妙法蓮華經玄義 2.153

2.153

I now say that this is not so. The differing explanations across the sūtras and treatises are all the Tathāgata's skillful expedients: knowing faculties and desires to be diverse and dissimilar, there are in brief three differences, namely [teachings] according with sentiment, according with sentiment-and-wisdom, and according with wisdom. As for speaking in accord with sentiment, because sentiments and natures differ, what is taught differs in accord with sentiments. For example, the Vibhāṣā clarifies that there are immeasurable kinds of the mundane foremost factor (laukikāgradharma). If this is so even at the verge of the real, how much more so for the rest! It is like accommodating the sentiments of the blind by presenting milk in various ways: the blind, hearing different descriptions, dispute them, but how could whiteness itself be milk? The various masters fail to understand this intent; each clings to a single passage, stirring up disputes of views among themselves, mutually judging right and wrong, believing one and disbelieving another—turbulent and disordered, none knowing which is right. If the twenty-three theories and those who refute them have scriptural evidence, they are all judged to be the intent of the two truths according with sentiment. Those without scriptural evidence are all false notions, identical to those of non-Buddhists, and are not subsumed under the two truths. As for [the teaching] according with sentiment-and-wisdom: according to sentiment, both are conventional; if one awakens to the principle of the truth, it may be the real, and the real is only one. Just as five hundred monks each spoke of the cause of the body, the causes of the body were many, but the correct principle was only one. A sūtra says: 'What is seen by the minds of mundane people is called the conventional truth; what is seen by the minds of supramundane people is called the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya).' Statements such as this are the two truths according with sentiment-and-wisdom. As for [the teaching] according with wisdom: when sages awaken to the principle, they not only see the real but also clearly understand the conventional. It is like an eye from which a cataract has been removed, seeing forms and seeing empty space. Furthermore, it is like a practitioner of dhyāna who, upon emerging from contemplation, finds body and mind empty and unobstructed, like a light cloud obscuring the sky, already different from a distracted mind; how much more so when one awakens to the real and fails not to clearly understand the conventional! The Abhidharma says: 'A small cloud generates an obstruction; a great cloud generates an obstruction; as the outflow-free becomes ever deeper, mundane wisdom becomes increasingly pure.' A sūtra states: 'Ordinary persons walk in the world and do not know the characteristics of the world; the Tathāgata walks in the world and clearly understands the characteristics of the world.' These are the two truths according with wisdom. If one understands these three intents and applies them when examining the sūtras and treatises, though various explanations are given, every single truth is endowed with all three intents.