大方廣佛華嚴經願行觀門骨目 1.3

1.3

The Venerable Master of Jingxi, the ninth patriarch of the Tiantai school, produced one fascicle of the Essential Framework of the Contemplation of Vows and Practices (now divided into two fascicles). It briefly gathers the essential guidelines to serve as a guide for contemplation. This text circulated abroad for a long time and was not in circulation in China, so people rarely had the chance to see it. However, regarding the secret store of all Buddhas and the nature-ocean of the Tathāgata, those who gaze at it cannot discern its ultimate aim, and those who ladle from it cannot fathom its shores. If one turns one's mind to this text, it is indeed an essential portal for profound contemplation, penetratingly clarifying the source of the Buddhas' fruition and awakening sentient beings to the principle of their true nature: how could boundless oceans of lands be separated by even the tip of a hair, and how could the ancient and modern of the ten time periods exceed the present single thought-moment? The vast extent of the dharmadhātu is entered here. How then could this differ from measuring the merits of reading and reciting the entire great teaching of the Avataṃsaka? Respectfully narrating its origins to place at the head of the sūtra, I hope only that its provenance will be known.