大般涅槃經集解 59
English (machine translation) 59
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59.1
Extensive explanation of the debate with the six teachers on the meaning of self and non-self; extensive explanation of the nidāna of the twin śāla trees; extensive explanation of the nidāna of the fifteenth day of the second month; extensive explanation of the meaning of non-abiding and abiding in the nature of all dharmas; extensive explanation of the signless meaning of nirvāṇa; extensive explanation of the characteristics of concentration, wisdom, equanimity, śamatha, and so forth.
59.2
"Lion's Roar," Part 6
59.3
"At that time the six masters went all around the six cities [...] [The Buddha] only speaks of the Tathāgata's permanence, bliss, self, and purity."
59.4
Sengliang comments: "The Lion's Roar is capable of awakening those who slumber. The Buddha's exposition of the Middle Way is able to awaken them from the slumber of one-sided attachments." Baoliang comments: "Since the non-Buddhists were brought to exhaustion at this point, they sought to debate the doctrines."
59.5
"At that time the six masters further spoke these words [...] 'The window is an analogy for the eye; the one who sees is an analogy for the self.'"
59.6
Sengliang comments: "Capacities of faculties differ, yet both are clinging; however, Kauṇḍinya heard of impermanence and thereby received the Way, while the six masters, on account of self and bliss, returned to the truth. Hearing of 'self', they rejoiced in agreement, and thus explained their own understanding to aggrandize themselves. Yet this explanation—that what is non-matter is the self—supposedly differed from the Buddha's understanding." Baoliang comments: "The exchange here is no different from the case of Śreṇika below; it was only that they still possessed followers and had not yet submitted. When their factions were entirely exhausted, the ten masters then openly underwent subjugation and returned to the correct path."
59.7
"The Buddha told the six masters: 'If you say that the one who sees [...] seeing and hearing the six sense-objects, one should know there is no self.'"
59.8
Sengliang comments: "Hereafter there are three passes of objections against their posited self. This is the first objection, stating that the faculty is not the self; it should be like the difference between a person and a window: within a single window, seeing and hearing would both be fully present."
59.9
"'Though the cited analogy of the window endures for a hundred years [...] when years advance and the faculties mature, it should likewise be no different.'"
59.10
Sengliang comments: "The second objection: having just distinguished [the window's] lack of function, we know that seeing is not the window. Now it is clarified that when faculties mature they become dimmed; thus we know that the faculty which sees forms is not the self."
59.11
"'Because the person and the window are different, one sees inside and sees outside [...] If it does not see, how could there be a self?'"
59.12
Sengliang comments: "The third objection: if it does not see both inside and outside, how could it be the self?"
59.13
"The six masters spoke again: 'Gautama! If there is no self [...] whoever has a self is permanent, blissful, and pure.'"
59.14
Sengliang comments: "This clarifies that seeing belongs to conditioned factors; there is no separate seer."
59.15
"The six masters said: 'Gautama! Matter is also not the self [...] it pervades all places just like empty space.'"
59.16
Sengliang comments: "However, matter and the like, by virtue of causes and conditions, fully possess the four faults. My explanation of the mark of the self is that it is identical to empty space: it does not, by causes and conditions, come to pervade all places, and it is difficult to divide into fractions. Clear and calm, permanently abiding, it cannot be produced or extinguished, yet it is capable of knowing and seeing, constantly governing the various sense-faculties."
59.17
"The Buddha said: 'If it exists ubiquitously, then one should not say [...] if it is impermanent, how can you say it is ubiquitous?'"
59.18
Sengliang comments: "There are two passes. This is the first objection, saying that since your self is the seer, now if things are ubiquitous, seeing should also be ubiquitous. If it is ubiquitous, there are no things; if there are things, it is not ubiquitous."
59.19
"'If it exists ubiquitously, then among the five destinies [...] how could one say that one turns and receives human or heavenly [rebirth]?'"
59.20
Sengliang comments: "The second objection: if it pervades the five destinies, then since they would be unified at one time, one could not discard human form and receive heavenly rebirth."
59.21
"'Is what you call ubiquitous one or many? If the self were one, there would be no father and son, enemy and friend, or neutral person.'"
59.22
Sengliang comments: "The third objection: since you say it is one, how can there be distinctions of high and low?"
59.23
"'If selves were many, then all sentient beings [...] differences between good karma and bad karma, the foolish and the wise.'"
59.24
Sengliang comments: "The fourth objection: if each possessed an independent birth, how could there be distinctions between the foolish and the wise? In principle, the creation of karma would likewise be identical."
59.25
"'Gautama! The self of sentient beings has no boundaries [...] the karmic fruits of sentient beings cannot be without differences.'"
59.26
Sengliang comments: "The non-Buddhists defend their thesis, but only defend the critical point of many selves. The self possesses ubiquity and permanence; not-pervading is the permanent dharma, while non-dharma does not pervade. Although the permanent self is ubiquitous, when one practices dharma one is wise, and when one practices non-dharma one is foolish; thus they cannot be without differences."
59.27
"The Buddha said: 'Six masters! Dharma and non-dharma [...] If not so, how can you say it is ubiquitous?'"
59.28
Sengliang comments: "If the self is ubiquitous, each should possess both. If possessing both, the karmic roots should be equal. If not so, how can it be called ubiquitous?"
59.29
"'Gautama! For example, in a single room, a lamp or hundreds of thousands of lamps [...] practicing good and committing evil do not intermingle.'"
59.30
Sengliang comments: "They defend their thesis. The meaning is that like lamps, whether small or large, they all pervade a single room; one cannot take [a lamp] as not pervading merely because it is small."
59.31
"'If you say that the self is like a lamp [...] the self of sentient beings is not like this.'"
59.32
Sengliang comments: "Refuting this attachment has three passes. This is the first: because it arises from conditions, when conditions are large the lamp is large, and this is why there can be differences. The self does not arise from conditions; it should not differ." Baoliang comments: "Both the lamp and the light exist entirely from conditions; since the self is not so, how could it serve as an analogy? The lamp and light must have root and branch: the flame on the wick is the root, and the illumination above is the branch; this establishes that the self does not emerge from the body to abide in another place, and therefore there is no self."
59.33
"'Light comes out from the lamp and abides in a different place [...] comes out from the body and abides in a different place.'"
59.34
Sengliang comments: "The second objection: the lamp and the light are different, whereas the self and dharma/non-dharma are not different. If they are different, the self is not ubiquitous."
59.35
"'The light of that lamp coexists with darkness [...] one should know that the initial light coexists with darkness.'"
59.36
Sengliang comments: "The third objection: because the initial lamp is small, it cannot destroy great darkness, and coexists with darkness. Where there is darkness there is no light, and thus the light is not ubiquitous."
59.37
"'Gautama! If there is no self, who creates good and evil? [...] The Lion's Roar is called mahānirvāṇa.'"
59.38
Sengliang comments: "Without creation, there is neither good nor evil. Evil is an action of karma; there must certainly be an agent. The self would be the agent, and an agent is saṃskṛta and impermanent."
59.39
"'Good son! The eastern pair destroys impermanence [...] great tranquil concentration is called mahānirvāṇa.'"
59.40
Sengliang comments: "The eight trees correspond to the eight dharmas; the eight dharmas are made manifest through them. It is simply like the place of illumination."
59.41
"Lion's Roar said: 'World-Honoured One! Why did the Tathāgata [...] enter mahānirvāṇa in the second month?'"
59.42
Sengliang comments: "For those whose contaminants are exhausted by waiting for the right time, the season itself is the Way. Expounding the Tathāgata's true nature refutes and explains at the time when the four inversions arise. The six seasons are just the three seasons each divided into two." Baoliang comments: "The fifth passage on cultivating the Way explains that the season is the Way. Since this is the ferry for sentient beings to enter the Way, it dispels their perverse reckonings and causes them to realize emptiness and be settled in the true principle."
59.43
"Lion's Roar said: 'From when the Tathāgata was first born [...] but this mother did not truly die.'"
59.44
Sengliang comments: "Because from initial birth up to initial attainment of the Way are all upāya and not the consummate ultimate, they are manifested through what is not yet full. What is clarified now is the consummation of the true principle, lodging it in the full moon."
59.45
"Lion's Roar Bodhisattva said: 'World-Honoured One! What kind of monk can adorn these Twin Śāla Trees?'"
59.46
Sengliang comments: "The sixth on cultivating the Way uses persons to illuminate the Way, referring to having contaminants exhausted by waiting for companions."
59.47
"'Good son! If there is a monk who upholds, reads, and recites [...] constantly abides in these Śāla trees.'"
59.48
Sengliang comments: "The Dharma is propagated by people, which is why he asks about the persons who propagate the Dharma." Baoliang comments: "Sentient beings' capacities differ; if one ought to have a thousand people as conditions, then lacking even one person they will not awaken, and the number must be complete. Here a few persons are briefly counted; if extensively listed, the matter would also be difficult, but all can be revealed at once."
59.49
"The Buddha said: 'Good son! All dharmas [...] why do you say that you wish for the Tathāgata to abide?'"
59.50
Sengliang comments: "The seventh passage on cultivating the Way dispels attachment to illuminate the Way. The Way takes forgetting mental conceits as its virtue. If one preserves 'abiding', one immediately turns against the Way. Now within this section there are three turns, all dispelling attachment."
59.51
"'Good son! Wherever one speaks of abiding, it is called a material dharma [...] south, west, north, the four intermediate directions, above, and below.'"
59.52
Baoliang comments: "The first resolves a doubt: it was said that since the Tathāgata enters nirvāṇa, he would not attain mastery. Now this attachment is dispelled. The Buddha has already severed all bonds of matter; his burdens are exhausted and his essence is signless. Only if one fails to penetrate emptiness would one preserve departing and abiding."
59.53
"'Good son! If someone says that evil of body, speech, and mind [...] in the city of Kuśīnagara, this also cannot be.'"
59.54
Sengliang comments: "Conditioned phenomena are in continuous succession; thus 'abiding' ultimately has no real abiding. The Tathāgata has eternally severed the conditioned; one should not request him to abide." Baoliang comments: "The second dispels attachment. Having just distinguished the characteristics of the Way, because the principle of emptiness is difficult to be settled in and those of lower folly have not awakened, analogies are cited to clarify the principle: through inevitable effort, practicing good cannot be made to obtain bad fruit, nor can practicing evil be made to obtain good fruit. Since the two causes cannot be interchanged, it is clear that the Way is signless and unconditioned; where, ultimately, could it abide?"
59.55
"'Good son! The Tathāgata now in this city of Kuśīnagara [...] for this reason enters the cave of meditative concentration.'"
59.56
Sengliang comments: "Above it was said that nirvāṇa is free from production and free from all existences, and that the Tathāgata is identical to nirvāṇa. Yet speaking of birth in the royal palace and extinction at the Twin Trees means taking emerging into activity as birth and entering tranquility as extinction—these are the traces responding to beings. For what reason? Entering the cave of meditative concentration intends to reveal the purport of manifesting extinction to benefit that time, which is why the question is raised." Baoliang comments: "This encourages practicing the concentration entered by the Buddha, in order to transform sentient beings to attain signless nirvāṇa."
59.57
"Lion's Roar said: 'World-Honoured One! The signless concentration [...] For this reason, nirvāṇa is called permanent.'"
59.58
Sengliang comments: "This inquires again into the meaning of nirvāṇa's signlessness. It clarifies that within nirvāṇa there is no suffering of the ten signs, intending to cause practitioners to cultivate the cause and give rise to it as bliss, knowing that clinging to signs is a loss and signlessness is a gain. The exposition of the Way has extensive and summary forms: from the concentration of cessation up to the seasons was the extensive approach. Now the summary approach has two, speaking only of the beginning and end of this concentration."
59.59
"Lion's Roar said: 'World-Honoured One! What kind of monk [...] cultivate and assemble the sign of equanimity—these are called the three signs.'"
59.60
Sengliang comments: "Having expounded the benefits of signless nirvāṇa, since the benefit is obtained through causes, he therefore asks. 'From time to time cultivate and assemble' up to 'these are called the three signs': one is the time of cultivation, and one is the time when one should cultivate. Concentration can remove distraction, wisdom removes inversions, and equanimity regulates slowness and haste; asking in summary to bring forth the essentials, these three are the essential practices of nirvāṇa." Baoliang comments: "The eighth passage on cultivating the Way brings forth the persons capable of cultivating the Way, clarifying that bodhisattvas at all times cultivate the three dharmas of concentration, wisdom, and equanimity; hence it says 'from time to time.'"
59.61
"Lion's Roar said: 'World-Honoured One! What is called [...] the two signs of wisdom and equanimity are likewise like this.'"
59.62
Sengliang comments: If the mind resting upon an object without distraction constitutes samādhi, then in thought after thought when grasping objects, none is distracted. From 'the mind being in a single realm' down to 'it is not named samādhi', if the mind continuously abides in a single realm, it is called samādhi. As for 'if it is not samādhi, it is not sarvajñā (all-knowledge)', if it grasps the four [truths], it is not samādhi. The reason they refute each other reciprocally is that cultivating samādhi and prajñā is done for the sake of sarvajñā. Sarvajñā is named sarvajñā because there is no phenomenon it does not know. If true certainty is termed jñāna, one entity possesses both; without possessing both, it is not sarvajñā. As for 'if it is not sarvajñā, how could it be called samādhi?', if it does not grasp other conditions and does not know all, then it not only loses all, it also loses knowledge, because their functions differ. 'Samādhi and prajñā are also like this' means that non-samādhi also refutes prajñā, and non-prajñā refutes samādhi. Baoliang comments: Once these three terms were proclaimed, the assembly had doubts, and therefore Siṃhanāda posed three objections concerning a single phenomenon. He merely raised samādhi as an instance; prajñā and upekṣā are likewise. This first objection states: Sentient beings inherently possess samādhi; why must it be cultivated? The second objection states: Samādhi essentially collects the mind into a single realm; since the Buddha comprehensively conditions the ten thousand realms, it must not be samādhi. The third objection states: If one attains samādhi through a single practice, then among the six pāramitās, only dhyāna would be it, and the other five would not. If samādhi cannot generate wisdom, it is also not samādhi.
59.63
The Buddha said: 'Good man! As you have said [...] because like this other conditions are also a single realm.'
59.64
Baoliang comments: He first dispels the second objection. Simply making one attain samādhi within a single realm results in all realms being serenely illuminated; therefore he says, 'like this other conditions are also a single realm.'
59.65
'Practices are also like this.'
59.66
Baoliang comments: This answers the third objection. The practices of the six pāramitās are nothing other than serenity; all are the functioning of understanding amid conditions—how could this not be wisdom?
59.67
'You also said that sentient beings inherently possess samādhi [...] how can you say that it does not need to be cultivated?'
59.68
Sengliang comments: Although the intention of the response distinguishes the four truths, in all cases repeated conditioning is attained, being both samādhi and wisdom. 'Wholesome samādhi' means cultivating wholesome samādhi for the sake of nirvāṇa; the mind merely abiding in an object is not the cause of nirvāṇa. Baoliang comments: This answers the first objection. The samādhi spoken of here is called wholesome samādhi. Although the mental activities of all sentient beings include good and evil, one does not take this ordinary mind to be samādhi.
59.69
'By abiding in such wholesome samādhi [...] seeing the buddhadhātu is called the mark of upekṣā.'
59.70
Sengliang comments: From here onward, the wholesome and unwholesome marks are explained in detail. Baoliang comments: From here onward, there are three sections in all explaining these three dharmas. The first directly and generally explains the marks of samādhi, prajñā, and upekṣā. The second, from 'śamatha is called being able to extinguish' onward, separately explains these three dharmas. The third, from 'śamatha is of two kinds: worldly and supramundane' onward, specifically interprets the two dharmas of samādhi and prajñā. As for 'bodhisattvas of the ten abodes have abundant power of prajñā and little power of samādhi': if collecting the mind on an object without roving toward external conditions is designated as samādhi, then because bodhisattvas of the ten abodes have not yet attained the ultimate rank and cannot avoid the aspiration to advance upward, it is metaphorically said that their wisdom is abundant and their samādhi is meager. This is an indirect teaching (nītārtha).
59.71
'Śamatha is named being able to extinguish [...] it is also named non-action; this is called upekṣā.'
59.72
Baoliang comments: This is the second explanation. 'Śamatha' is here translated as samādhi; in this passage, samādhi is explained through five meanings. 'Vipaśyanā' is here translated as wisdom (prajñā); in this text, it is explained through six meanings. 'Upekṣā' is here translated as equanimity; taking the understanding of emptiness as its designation, it is explained through four meanings in the text.
59.73
'Good man! Śamatha is of two kinds [...] Good man, these are called the marks of samādhi.'
59.74
Sengliang comments: Above was a general explanation; now the capacities of the three marks are distinguished. Baoliang comments: The third [section] separately explains the marks of depth and shallowness of samādhi and prajñā. Because upekṣā has no separate substance, it is not categorized into divisions. Herein there are two meanings: first, correctly discerning the marks of depth and shallowness of samādhi and prajñā respectively; second, clarifying that the cultivation of samādhi and prajñā has a purpose. As for the marks of depth and shallowness within samādhi, the worldly is called samādhi with signs, and the supramundane is called signless samādhi. This first distinguishes the marks of depth and shallowness of samādhi.
59.75
'Good man! Prajñā is of two kinds [...] Furthermore, there are four kinds, namely contemplating the four noble truths.'
59.76
Sengliang comments: Below, the two substances of samādhi and prajñā are separately explained. Because upekṣā has no separate substance, it is not spoken of. Baoliang comments: This discerns the marks of depth and shallowness of prajñā.
59.77
'Good man! Śamatha is cultivated for three purposes [...] for the sake of destroying all afflictions.'
59.78
Sengliang comments: Above it was said that the three marks have many capacities; now it is said that they are cultivated for the most essential among these capacities. Baoliang comments: The second layer next clarifies that the cultivation of samādhi and prajñā has a purpose. First there are three phrases explaining samādhi, and afterwards there are three phrases explaining prajñā. Combining the two approaches of samādhi and prajñā, it forms six phrases in total to explain the meaning.
59.79
Collected Commentaries on the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, Fascicle 59
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- 大般涅槃經集解 — Classical Chinese