新華嚴經論 3.2

3.2

Second, explaining the classification of the teachings according to doctrinal tenets: when the Great Awakened One emerges, He acts freely in accord with true wisdom; the dharmakāya has no boundary, taking all sorts of beings as having the same body. Appearing in forms according to the vessels [of beings] and dispensing teachings in response to their capacities, [He is] like an echo in an empty valley which sounds upon being struck. An echo in a valley has no mind and no fixed location; it simply responds everywhere according to conditions. The Tathāgata's establishing of teachings is likewise: matching their capacities and conditions, [beings] obtain the Dharma of their own minds, and He brings them to maturity as they increase and expand. There are also no permanent tenets by which He establishes teachings; He dispenses medicine in response to illness, and once the illness is cured, the medicine is discarded. Within a single thought, He rains down immeasurable Dharmas, matching and pervading the dharmadhātu, manifesting physical bodies in response. Since the Dharma is inexhaustible, the doctrinal teachings are infinite; without anterior or posterior limits, they universally provide for all faculties. It is only sentient beings who distinguish before and after for themselves. Moreover, the teaching of Vairocana has no beginning and no end; matching the nature, it has no fixed direction and is without interruption or cessation. According to their kinds of faculties, [beings] see for themselves entering the womb and leaving home, teaching the practices of beginning and end, and entering into quiescent nirvāṇa; but in truth the Tathāgata was never like this from the beginning. Even the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra says, "Since I attained buddhahood, immeasurable asaṃkhyeya kalpas have passed." Because of the perfect wisdom of the nature-ocean, a single thought is itself immeasurable kalpas. In such perfect wisdom, how could there be before and after? This sūtra says: "Entering the samādhi of the limit of a kṣaṇa, He manifests the initial birth and nirvāṇa." Moreover, as in the sūtra, the son of heaven in Tuṣita underwent three births and the ten grounds; in his second birth he still came from the evil destinies, and upon receiving the illumination of light on his body, he was born up into Tuṣita heaven, attained the Defilement-Free Samādhi, and immediately saw the Tathāgata abiding on the diamond-jeweled ground transforming great bodhisattvas, while in Jambudvīpa He was just entering His mother's womb. Furthermore, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra says: "When sentient beings see the kalpa end and it is consumed by a great fire, this land of mine is tranquil." How could there be any distinction of earlier and later teachings? They merely accord with a single period, being both identical and different. Drawing upon the teachings established by ten masters of former virtuous ones as a standard, the rest may be inferred.