妙法蓮華經玄義 5.91

5.91

Fascicle twenty-seven states: "Just as a person placing poison into milk can cause death, even up to ghee, it can likewise cause death." This parable has two applications. First, applied generally to the gradual and the sudden, it clarifies the indeterminate teaching, wherein one can everywhere see the buddha-nature. Second, it is applied to the indeterminateness of practice. The mental practice of a practitioner is compared to milk. The wisdom of the real mark is compared to poison. Poison has the power to destroy life; this wisdom has the power to destroy ignorance. Since kalpas of remote antiquity, the poison of the real mark has been preached and placed into the mental milk of ordinary persons; the eruption of the poison-wisdom cannot be determined [in advance]: it may erupt at the first flavor, or it may erupt at a later flavor; it cannot be judged successively. Hence it is said that poison placed into milk, up to ghee, universally possesses the meaning of killing throughout all five flavors.