大方廣佛華嚴經隨疏演義鈔 30.24

30.24

Regarding the commentary's "Like the Vimalakīrti's contemplating the Buddha as neither coming from the past, etc.": this is the "Seeing Akṣobhya Buddha" chapter. "The Buddha asked Vimalakīrti: 'When you wish to see the Tathāgata, by what means do you contemplate the Tathāgata?' Vimalakīrti said: 'Just as I contemplate the real characteristic of my own body, I contemplate the Buddha in the same way. When I contemplate the Buddha, the Tathāgata, he does not come from the past, does not go to the future, and currently does not abide. I do not contemplate form, nor the suchness of form, nor the nature of form. I do not contemplate sensation, perception, volition, or consciousness, nor their suchness, nor their nature. He does not arise from the four great elements and is identical to empty space. The six sense-entrances have no accumulation; eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind have been transcended. He is not in the three realms, having parted from the three defilements and accorded with the three gates of liberation. The three knowledges are equal to ignorance. He is not a single characteristic and not different characteristics, not his own characteristic and not another's characteristic, neither without characteristics nor grasping characteristics, not on this shore, nor the other shore, nor in midstream—and yet he transforms sentient beings. He contemplates cessation yet is not permanently extinguished,'" and so forth. In that text, contemplating the real characteristic of one's own body is used to contemplate the Tathāgata; now it is merely self-contemplation, which is slightly different, yet the contemplation of reality is the same.