Let me tell you the honest truth about the Shurangama Sutra. The Shurangama Sutra is the Buddha's sharira, the Buddha's real body. It doesn't matter who criticizes the Shurangama Sutra. If it is a Bodhisattva criticizing the Shurangama Sutra as being false, this Bodhisattva will fall into the hells instantly; if it is an Arhat criticizing the Shurangama Sutra as being false, this Arhat will also fall into the hells right away. Needless to say, those ordinary people, those scholars, are nothing but trash; basically they are not qualified to understand the Shurangama Sutra at all, nor are they qualified to criticize the Shurangama Sutra. Therefore, anyone who criticizes the Shurangama Sutra--I don't care who he is--is planting a seed for the hells.
The Shurangama Sutra is a Sutra that represents the whole of Buddhism. If the Shurangama Sutra didn't exist, there wouldn't be any Buddhism. Therefore, the Buddha predicted that when the Dharma is in the process of becoming extinct, the Shurangama Sutra will be the first to disappear. After it disappears, the other Sutras will disappear in succession. As Buddhists, if we want to protect and support Buddhism, we first have to protect and support the Shurangama Sutra. We have to lecture on and explain the Shurangama Sutra in every place, translate the Shurangama Sutra, recite the Shurangama Sutra, and most of all, memorize the Shurangama Mantra. The Shurangama Mantra is the Buddha's Dharma-body. Wherever the Shurangama Mantra is found, that's where the Buddha's sharira is.
I mentioned previously that none of us who are Buddhists should criticize the Shurangama Sutra and say that it is false. You musn't say that! If you say that, you are planting a seed for the hells; you are just trying to fall into the hells. You don't want to be a human being in this world; instead you want to fall into the hells, to be a hungry ghost, and to be an animal in the future. Just by having that one thought of saying that the Shurangama Sutra is false, you are sowing the cause for falling into the Avici Hell forever and never coming out. Do you know why so many people fall into the hells? It's because they do not believe in the Shurangama Sutra. Those Ph.D.'s and scholars who disclaim the Sutra nowadays are completely ignorant. They are not qualified to judge which Sutra is true and which one is false because they do not have the Dharma-selecting Eye! They do not know what the Buddhadharma is all about; all they do is echo the words of others.