般若心經略疏連珠記 1.5

1.5

From "wondrous awakening" down, second is the wondrousness of function, which is contemplative prajñā. Zhenguo says: "Being free from the perceiver and the perceived, it is therefore called wondrous awakening." The sūtra says: "The Tathāgata has now attained the wondrous, empty, luminous awakening." The treatise says: "Because one awakens to the source of the mind, it is called ultimate awakening." Another treatise says: "The wisdom of sarvajñā has only awareness and illumination, for there is not a single dharma that is not awakening." The commentary master immediately says: "It is the wisdom that wondrously realizes the true source." "Profound path": you means "path" and "cause." It means this wondrous awakening is the correct path for entering the true source and the deep cause for achieving the wondrous fruit. Therefore the commentary below states: "By means of this wondrous wisdom, overturning the faults of saṃsāra completely, one reaches the limit of true emptiness." "Deep and mysterious": this means the abyssal ocean of prajñā is deep and unfathomable. The Dazhidulun says: "The great ocean of wisdom can only be plumbed to the bottom by a Buddha." "Transcending words and images": the sūtra says, "The meaning of prajñā is without name and without explanation." It also says: "True prajñā is pure like empty space, without knowledge and without vision, without action and without conditions." The ancient virtuous ones said: "The essence is fundamentally free from duality; names and explanations are both quieted; therefore it transcends words and images." The earlier mention of fish traps and hare nets was a metaphor for words and images, and mentioning them interchangeably is merely to make the prose elegant. The Zhouyi lüeli says: "Words arise from images, therefore one can follow words to observe images; images arise from ideas, therefore one can follow images to observe ideas. Ideas are exhausted through images, and images are made manifest through words. Therefore, when one grasps the idea, one forgets the images; when one grasps the images, one forgets the words. It is like the hare net exists for the sake of the hare; when one catches the hare, one forgets the net. The fish trap exists for the sake of the fish; when one catches the fish, one forgets the trap. Those who preserve words do not grasp the images; those who preserve images do not grasp the idea." However, that [work] intended for students to abandon the explanation and seek the import. The present commentator, however, means that the wondrously empty, true awakening is perfect in principle while words are one-sided, and its marks are ultimately ineffable. Therefore the commentary master says: "Vast is the profound path: names and words can rarely fathom its limits; boundless is the pure model: marks and views cannot exhaust its source." Thus, one forgets words precisely within words, and forgets marks precisely within marks; it does not mean that one only attains the true after sweeping away the myriad things, shutting off seeing and hearing, and entering desolate, empty voidness.