妙法蓮華經玄義 5.99

5.99

Tenth, clarifying the beginning and end of the wonderful stages: within the dharma of thusness there is no sequence, no first stage or second stage; the dharma-nature is equal and eternally quiescent of itself—how could one differentiate initial and final, beginning and end? This is truly because the great wisdom of equality contemplates the dharma realm as having no diverse [aspects], yet is able to destroy diverse [layers of] ignorance and reveal diverse wisdoms. In terms of this wisdom, having no beginning yet beginning is the initial 'a'; having no end yet ending is the final 'kṣa'; and discussing the middle where there is no middle is the forty minds. Although there is differentiation, there is no differentiation; hence they are called the inconceivable stages. As the text below says: "Śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas [as numerous] as a bamboo grove, newly resolved and non-retrogressing bodhisattvas, and so forth, are all unable to know it, except for the assembly of bodhisattvas whose power of faith is resolute." That śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas are unable to know it excludes the two kinds of practitioners of the two vehicles in the tripiṭaka and shared teachings. The bodhisattva of the tripiṭaka [teaching], in taking the real as objective support, is inferior to the śrāvaka; if the śrāvaka does not yet know it, how could this bodhisattva know it? The wisdom of entering the real possessed by the bodhisattva of the shared teaching is not different from that of the two vehicles; if the two vehicles do not know it, that bodhisattva likewise does not know it.