual for spiritual practice that will eventually lead to enlightenment.
It gives practical and insightful guidance in:
It gives practical and insightful guidance in:
- the correct understanding of the Buddha-nature, which is the potential within all beings for becoming a Buddha.
- how and why this true nature is hidden within our ordinary experience of ourselves and of the world, and
- how we can uncover this nature and recognize that it is our own true mind.
- how personal integrity and purity of conduct are essential prerequisites for spiritual awakening.
- general principles of Buddhist meditation, introduces several specific meditation methods, and recommends which methods are the most effective and the easiest to practice.
- discerning what understandings and practices are correct and which deviate into wrong ones.
- how our own intentional acts, whether physical, verbal, or mental, directly result in our experiences, including our future rebirths at various levels of being, both human and non-human.
- how correct action can also lead to initial awakenings and eventually to the perfect enlightenment of the Buddhas.
Ananda's Story
Much of the Sutra is devoted to the Buddha Shakyamuni’s instructions to the young monk Ananda, whose personal story provides a narrative frame for the entire discourse. Joined by several of his enlightened disciples, the Buddha, shows Ananda how to turn the attention of his sense-faculties inward in order to achieve a deeply focused state of meditation known as samadhi.
He tells Ananda that by practicing a particular form of samadhi, the Shurangama Samadhi, he and anyone else who also maintains purity of conduct and develops right understanding can gain an awakening that is identical to the minds of all Buddhas.
The Mantra
At the heart of the Sutra is the Shurangama Mantra. The Sutra promises that the practice of reciting this mantra, in the context of the other practices taught in the Sutra, can succeed in eliminating whatever internal or external obstacles may lie in the way of spiritual progress.
To this day, monks and nuns in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, as well as many practitioners among the laity, recite the mantra every morning as an essential aspect of daily practice.
"...as long as a single person can recite the Shurangama Mantra, the world cannot be destroyed, nor can Buddhism. But when there is no longer anyone who can recite the Shurangama Mantra, then very quickly the world will be destroyed, because the Proper Dharma no longer abides."
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"...as long as a single person can recite the Shurangama Mantra, the world cannot be destroyed, nor can Buddhism. But when there is no longer anyone who can recite the Shurangama Mantra, then very quickly the world will be destroyed, because the Proper Dharma no longer abides." |
