法華文句記 2.66

2.66

Regarding "Why the seventh bhūmi" and so on: what the ancients determined was that at the seventh bhūmi one fears arousing the mind of the two vehicles. This resembles the stages of the shared [teaching], and therefore it is challenged that it does not accomplish the meaning of the separate [teaching]; challenging the perfect is also like this. If one says that at the seventh bhūmi one first enters the path of effortless action, this is the doctrine explained in the doctrinal path of the separate teaching, and therefore does not accomplish the perfect. Where it says "advancing and retrogressing" and so on: it criticizes that advancing does not accomplish the perfect, and retrogressing is neither shared nor separate. In the present text, regarding "horizontal and vertical": vertically praising accords with sentiments, while the intention originally resides in the perfect. First it explains directly, and next it sifts and analyzes. However, in the first vertical part, although the opening text borrows the name of leaving behind the two [extremes], it must be distinguished from the Yingluo [jing]'s two [truths] as skillful means; it still relies on a single thought possessing the three non-retrogressions to serve as the first bhūmi: perfectly leaving behind the three defilements, perfectly giving rise to the three wisdoms, perfectly luminous and perfectly turning, making offerings in a single thought, perfectly planting roots of virtue so as to be praised perfectly by the buddhas, possessing the perfect three compassions and the non-dual buddha-wisdom—what follows can be understood by analogy. If one does not open the equal enlightenment, then the four lines together praise the ten bhūmis; now, proceeding from opening it, the latter three lines praise equal enlightenment. The text mentioning two lines refers to the eleventh and twelfth lines, which praise the internal and external virtues of the ten bhūmis. It is only because they are not completely possessed from the beginning that they resemble the separate [teaching]. Next, in the horizontal praise, the first line also says "surpassing the two extremes": since the vertical is already entirely perfect, how much more does this horizontal praise leave behind the two extremes? It is merely treated as vertical without being vertical, as explained before. Regarding "surpassing the two extremes": coarse afflictions have previously been removed, and speaking from the superior, the name is established from the middle; the subsequent lines should be understood by analogy to this. Regarding the "letter A": the present master inherited and used it, as fully explained in the notes to the fifth fascicle of the Great Calming and Contemplation.