金剛經纂要刊定記 3.99

3.99

As for "The intention clarifies..." and so forth: this narrates the intention of the sequence. First it was asked: "Why do the previous four abidings not speak of abandoning hindrances?" Hence this is stated. The meaning is that whenever one wishes to cultivate and advance, one must first generate the mind [for bodhi]; having generated the mind, one then cultivates practice; hence there are the first and the second. Generating the mind and cultivating practice originally seeks the Buddha-fruit. Within the Buddha-fruit there are only two bodies; between the coarse and the subtle, the form [body] comes first and the Dharma [body] after; hence there are the third and the fourth. When cultivating superior practice previously, it was feared that conceit might hinder entry into the noble stages; thus the small fruits were spoken of to illustrate the Mahāyāna. Now, having abandoned hindrances, one enters the stages of the ten dedications; hence it is only from the fifth [abiding] onward that abandoning hindrances is spoken of. However, for each of these twelve hindrances, upon reaching each abiding one must step back to the preceding to discern the intention of what follows. As in saying: although one has attained freedom from conceit, one is still of little learning, hence in the sixth abiding the hindrance of little learning is remedied; the others are all modeled on this. Because these hindrances are all before the [bhumis] (bhūmi) and can hinder the path of seeing, but are not on the bhūmis, it is said that when hindrances are exhausted, one enters the path of realization. However, the hindrance is what is remedied, its text lying outside the sūtra; the abiding is the remedy itself, being the exact text of the sūtra. If one explains them in correlation, the principle becomes clear.