Distinguishing a verb from a substantive (执着)

Question

In the Lankavatara Sutra, it says: 能舍一切我见执着.

Red Pine translates: "who eliminate attachment to a self." Suzuki translates: "to keep themselves properly away from ego centered notions."

These terms have Sanskrit equivalent: 我见 (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) is usually translated as the "view of transitory collection." 执着 (abhiniveśana) is clinging or attachment.

The grammar is not clear to me.

Should it read "eliminating attachment to the view of transitory collection" or rather "eliminating the view of transitory collection that clings"?

In other words, how do I tell whether clinging is a substantive or a verb?

The context is:

若能如是。即是如实修行者行。能摧他论能破恶见。能舍一切我见执着。能以妙慧转所依识。能修菩萨大乘之道。能入如来自证之地。汝应如是勤加修学。

Red Pine's translation is:

“This, Lord of Lanka, is the understanding of all great practitioners , who thereby overcome false doctrines and refute mistaken views, who eliminate attachment to a self , and who make use of the subtlest wisdom to transform their consciousness. This is the Mahayana path that leads to the stage attained by buddhas. You should therefore devote yourself to such an understanding self-realization).

Observations on technical issues:
恶见 is a classical Buddhist term meaning evil view or mistaken view.
执着 is a classical Buddhist term meaning clinging.
我见 is a classical Buddhist term meaning view of transitory collection.
妙慧 is a classical Buddhist term meaning subtle wisdom.
之道 is a classical Buddhist term for marga (Sanskrit).
自证 is a classical Buddhist term meaning self-realization.

转所依, 所依, 所依识, 识 are also technical Buddhist term I don't know how to split. It seems Red Pine and Suzuki didn't either because they have very different translations. But that is the subject of another later question.

Answer 1

1. Below is a compilation of Sanskrit, Chinese (Bodhiruci, 菩譯), Chinese (Śikshānanda, 實譯), and English (Suzuki), which I found in Bibliotheca Polyglotta:

   ātmadṛṣṭivyāvartanakuśalānāṃ

   能轉一切見、我見過

   能捨一切我見執著

   to keep themselves properly away from ego-centered notions

2. I then looked up the Digital Corpus of Sanskrit (DCS) to understand how it was originally phrased in Sanskrit. DCS gave the parsing of Sanskrit into: ātma (compound for ātman 'self'), dṛṣṭi (compound for dṛṣṭi 'seeing; notion'), vyāvartana (compound for vyāvartana 'turning away'), and kuśalānāṃ (genitive plural masculine for kuśala 'proper').

   The only verb-like morpheme here is 'turning away', which corresponds to 轉 or 捨 in Chinese. That is to say, I believe 執著 is not a verb but a substantive, perhaps a unique feature of Śikshānanda but not Bodhiruci. That is also to say, this is more of a question on translation, rather than Chinese grammar.

3. Compared to the historical Chinese translations, Suzuki adheres to the meaning of kuśalānāṃ ('proper') better. As a whole, it means something like 'proper turning-away from self-notions' as a phrase genitive to the nominative phrase 'realisation of the great Yogins' (abhisamayo mahāyoginā, 修行者行) seen at the beginning (note: the genitive case can be used generically in Sanskrit; I think it expounds on what the realisation / understanding of the great Yogins are, see Dhammajoti 2012:4). I also looked up a modern translation by Tam Shek-wing [談錫永] (2005:20) that incorporated the translation 'proper' (正) much like Suzuki (Tam used 離 for 'turning away'):

   楞伽主，如是即為大瑜伽行人之修行，能摧外道論，能破諸惡見，能正離我見執著，由是能以妙慧於內心起轉依。

   Huang Baosheng [黃寶生] (2011:22) used 善於 ('good at') for 'proper' and 摒棄 for 'turning away' instead. Both are more idiomatic in modern Chinese:

   楞伽王啊，這是大瑜伽行者的認識。他們摧毀外道論說，破除惡見，善於摒棄我見，善於以妙慧轉變識。

   I feel like the notion of 'properness' was skipped (more like understood) in the Śikshānanda translation.

4. Huang also defined 我見 (ātmadṛṣṭi) in one of his footnotes:

   「我見」（ātmadṛṣṭi）指執著某種固定不變的實體，如靈魂。其中的 ātman，一般指靈魂或自我。

   (translation) Ātmadṛṣṭi refers to the fixation on a certain kind of constant body, such as the soul. Ātman in the compound normally refers to the soul or self.

   With this in mind, I am confident 執著 in the Śikshānanda tradition is a substantive, or an in-text explanation to the more jargonistic 我見.

---

Edit

5. I found a modern Japanese translation (Tokiwa, 1994:10) which also supports the substantive and idiosyncratic nature (i.e. presence in only Śikshānanda) of 執著. I translate the phrase in bold below as 'people who excel in removing the view of themselves'.

   ランカーの主よ、これは、優れた修行者たちの悟りの内容である。他の流言を打ち砕いた人達、悪い見解を打ち破った人達、自我の見解を除くことに優れた人々、微細なところまで知覚の根拠の転換を果たすことに優れた人々、勝者の子たち、大乗を行ずる人々の「悟り内容」である如来の自内証の境地に悟入するために、汝は修行すべきである。

References

1. Dhammajoti KL. Reading Buddhist Sanskrit Texts: An Elementary Grammatical Guide. Buddha-dharma Centre of Hong Kong; 2015.

2. 談錫永（2005）《入楞伽經梵本新譯》。臺北：全佛文化。

3. 黃寶生（2011）《梵漢對勘入楞伽經》。北京：中國社會科學出版社。

4. 常盤義伸（1994）『「ランカーに入る」：梵文入楞伽経の全訳と研究』Part 1. 京都：花園大学国際禅学研究所.

Answer 2

If you can number a thing, it is definitely a thing. "一切 = all".

All is a number, thus 我见执着 is a thing.

能舍一切我见执着。
(if thou) would abandon all self attachment.

若能如是。
If (thou) would thus.
即是如实修行者行。
(This) namely is the true devotee path.
能摧他论能破恶见。
(if thou) would break free from other opinions, (if thou) would break free from wrong views.
能舍一切我见执着。
(if thou) would abandon all self attachment.
能以妙慧转所依识。
(if thou) would use wisdom instead of knowledge.
能修菩萨大乘之道。
(if thou) would cultivate (the way of ) the Bodhisattva Great Vehicle Dao
能入如来自证之地。
(if thou) would enter such a true place
汝应如是勤加修学。
thou shouldst diligently increase cultivation and study (of the Dao)

五祖说：“各作一偈呈吾”

Below is the proposal of 神秀， I believe it was in 风木山黄美寺

神秀

身是菩提树， 心如明镜台
时时勤拂拭，莫使有尘埃

This was the counter-proposal of 慧能，a frightening negation of everything (also found in 红楼梦）：

慧能

菩提本无树，明镜亦无台
佛性常清净，何处有尘埃

Thus, 慧能 would reply to your text: there is no self, no attachment, wisdom or Dao.

Which is also the message of the Diamond Sutra: The Truth neither is nor is not.