金剛經纂要刊定記 1.60

1.60

Regarding 'defilement and purity are both eliminated': Above it was said that the defilement and purity of mind and objects have been abandoned, but the text had not made it explicit, so it is clarified again. The meaning is that not only are there no conditioned phenomena of mind and objects, but among phenomena, phenomena of defilement and purity also do not exist. To counteract defilement, the designation of pure phenomena is first made apparent. Once the defilement that is treated is eliminated, how could the purity that treats it stand? Just as where there is no stinginess, giving is also dismissed, and so forth. Thus one knows that whether principle or wisdom, whether cause or effect, all stages of practice and all portals of antidotes do not exist at all; defilement and purity are both absent, hence it says 'are both eliminated'. Therefore the Heart Sūtra says: 'There is no ignorance and also no extinguishing of ignorance,' and so forth.