大方廣佛華嚴經疏 44.18

44.18

Third, the ten marks of the great ocean clarify the virtue of the great fruit, difficult to cross yet able to cross. First the simile, then the correlation; both have general and particular aspects. In the correlation, generally stating 'unassailable' has two meanings: first, regarding the ocean of the fruit as cause, the characteristics of the ten stages cannot usurp its name of being deep and vast as the ocean of the fruit. Second, regarding the causal characteristics of the stage practices, because they rely on the ocean of wisdom, their designation as causal practices cannot be usurped, because they are marks belonging to the ocean and causes belonging to the fruit; if one usurps the causal characteristics, the fruit is also not established. In the simile, in terms of the fruit, its name is unassailable; in the Dharma, raising the cause, its name is unassailable: the text mutually implies this. Hence the Treatise says, 'Because cause and fruit correspond to each other.' How do they correspond? The ten stages are like the great ocean; this is the general presentation. 'Able to cross yet difficult to cross' shows the cause corresponding to the fruit. Only by possessing the ten marks of the ocean can it become an ocean and attain the fruit of great bodhi, so the fruit corresponds to the cause. When the ocean is formed, it does not lose its ten marks; apart from the ten marks there is no ocean, and apart from the ten stages there is no Buddha-wisdom, so the ten stages are precisely the ocean of wisdom. In the particular, the ten are subsumed under eight: first, the virtue of easy entry, because of its gradualness; second, the virtue of purity; third, the virtue of impartiality; fourth, the virtue of protection, because it constantly protects its own single flavor without losing it; fifth, the virtue of benefiting, because it benefits the world; sixth, combining the sixth and seventh lines into the virtue of inexhaustibility, because of being deep and vast; seventh, the virtue of dwelling place, because non-purposive practice is where the bodhisattva dwells. When the sūtra says 'great bodies', it is because they cultivate bodhisattva practices with immeasurable bodies, acting through the ten bodies; eighth, combining the last two lines, named the virtue of protecting the world: in the ninth stage, the tide does not exceed its limit and does not mistakenly injure beings, knowing the faculties to bestow the Dharma without mistaking the capacities; in the tenth stage, if there were no great ocean, the water would drown the four continents, and others could not receive it, necessarily producing slander. Furthermore, obtaining these two dharmas functions to protect the world.