大方廣佛華嚴經隨疏演義鈔 37.25

37.25

Regarding the Commentary's 'Like mistaking a tree for a ghost' and so forth: it presents an analogy to clarify it. It is like a person walking at night when the clouds and moon are hazy, who sees a stump of a tree and, because of the absence of moonlight and harboring fear in their heart, conceives the thought of a ghost. Sentient beings are also like this: walking in the night of saṃsāra, the floating clouds of delusive conception obscure the moon of wisdom; seeing dharmas born of conditions, they fail to understand their emptiness of nature and believe there is a fixed nature, just as conceiving the thought of a ghost. The ghost is a metaphor for the imaginary; the tree is a metaphor for the other-dependent and consummate. If one fully understands that the ghost exists because of delusion, then one knows that the grasped dharmas of fixed nature all stem from delusive emotion; this person is called one grasping through deluded consciousness, hence they are called an awakened person who truly knows the ghost. This explains the upper half.