新華嚴經論 3.26

3.26

Second, the Dharma master Jñānaprabha—tracing his lineage remotely from Mañjuśrī and Nāgārjuna, and proximately receiving it from Āryadeva and Bhāviveka—also established three teachings based on the Prajñāpāramitā and other sūtras, and the Madhyamaka and other treatises. That is to say, when the Buddha was first in the Deer Park, he spoke the Hīnayāna Dharma for those of inferior faculties, clarifying that mind and objects both exist. In the second period, for those of intermediate faculties, he taught the Mahāyāna of phenomenal characteristics (dharmalakṣaṇa), clarifying the Consciousness-Only principle that objects are empty while mind exists. Because their faculties were still inferior, they were unable to enter fully into the equal, true emptiness; hence he gave this teaching. In the third period, for those of superior faculties, he taught the Mahāyāna of signlessness, discerning that mind and objects are both empty and of one equal taste, which is truly of definitive meaning. Moreover, these three stages are also explained by three criteria. First, regarding the capacities embraced: the first period embraces only the capacities of the two vehicles; the second comprehensively embraces both the greater and lesser capacities, because this school maintains that a portion of the two vehicles never proceeds toward the fruit of buddhahood; the third exclusively embraces bodhisattvas, spanning both gradual and sudden, because all those of the two vehicles proceed toward the fruit of buddhahood, with no other path remaining. Second, regarding the teachings: the first expounds the Hīnayāna; the second expounds what is common to the three [vehicles]; and the last expounds exclusively the One Vehicle. Third, regarding the principles revealed: the first refutes the innate nature of external paths and therefore teaches that conditioned phenomena are definitely real existents; the second gradually refutes the two vehicles' attachment to conditioned phenomena as real existents, and therefore teaches that these conditioned phenomena are provisional existents—retaining provisional existence to guide them because they fear this true emptiness; in the final period, only then, with reference to the ultimate Mahāyāna, does he teach that these conditioned phenomena are identical to emptiness of nature, of one equal taste, without obstructing the two truths. Therefore, the Mahāyāna of phenomenal characteristics, having something to attain and so forth, belongs to the second teaching and is not truly of definitive meaning. The sequence of these three teachings is as master Jñānaprabha explained.