法華文句記 4.10

4.10

Fifth, as for "concluding to form the three kinds of provisional and real": this concludes and forms the tally of numbers, hence the provisional and the real are combined to make their sum. Whether in displaying or converging, the dharmas neither increase nor decrease. If this text were absent, the preceding explanation of the provisional and real would remain undistinguished, merely listing the ten names and briefly explaining them, nothing more. Therefore, now confronting the teachings, the provisional and the real are distinguished. The text is naturally threefold: first, within concluding to form the three kinds, there are again two parts: first general, and next specific, bundling the general to form the specific. Within the general, there are again two parts: first the general within the general, and next the specific within the general. First, in the general within the general, from the opening indication down to "is also like this": although the indication states that all four teachings have ten, they actually form twenty for each of the four teachings, or thirty, or one hundred and sixty. As for the statement "twenty," this is because there are ten for oneself and ten for others. Because oneself pervades others without any separate dharma, one turns back to use one's own ten to pervade and benefit others; therefore the text merely lists ten. As for thirty, the reason for adding the words "or say" is to indicate indefiniteness; hence, when oneself and others are one, there may be no base number, since it points to oneself and others. Now, the reason they are still divided into one pair of oneself and others is: first, based on the teaching, because the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra contains this single tier of the two truths of oneself and others; second, based on principle, because having subsumed single oneself and single others into the combination of oneself and others, losing those single designations, they form a single pair on their own; or [there is] merely a single ten, using the ten reals in oneself that combine the provisional into the real to confront the ten provisionals in others that combine the real into the provisional, only when completely combined forming the ten pairs of the provisional and real. If it is twenty, it is simply because the ten pairs of oneself and others are maintained alongside each other. One should know that the four teachings have either eighty, one hundred and twenty, or one hundred and sixty; grasping these, they jointly form a single inconceivable provisional and real—namely, the provisional within the essence confronting the real; were it not so, it would not be the Lotus. Next, in the specific explanation below "furthermore, in the corresponding teaching," the statement that the four kinds are for one's own practice [means]: what was previously called general was because each of the tens pervades oneself and others, etc.; what is now called specific is because within the ten they are divided into four, two, and four. Thus one knows that directly dividing the ten to make oneself and others without confronting the various teachings holds true for teaching after teaching. Furthermore, one may also take the first five as oneself and the latter five as others, confronting each other as oneself and others. Fearing that within a single teaching oneself and others would still generally confront oneself and others, now by dividing the ten to form the three meanings, it becomes entirely specific; hence it is so. Therefore, the four teachings have only forty, each possessing oneself and others. Hence one knows that the present sūtra belongs solely to transforming others within the perfect [teaching]; only one's own practice and transforming others can be called skillful means. Next, in the specific conclusion, the words "whether general or specific" point to the preceding general and specific of the corresponding teaching. Now, taking the four teachings as a whole to confront oneself and others, the three teachings are for others and only the perfect is for oneself; hence it says "specific." The previous general and specific designations of oneself and others had their meaning extend to the other teachings; bundling the general and specific specifically, oneself resides solely in the present chapter, being the display, opening, and so forth of the skillful means of the house of the perfect, and so on. Next, concluding to form the four propositions concludes the preceding specific conclusion of oneself and others to form the four propositions.