金剛般若波羅蜜經略疏 1.65

1.65

In the passage on the arhat, there are broadly seven [parts]: first, determining the dharma; second, the reply; third, the interrogation of "Why is this?"; fourth, revealing its real dharma; fifth, revealing the error by counter-argument; sixth, establishing its virtue in direct order, which has three [parts] and can be known; seventh, there is one sentence that reiterates in reverse to conclude the reason. These stages are all able to accord with reality because what the Buddha spoke of are all named by means of unconditioned dharmas; because the noble ones are unconditioned, they do not grasp the spheres of the six sense-objects as belonging to a self, which is why the text says "not entering form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas." The word "entering" simply means obtaining. The term *srotāpanna* is translated here as "stream-enterer" [lit. opposing the stream], because one opposes the stream of delimited birth-and-death; *sakṛdāgāmin* is translated here as "abiding in thinning," because one abides in thinning afflictions; *anāgāmin* is translated here as "non-returner," because one does not return to the desire realm; *arhat* is translated here as "non-recipient," because one does not receive [rebirth in] the three realms. The text says that forming the thought "I have attained arhatship" is being attached to a self, a person, a sentient being, and a life-span; this has two meanings: first, primary afflictions; second, habit-energies. If one is in contemplation, habit-energies also do not arise; if one is outside of contemplation, the mind of primary afflictions certainly does not arise; therefore it says that in reality there is no dharma named srotāpanna and so forth. Investigating the text's surface, the primary intention is slightly hidden: wishing to cover over the names of self of dharmas, it draws śrāvakas through [the notions of] self and person into the One Real Mahāyāna, subsuming those conceptual discriminations of attachment to dharmas into the habit-energies of self and person. This is the intent of the text: if one subsumes personal habit-energies under dharmas, grasping a single contemplation of conventional truth and thereby drawing śrāvakas to be identical with the One Vehicle, it is somewhat congruent. Why is this known? In that [stage], one realizes freedom from afflictions such as grasping at a self, and therefore there is no such thought as "I am able to attain the fruit." If it were primary afflictions, they would not arise outside of contemplation either, so why would one need to speak of within contemplation? Through this, we know that the practice of non-contention should also be understood according to the two approaches of primary [afflictions] and habit-energies. Furthermore, practitioners of the four fruits each, in their own portion, leave behind coarse afflictions; this is their own sphere, free of conceptual discrimination, which is itself the real nature of the three prajñās; if there were other conceptual discriminations, that would not be the intent of the noble ones, and is termed attachment to addition and subtraction. One should consider and understand this accordingly.