大方廣佛華嚴經疏 17.25

17.25

Fourth, Meritorious Wisdom (Guṇabuddhi) of the northern direction: he was born into the Buddha's family and skillfully understands the Buddha's virtues. The intention of these verses is to reveal that within the three periods of time the mind attains equanimity and thoroughly knows one's own mind, because it exhausts the emptiness of phenomena. The ten verses are divided into four parts: first, four verses explaining the erroneous awareness of ordinary persons and the Small Vehicle; next, four verses showing their true awareness; third, one verse showing the twofold perfection of the Buddha's awareness; and last, one verse attributing the achievement to its source. Now, as for the first, it is divided into two: the first verse speaks of ordinary persons being deluded regarding the absence of intrinsic nature in dependent origination, clinging to marks and revolving in saṃsāra. The latter three verses apply commonly to ordinary persons and the Small Vehicle: the first distinguishes deluded attachment, wherein one formulates understanding according to words; this can be called petty wisdom taking phenomena outside the mind as false discrimination. The remaining two verses explain the faults. The first two lines speak of following crooked paths toward quiescence, being deluded about the one direct path. The next half speaks of inversions such as permanence, which increase worldly evils, and inversions such as impermanence, which increase the evil of ignorance. The next half speaks of failing to see the two emptinesses and undergoing the sufferings of the two kinds of death. The latter half speaks of lacking true contemplation of the truths—how could there be the Dharma eye? Even if the three vehicles possess something, it is not called the truth. Among the next four verses showing true awareness: the first verse adduces one's own loss to exhort others to achieve benefit. The next verse teaches true seeing, meaning that seeing the Buddha without grasping is precisely seeing tathatā; tathatā is what the Buddha knows. The next verse teaches understanding conventional truth: the upper half follows the previous realization of the true, and only in the lower half can one understand the conventional. The final verse brushes away both previous views to accomplish true seeing, meaning that in the upper half, when the views grasping the true and conventional are forgotten, one then sees the correct principle of the true and conventional; the lower half explains inversely that if there are the true and conventional to be seen, one cannot see the true source of the true and conventional. Thus the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: "If someone sees prajñā, they are bound"—this is the meaning of the lower half; "If someone does not see prajñā, they attain liberation"—this is the meaning of the upper half. If a person sees prajñā and is thereby liberated, this is the meaning of the sixth and seventh verses. If a person does not see prajñā and is thereby bound, this is the meaning of the fourth verse. Only those who forget words can penetrate this import. The third section of one verse shows the twofold perfection of the Buddha's awareness: because within that which cannot be realized he awakens on his own, it is called marvelous. Knowing that there are no sentient beings, yet being able to awaken others, he is the great guide. The fourth part is understandable from the above.