大般涅槃經集解 30.12

30.12

Sengliang comments: To say that the five aggregates are entirely suffering contradicts the past teaching; he uses the past to contest the present. Sengzong says: Below is the fourth [part], citing the past to examine the present, reconciling both teachings. Baoliang says: Third, reconciling both teachings of the present and the past. Teachings contain cause and effect: in the past he had already reconciled the fruit, and now he reconciles the cause. In the past he had already pointed out that the three feelings are all suffering, causing living beings' minds to turn away with disgust and advance in virtue. Although the meaning was such, it had not yet reached the point of dismantling the cause. If cause and effect had both been dismantled, how would living beings have been willing to cultivate the good? He could only temporarily suppress merit and lay it aside; hence the scriptural teachings of the four seasons merely exhorted the cultivation of good in order to extinguish evil, training within the body of saṃsāra to achieve sagehood. Yet the substance of all-knowledge was not exempt from impermanence. But because the fruit of bliss had not yet been revealed, the cause could not be dismantled. Now that the teaching of permanent abiding has manifested the meaning of the fruit of bliss, the cause can finally be dismantled. I originally said that cultivating the good is indeed the cause of bodhi, not a phenomenon of saṃsāra. Some explain that the present teaching is still reconciling the fruit; this is feared not to be the Buddha's intent. In the past it had already been fully reconciled, so how could it be repeated now? Therefore, we know that in principle this cannot be so. Now, wishing to reconcile the cause, Kāśyapa first seizes upon the fruit to raise an objection. After the Buddha first eliminates the fruit, establishing that it is solely suffering, he then speaks uprightly: 'What I said in the past about the good obtaining bliss refers to the bliss of the path of bodhi.' But this meaning was not yet clear, and is only now reconciled.