金剛三昧經論 2.105

2.105

The treatise states: From this point downward, doubts are repeatedly eliminated through three rounds of questions and answers, eliminating doubts in sequence. In this first round, the question doubts based on the parable, and the answer eliminates [the doubt] in terms of the principle. The import of the answer is: 'fifty years' is an analogy for the stirring of the mind in a single thought; 'wandering the ten directions' is an analogy for the far-reaching travel of pervasive conceptualization. Thus, in the instant of a single thought, one pervasively conceptualizes all phenomena; right in this thought the father tells him, and at the time he is told, he immediately attains awakening; when the thought reaches its consummation, he attains non-attainment. Just as awakening to the gold coins involves no attainment, so the father's telling is not after a long time; it is merely to reveal that a single thought contains the fifty evils that the parable speaks of 'fifty years'. Such is the import of the answer. What does this mean? It means that through the power of fundamental ignorance, the four characteristics arise; through the combined power of the four characteristics and ignorance, they are able to stir the one mind into arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing. Once the one mind is stirred, it bears these four characteristics, and therefore it is called 'the stirring of the mind in a single thought'. As the Treatise on the Awakening of Faith states: 'The intrinsically pure mind is stirred by the wind of ignorance,' and so on, up to the detailed explanation. The particulars therein are as explained in that commentary.