新華嚴經論 7.35

7.35

Answer: It is because the heaven of the fourth dhyāna, according to its sequential order, is the place of the Buddha-fruit. At the bodhimaṇḍa, when the Buddha directly realized the Buddha-fruit, he comprehensively gathered the fourth dhyāna and the worlds of the ten directions into a single Universal Light Hall of the Dharma—the mansion of the dharmadhātu and the capital of his saṃbhoga residence. There are no longer any marks of ascending or descending, coming or going, or places for progressive cultivation that can be apprehended. This explains that in the Buddha's fourth dhyāna, mental conception has nothing to rely upon and has no locus for progressive cultivation; thus there is no coming or going. When affection is severed, response accords with truth, for it is identical with the dharmadhātu. This is the Buddha's fourth dhyāna: by being under the bodhi tree, it is lodged in common with an araṇya hermitage; the Universal Light Hall is then the original mansion of saṃbhoga residence; and by these three, the beginning and end of cause and effect are explained. Recapitulating the previous time of first achieving Buddhahood makes clear that earlier and later are not separate from the essence of bodhi, the ocean of fundamental wisdom. Perfectly fusing beginning and end, cause and effect in this way establishes the single-boundary Dharma door. In this sūtra, there are six places where this integration occurs: there are two places in the door of demonstrating the fruit to encourage practice, and four places in the door of cultivating practice having already aroused faith. First, as in the initial assembly, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra entered the samādhi of the Tathāgata's Matrix Body, and through the Dharma door of the turning of the ocean of worlds, demonstrated the gate of the fruition obtained throughout the beginning and end of cause and effect in the ocean of worlds of the ten lotus-treasuries of the Buddha's source-dharmadhātu. That is, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra is the practice and the Tathāgata's Matrix Body is the essence; this clarifies entering the essence by means of function, because principle and phenomena completely penetrate each other. Second, the throne upon which Vairocana sits possesses various adornments, which also clarifies that cause and effect, beginning and end, essence and function completely penetrate each other. That is, taking Vairocana Buddha as the fruition of saṃbhoga, the fundamental wisdom of the emptiness of all phenomena as the essence of the throne, and the myriad practices of Samantabhadra as the adornment of function. Through all these instruments of adornment—namely, the pedestals, doors, and windows—there emerge hosts of bodhisattvas, who, like the dust motes of ten Buddha-worlds, rain down treasures to make offerings to the Buddha. This clarifies that the Tathāgata's fruition virtues constantly abide on the throne of the emptiness of all phenomena, and the wondrous functions of Samantabhadra's manifold practices constantly evoke the adornments of circumstantial fruition, because principle and phenomena, cause and effect, essence and function constantly benefit one another. Furthermore, in the door of cultivating practice having already aroused faith, there are four instances of integrating cause and effect as non-dual: [First,] in the Universal Light Hall, when the initial realization of correct awakening is spoken three times, gathering the branches back to the root into a single-boundary dharmadhātu, this is one instance of integration. Second, the thirty-seventh chapter is named the 'Chapter on the Manifestation of the Tathāgata', where the Tathāgata emits light from between his eyebrows to consecrate the crown of Mañjuśrī's head, and emits light from his mouth to consecrate Samantabhadra's mouth, causing these two individuals to mutually engage in question and answer, explaining the gate of the fruition virtues of the Buddha's manifestation. That is, Mañjuśrī is the Dharma-essence of fundamental wisdom, and Samantabhadra is practice, clarifying that the integration of essence and function completely penetrates; this locus of penetration is called 'Buddha'. The Buddha in the initial assembly demonstrates the Buddhahood attained by the Buddha himself. The Buddha in the thirty-seventh chapter demonstrates that which is reached through the bodhisattva's own power. Relying on the initial Buddha, one gives rise to faith and advances in cultivation; by faith and advancing in cultivation, one's own power reaches one's own Buddha-fruit. Because one's own Buddha-fruit is no different from what was previously believed, [this is the second]. Third, in the Jeta Grove, the Tathāgata, through the door of the lion's roar (siṃhavikrīḍita) samādhi, puts forward the cause and effect of the five stages to guide and benefit humans and devas. Fourth, in Sudhana's [visit to] Maitreya's tower, the cause and effect of beginning and end of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, as well as the cause and effect of beginning and end of Bodhisattva Maitreya, are integrated as a single boundary, because essence and function completely penetrate. Together with the two places of integration in the door of demonstrating the fruit to encourage practice—Bodhisattva Samantabhadra and Vairocana—and the subsequent four places in the Universal Light Hall's 'Chapter on the Manifestation of the Tathāgata', Anāthapiṇḍada's Park, and Maitreya's tower, there are altogether six places that integrate the single-boundary Dharma door of the non-duality of essence and function, cause and effect. For this reason, Maitreya's tower is called the Vairocana Adornment Matrix, and the samādhi entered by Bodhisattva Samantabhadra in the initial assembly is called the Tathāgata's Matrix Body; earlier and later names are mutually similar in this way. One need only investigate and verify this according to the intent and context of the sūtra's chapters, and it can be seen: the Tathāgata's integration is entirely a single time and a single boundary; through the gate of the mansion of fundamental wisdom at the boundary of a kṣaṇa, his emergence, cessation, and constant abiding in the world to turn the wheel of the True Dharma are entirely without departing from the time of achieving correct awakening in a single thought-moment. Therefore the sūtra says: 'Wisdom enters the three periods of time without coming or going.' This sūtra contains altogether ten places, ten assemblies, and forty chapters. Throughout nine assemblies, the clouds of assemblies gathered together total three hundred and forty-two types of assemblies, and the eight types of assemblies in the single gathering in the third dhyāna are also included within this number. Each of these assemblies is said to equal the dust motes of a Buddha-world, or the dust motes of ten Buddha-worlds. These assemblies all gather simultaneously at the single kṣaṇa boundary of first achieving correct awakening, like a great ocean pervading the ten directions, mutually reflecting one another without obstruction or hindrance. If one considers the tenth assembly, in which assemblies take place in all lands, inside every dust mote, and throughout the empty space of the dharmadhātu, then within the empty space and dharmadhātu of the worlds of the ten directions, within tiny dust motes, and within the ocean-like assemblies of the dust motes of pores on the bodies of all sentient beings, like the ocean of the ten directions without gap, they are layer upon layer, inexhaustible and endless. The oceans of assemblies of Buddhas and bodhisattvas are constantly so: the three periods of time are in a single thought-moment, past and present are both identical to the boundary of the present moment, and the inexhaustible kalpas of past and future are simultaneously without departure from the time of achieving correct awakening in a single thought-moment. Such is the essence of time: at the time of becoming a Buddha or not becoming a Buddha, awakening or non-awakening, the Dharma is just so.