妙法蓮華經玄義 5.89

5.89

Fascicle twenty-five states: "In the Snowy Mountains there is a grass called patience. If a cow eats it, it immediately yields ghee." The cow is an analogy for the ordinary person; the grass is an analogy for the eightfold noble path. Being able to practice the eightfold noble path, one immediately sees the buddha-nature, which is called obtaining ghee. This is a parable for the perfect teaching: traversing the great direct path, one contemplates all sentient beings as identical to the characteristic of nirvāṇa, no longer subject to extinction. Perfect faith and perfect practice do not proceed through successive distinctions; within a single lifetime, one directly enters the first abode and attains vision of the buddha-nature. Like the cow eating the patience grass, which does not pass through the four flavors but directly yields ghee, we thus know this is the purport of the perfect teaching. The patience grass is a parable for the wonderful objective realm; the cow is a parable for the wonderful wisdom; the eating is a parable for the wonderful practice; the yielding of ghee is a parable for the wonderful stages: this is the purport of the perfect [teaching]. When cows eat other grasses, blood and milk undergo transformations, and only after passing through the four flavors is ghee finally formed. In the other provisional teachings, the objective realm, wisdom, practice, and stages are all crude purports.