妙法蓮華經文句 7.78

7.78

"Broadly speaking, there is no difference; specifically speaking, there are distinctions. The 'Expedient Means Chapter' opens the three and reveals the one in terms of teaching, as the text states: 'The Tathāgata only expounds the Dharma for sentient beings by means of the One Buddha Vehicle; there is neither a second nor a third.' The 'Burning House' [chapter] opens the three and reveals the one in terms of practice: carts have the meaning of conveying, and conveying is a metaphor for practice, as the text states: 'each riding upon a great cart, roaming in the four directions, rejoicing and at ease.' In 'Faith and Understanding', it opens the three and reveals the one in terms of persons, identifying the hired laborer as indeed the elder's son: 'We since the past have truly been sons of the Buddha.' In the 'Parable of the Medicinal Herbs', expedient and real are clarified in terms of distinction and non-distinction, without definitive rejection or acceptance, only clarifying that sentient beings do not know, and the Buddha causes them to know. If it is the seven kinds of distinction, then one knows the expedient; if relying equally upon the one principle without distinction, then one knows the real. Distinction is non-distinction, and non-distinction is distinction: it only causes them to understand this meaning; it never says that there is no 'one' and there is a 'one'. This refers to one's own practice of the two wisdoms—the expedient and the real—spoken in accordance with his own intent; hence the Buddha is able to know it, while sentient beings do not know it. It also connects what precedes and what follows, clarifying the expedient and real through knowing and not knowing. Now, the conjured city precisely opens the three and reveals the one in terms of principle: the treasure land and the conjured city are both the two principles of the lesser and the greater, demolishing the conjured principle of the two vehicles to reveal the real, singular principle of the treasure land. Below, where the five hundred express their understanding by adducing the pearl as a parable, is also in terms of principle."