大般涅槃經集解 53.60

53.60

Sengliang states: 'Seeing phenomena as having a nature' means that seeing emptiness is seeing permanence. Those on the nine stages do not see permanence because they do not see emptiness; therefore, those on the tenth stage only see it partially. Baoliang states: The sūtra text is precisely like this, so we know that up through the nine stages, they only see the emptiness of non-self, which is not the true principle of signlessness. Since what they contemplate are conditioned matters, it is not the emptiness of the true self; hence it says 'seeing phenomena as having characteristics.' It is not that they grasp a nature and see existence, but precisely because they cultivate non-self so much, they have not yet been able to see the buddhadhātu.