大般涅槃經集解 22.62

22.62

Sengliang notes: 'Eyeless' means seeing only the present and not seeing the future. 'Not seeing the path of the arhat': an arhat can cut off what has not yet arisen, but this person does not see it. Baoliang says: 'For example, like a king's envoy': here it should have brought out that this arhat resembles an icchantika, but it merely matches him against a bodhisattva, clarifying that this arhat firmly believes in the Mahāyāna and entirely dismisses the sūtras prior to the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra, saying they are not real but upāya. In the words it even takes him as an icchantika. The king's envoy represents the bodhisattva. 'Skilled in discourse' clarifies the bodhisattva's four unimpeded knowledges. 'Receiving orders to go to another country' means relinquishing the ground of the dharmakāya to respond to saṃsāra. 'Rather losing body and life than concealing the king's words' means he might be abused by non-Buddhists, yet will never proclaim that the Buddha is impermanent. 'Just as a lotus flower' is a metaphor for the practitioner: having committed transgressions accompanied by faith, if he sees the sun of nirvāṇa, his mind of faith will certainly increase in clarity.