The Difference Between Buddha and Demon

Thus have I heard: merely purify the original mind; let the six consciousnesses emerge through the six gates, untouched and unmixed amid the six dusts, free to come and go, universally applicable without obstruction. This is the Prajna Samadhi, freedom and liberation. Observe freedom, behold the Tathagata; all arises from the mind, free and unfettered.

Then teach those sentient beings to cultivate the sacred path, making them abandon deluded thoughts. Having abandoned deluded thoughts, they attain the Tathagata's immeasurable wisdom, benefiting and bringing peace to all sentient beings. This is the tenth aspect of the Tathagata's mind; all Bodhisattva Mahasattvas should understand it thus.

These were Buddha's original words.

The meaning of the four words "thus have I heard" was that they referred to what had been heard beneath the seat of the World Honored One, the Tathagata. They could only be used in this setting. Shariputra was making it clear to Li Qi that he had heard these words before Buddha.

The meaning was that although "throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am honored," in truth, everything arose from the mind. Yet this did not mean the mind was determined by everything. The freedom of the so-called "mind" had limits.

And the boundary of the mind was the boundary of freedom, while the boundary of freedom was determined by wisdom.

"The Tathagata within the mind" was not the sole subjective truth, but one's own subjectivity.

In other words, my subjectivity was not the "Heavenly Demon," but "myself."

This was an exceedingly smooth line of logic.

If everything truly were free, if the "mind," or self-consciousness, possessed the greatest and most ultimate freedom, then... how had the Heavenly Demon been sealed?

Therefore, the Heavenly Demon's freedom was also a freedom he had to maneuver into being through wisdom.

Even if