大般涅槃經集解 24.26

24.26

Sengliang comments: Only a Buddha is complete with beneficial existence; what is attained by non-Buddhas is not beneficial existence. That there is only one Buddha [at a time] is because beneficial existence is hard to accomplish, taking vast kalpas to achieve. When it says 'reveals the three vehicles', the three are not real existences and are not originally ultimate. Fayao says: This clarifies the principle that the two vehicles do not attain nirvāṇa. If nirvāṇa is the ultimate, bodhisattvas are close to it; yet in an era without a Buddha even they do not attain it, much less the two vehicles! Saying that the two vehicles attain it is untrue. Sengzong says: Faculties have great and small; all have broad and narrow. When in the world there are no beings with the great aspiration for whose sake one might teach the permanent fruit to make them become Buddhas, it is not that there is no expedient teaching of the two vehicles attaining the two cessations. Because their aspirations are small, expedient teachings are delivered to guide them. Understanding that an illusory fruit is not yet ultimate, how could one reprove them and force them to equal the Buddha's nirvāṇa? Another explanation: If in the world there were fundamentally no principle of becoming a Buddha, it would not be that the two vehicles do not attain the two nirvāṇas. Since the principle is not so, we know that the two vehicles are an expedient provision of a lesser fruit; how could they equal the Buddha? 'A Buddha appears only after immeasurable kalpas' explains the preceding sentence: perfect understanding is hard to solidify, and inversions concerning permanence easily arise; without good deeds to evoke the Buddha, he cannot be constantly manifest. Favourable capacities are rare, so he appears in the world only occasionally. Turning away from teaching and missing the opportunity, kalpas pass in an instant; how could the Great [Vehicle] be spoken of? The teaching merely uses the stages of the three vehicles to guide them; hence we know that the lesser fruits are provisionally applied and are not real.