金剛經纂要刊定記 1.27

1.27

Furthermore, just as the *Avataṃsaka* is the perfect and ultimate One Vehicle, it also takes this mind as the essence of the One True Dharmadhātu. Hence its commentary says: "Unifying the four dharmadhātus to form the One True Dharmadhātu," meaning it is tranquil and vast, profound and all-encompassing, universally integrating the myriad existents; that is, the One Mind, whose essence is beyond existence and non-existence, and whose characteristics are free from arising and ceasing. And so on up to saying: "All Buddhas realize this wondrous awakening, fully luminous, effortlessly completing bodhi to disclose it to sentient beings," and so forth. Yet this One Mind has nature and characteristics. In characteristics, there are distinctions between ordinary beings and nobles, delusion and awakening, cause and effect, defilement and purity, and so forth; in nature, it is numinously bright without dullness, clearly and constantly aware. Yet this nature and these characteristics are neither identical nor separate. Because characteristics do not separate from nature, they differ only at the locus of identity; because nature does not separate from characteristics, it is identical only at the locus of difference. Because nature is not identical to characteristics, there has never been any differentiation; because characteristics are not identical to nature, they have never failed to be distinct. It is precisely because nature and characteristics are of one taste that identity and difference both persist. It is like the wetness and the waves of a single body of water, through which the identity and difference of nature and characteristics may be known. Yet this numinous mind is fundamentally none of all [things], yet can become all [things]; the very name "mind" is established from this. Now in saying "pure," it is only from the perspective of ultimate emptiness, not that one discriminates against defilement to name it pure. This is because there is only the One Mind, which permeates both defilement and purity. Heze said: "The single word 'awareness' is the gate of myriad wonders"; all dharmas are established based on this. Being both the secret storehouse of gain and loss, it is the profound pivot of ascent and descent. Praised by the assembly of śramaṇas, it is truly supreme! What is differentiated here is precisely this mind. However, the two kinds of mind mentioned earlier by the Characteristics tradition are merely the single gate of arising and ceasing within this mind. In contrasting and distinguishing the shallow and deep, we must make this selection; when harmonized and comprehensively subsumed, truly nothing is omitted.