新華嚴經論 2.14

2.14

Tenth, the distinction in paradigms from initial spiritual friendship: As in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, it is said that the Youth of the Snow Mountains resolved his mind upon meeting a rākṣasa, esteeming half a verse while holding life lightly, hearing: 'All conditioned things are impermanent; this is the law of arising and ceasing. When arising and ceasing are extinguished, tranquil extinction is bliss.' It says that the Buddha-nature and nirvāṇa cannot be cultivated through practice, nor verified through mind. They cannot be cultivated through practice because practice is conditioned and impermanent. They cannot be verified through mind because there would be subject and object. Therefore, practice cannot cultivate its nature, and mind cannot verify its principle, because the mind is the nature, with no further subject and object. Therefore Cunda said: 'Do not say that the Tathāgata is identical to conditioned things.' As for the paradigm established by the youth Sudhana in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, from Mañjuśrī's generating the bodhicitta to the final Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, the fifty-three kalyāṇamitras each and every one say: 'I have previously resolved upon anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi. How should I learn the bodhisattva path and practice the bodhisattva conduct?' They do not speak of such matters as all conditioned things being impermanent. Why is this? Because this Avataṃsaka Sūtra clarifies that in the dharmadhātu gate of pratītyasamutpāda, principle and phenomena are non-dual; there is no condition that is not tranquil, no phenomenon that is not real. The one true nature-ocean of the ten directions of worlds is completely pervaded by great wisdom; because the realm of lands is entirely the nature-ocean and the one true dharmadhātu, it is not spoken according to karma as sentient or insentient. Because the purely real realm in the Avataṃsaka is entirely wisdom, the bodhisattvas of the ten abodes take insight as their land, the bodhisattvas of the ten practices take wisdom as their land, and the ten dedications of merit and ten grounds take the wondrous as their land, not speaking of the differential dual views of sentient and insentient. This is because the Avataṃsaka Sūtra reveals the fundamental Dharma, differing from the provisional teachings of the three vehicles. Insentient and sentient have arising and ceasing. Therefore, in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the reason why the Youth of the Snow Mountains spoke of all conditioned things being impermanent is that because the faculties, lineages, and practices of the three vehicles are inferior, the Buddha had them soften and subdue their coarse evils through practice before they were fit to enter the Way. They then clung to practice as truly real regarding what was preached, obstructing the unconditioned nature and neglecting union with the true principle. For this reason, it speaks of all conditioned things being impermanent, and that which realizes and that which is realized are also dharmas of arising and ceasing. This is unlike Sudhana, who in a single thought of resolving the mind is suddenly devoid of subject and object, understands the nature of the three periods of time, with nature transcending past and present, and awakens for himself that his own mind is fundamentally Buddha, neither accomplishing correct enlightenment nor verifying bodhi. Nature and marks of body and mind lack any verifier or cultivator; neither formed nor destroyed, they are fundamentally thus. Moving and tranquil according to conditions, not destroying existence and non-existence, all the practices cultivated arise solely from wisdom. Therefore, it does not speak of all conditioned things being impermanent.