大般涅槃經集解 1.25

1.25

Daosheng sets forth: Returning to the ultimate, one attains the origin, yet it seems to have just begun. What begins must end, and thus permanence is obscured. If one examines its purport, it is merely that I have only now encountered it; its illumination did not merely come into being now. Sengliang sets forth: Banniè means not, and also means non-existent. Pán means arising, and also means cause. Because it is not attained from an operative cause, it is causeless. Baoliang sets forth: In discerning saṃsāra, the eight sufferings are taken as the root; in clarifying nirvāṇa, permanence and bliss are taken as the source. Its wondrous essence is constant and unmoving; its functions ever adapt without being destroyed; it is without name and without form, and a hundred negations cannot characterize it. Now the purport of nirvāṇa receives its designation in terms of its functions. If one speaks of the true and the conventional, the two substances are fundamentally identical, and their functions do not conflict; yet when darkness departs, the conventional is exhausted, the artificial wanes and the true appears, radiantly becoming a buddha. Fazhi sets forth: What is subtle and difficult to understand lies in original existence. What is called original existence is a profound reference to its existence in a future, separate life; it does not mean that it exists in the present life. The kinds of conscious beings inherently possessed it before they ever produced causes at the very source; hence it is called original existence. Thus, it does not depend on karmic conditions for its beginning, and therefore it is not newly produced. Hence, this future is spoken of as not being like the three times, where one must await the creation of karma before it can exist. Even though in the future it has not yet arisen and is not yet of use to oneself, one therefore requires an elucidating cause, and only then will it correspond. Huilang relates Fayao's words: That saṃsāra is uninterrupted is due to the twelve links of dependent origination; that dependent origination lacks intrinsic nature is itself nirvāṇa—how could it be newly existent?