華嚴經探玄記 4.54

4.54

Seven, progress and regress: when cultivating faith for less than ten thousand kalpas, all regress, because they belong to the indeterminate group. According to the Benye jing, it is like light feathers drifting with the wind, and so forth (and so forth). Even if the sixth has a non-retrogressing mind, it is merely producing this mind of non-retrogression; because it is not a stage, one has not yet attained non-retrogression. Some also interpret this as taking it to be the non-retrogression of faith. The meaning is feared to be unacceptable, because the sūtra speaks of being like light feathers, and of having no stage; and treatises say that those cultivating faith who have not passed ten thousand kalpas all have retrogression; if reaching ten thousand kalpas, faith is already fulfilled, not being the sixth. If in terms of the initial teaching, because it speaks of faith as a stage according to coarse characteristics, the latter three worthies now are also spoken of coarsely according to characteristics; therefore, only upon reaching the ten dedications or above does one attain non-retrogression, as stated in the first fascicle of the Buddha-Nature Treatise. Question: In that treatise, it recounts the explanation of the Sarvāstivāda masters—how could it be Mahāyāna? Answer: Although it is an explanation of the Sarvāstivādins, it is not their doctrine, because it speaks of the names and stages of the ten dedications. The Hīnayāna does not have these stages. In the final teaching, when faith is fulfilled and one enters the abodes, it constitutes non-retrogression, as the Awakening of Faith states that generating the mind upon the completion of faith is non-retrogressing, and as the text below says that profound mind and pure faith cannot be destroyed (and so forth). Because the round is identical to the final, only after entering the stages is it spoken of as faith of non-retrogression. Because the cause is designated in accordance with the fruit, it is like the patience of faith and so forth.