法華文句記 1.30

1.30

Regarding the words “If one goes to excess,” and so forth: judging the ancient [commentators] by this, [whether they were too detailed or too brief,] they fell into error in both ways. Thus, even Tanluan did not entirely approve of chopping up the sūtra text into fragments. Regarding the two interpretations of Master Long of Mount Lu: the former says “the skillful means of the body,” and so forth, meaning that from the “Precious Stūpa” chapter backwards, [the Buddha] spoke of the provisional and spoke of the real, also regarding the provisional prior to the Lotus [Sūtra] as the skillful means of speech, and reaching the Lotus [Sūtra] as the reality of speech. From the “Precious Stūpa” chapter onwards, the ancient buddha reveals his whole body and the present buddha gathers his emanation bodies; the ancient body invites the present body, and the present body approaches the ancient body; both bodies sit together in the stūpa, manifesting that the Dharma is identical in present and ancient times—this is the skillful means of the body. In the “Life Span” [chapter], [the buddhahood] attained in the remote past surpasses [the sands of even multiple] dust-mote [eons], while [the attainment] intermediate [between then and now] is set aside and [the awakening at] Gayā is not the real—this is the reality of the body. The principle is necessarily so, but establishing one side exclusively constitutes an error: could the earlier part be without body, and how could the later part be without speech? If one simply relies on the provisional and the real, origin and traces, then both body and speech are spontaneously encompassed. If one only speaks of body and speech, the matters of origin and traces become obscured; only when one discusses origin and traces are body and speech naturally made apparent. Therefore, in the “Life Span” [chapter] it says: “I have spoken sometimes of my own body, sometimes of another’s body”; thus body and speech are both complete. Since from the “Skillful Means” [chapter] onwards speech must entail a body, why must one give rise to confusion? In the second interpretation, the text of the Profound Meaning extensively refutes it, because here both gates each possess cause and effect.