大般涅槃經集解 16.100

16.100

Sengliang notes: The seventh section explains the benefits of the four kinds of persons. If one cultivates according to the Nirvāṇa [Sūtra], outwardly discarding the eight impure things, even though internally one may violate the precepts, one does not lose the status of a field of merit and attains the name of the Great Vehicle; though one ought not to be given offerings, one still receives them. If one does not cultivate according to the Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] and is outwardly defiled by the eight impure things, even though internally one is pure, one is not called a field of merit and does not achieve the Great Vehicle; though one ought to receive offerings, one loses them. Sengzong says: The preceding clarified the virtue of comprehending the Dharma and strongly exhorted people to make offerings. But because people have the genuine and the fake, which are difficult to distinguish, it sorts out the clear and the turbid so that the pure and the defiled are demarcated. Zhixiu says: Below there are three turns: first, Kāśyapa raises the analogy of fruit being raw or ripe whose signs are difficult to know as his inquiry; second, the Buddha extensively explains that though difficult to know, they can still be known, as his answer; third, Kāśyapa grasps the understanding. This is the first.