法華文句記 2.98

2.98

In explaining the audience that is properly suited [to the teaching], there are also the method, the simile, and the application. First, regarding the method: because there is an initiating [audience], the properly suited audience can be brought to completion. "Dang" (當) means hitting upon or matching; here the character has the departing tone (qùshēng). "Su" (宿) means the past. "Zhi" (植) means to plant. "De" (德) refers to all wholesome roots. Being the root of all wholesome roots, it is called the "root of virtue." Because the wholesome roots possess a root, they are able to become a suited capacity (jī). Through the operation of great provisionality, which benefits the holy and aids the ordinary, the Tathāgata's threefold perspicacity delivers teachings matching past seeds; thus upon first achieving awakening, he guarded them from drowning in suffering, and during the Vaipulya and Prajñā [periods], he was concerned lest their capacity mature prematurely; therefore, coming to this sūtra, he first taught briefly and next expansively, his three cycles [of preaching] unhurriedly encompassing everything without omission, up to the Origin Section where their stations attained the undefiled, not erring by a hair's breadth in corresponding to their past causes. Since within oneself there is that which can be activated, they are called "properly suited" (dāngjī). Now, in interpreting the assembly, the two characters "properly suited" both belong to those who are transformed; yet stimulus and response must be discussed together, and in principle the meaning combines both agent and object; for now we proceed from the object to match those who are transformed. From "past-planted" onward, it first explains the character "capacity" (jī); from "conditions joining" onward, it next explains the character "suited" (dāng). Next, in the simile, "like an abscess" illustrates having the capacity; "about to burst" illustrates that it can be activated. Being pressed without premeditation by the Buddha, the Great Sage, and the initiating assembly, afflictive delusions are broken fraction by fraction, conditions for capacity mature fraction by fraction, the virtues of wisdom are achieved fraction by fraction, and the dharmakāya is revealed fraction by fraction. From "without rising" onward is the application. It does not apply to past capacity but only to the present activation, because present activation constitutes present capacity. Therefore, without rising from the seat of emerging from the One to the measureless, they immediately hear the teaching that gathers the measureless back to the One, and all ascend to the first stage of abiding; hence it is called "attaining the path." This discusses the properly suited audience by directly pinpointing their substance; comprehensively speaking, it subsumes [the stages of the purification of] the six sense organs and the five classes.