般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊 2.45

2.45

Or someone may challenge: 'If phenomena are all suchness without distinct marks, then since the holy teaching of the nectar [of Dharma] has increase and decrease, true emptiness should also be like that.' The present teaching replies: 'Just as marks of form increase and decrease in space while the mark of space does not, so although the holy teaching increases and decreases, the nature of emptiness does not. This is because principle and phenomena, substance and marks, are distinct.' If all phenomena were only the emptiness of tathatā, how could there be occurrences such as production and destruction? The above general exposition states not only that the substance of form is not different from and is identical with emptiness, but that the various differentiated meanings such as production upon form are also not different from and are identical with emptiness. Now, to preclude the common and the distinct, three [pairs] are briefly raised; in reality, however, the mark of emptiness is also not one, and so on. The Great Sūtra further says: 'In this way, the intrinsic nature is unproduced and undestroyed, undefiled and unpurified. When a bodhisattva practices the prajñāpāramitā in this way, he does not see production or destruction, nor does he see defilement or purification. Why is that? Only adventitious names are provisionally established, generating discriminations regarding distinct phenomena; following what is generated, speech arises; according to speech, clinging arises in this and that way. When a bodhisattva practices the prajñāpāramitā, he does not see any of these; because he does not see them, clinging does not arise.'