妙法蓮華經玄義 8.82

8.82

一、譬三獸渡河，同入於水，三獸有強弱，河水有底岸，兔、馬力弱，雖濟彼岸，浮淺不深，又不到底；大象力強，俱得底岸。三獸喻三人，水喻即空，底喻不空，二乘智少不能深求，喻如兔馬；菩薩智深，喻如大象；水軟喻空，同見於空，不見不空；底喻實相，菩薩獨到，智者見空，及與不空。到又二種：小象但到底泥，大象深到實土，別智雖見不空，歷別非實，圓見不空，窮顯真實。如是喻者，非但簡破兔、馬二乘非實，亦簡小象不空非實，乃取大象不空，為此經體也。此約空、中，共為真諦，作如此簡也。

First, the analogy of the three beasts crossing the river: they enter the water together, but the three beasts have strengths and weaknesses, and the river water has a bottom and a bank. The hare and the horse are weak in strength; although they cross to the other bank, they float shallowly without going deep, and do not reach the bottom. The great elephant is strong in strength, reaching both the bottom and the bank. The three beasts illustrate the three kinds of persons; the water illustrates being identical to emptiness; the bottom illustrates non-emptiness. The two vehicles have little wisdom and cannot seek deeply, illustrated as the hare and horse; the bodhisattva's wisdom is deep, illustrated as the great elephant. The soft water illustrates emptiness: together they see emptiness, but do not see non-emptiness; the bottom illustrates the real mark, to which the bodhisattva alone arrives—the wise one sees emptiness as well as non-emptiness. Arriving also has two kinds: the small elephant only reaches the mud on the bottom; the great elephant goes deep to the solid earth. Although the distinctive wisdom sees non-emptiness, being successive it is not real; the perfect view of non-emptiness exhaustively reveals the true reality. Such an analogy not only distinguishes and refutes the two vehicles of the hare and horse as not real, but also distinguishes the non-emptiness of the small elephant as not real, taking only the great elephant's non-emptiness as the substance of this sūtra. This is distinguishing in this way by taking emptiness and the middle together as the true truth.