大般涅槃經集解 67.80

67.80

Sengliang states: 'Next attains the dharma of heat' means severing the status of an external ordinary person, entering the group of right determination, and staying in the initial stage of abiding. Sengzong states: For those with excessive greed, contemplating impurity clarifies how the third person's contemplative practice gradually advances into the dharma of heat. Baoliang states: Raising the five dharmas again also serves a purpose. It means that if the second person encounters a good spiritual friend who administers the medicine according to the illness, he becomes the third person; if not, he reverts to being the second person. People have sharp and dull faculties: the sharp ones contemplate the emptiness of nominal designation and immediately grasp the emptiness of dharmas. Only after penetrating the principles of both sides do they emerge from contemplation and reach the dharma of heat, concluding into a person who stays. The dull ones cannot do so; they emerge upon realizing the emptiness of nominal designation, and their faculty of faith is also established, making them the third person who stays. Thus, the conclusion has two periods; it is not that the dharma of heat alone makes one a person who stays, while the initial root of goodness fails to do so. The dharma of heat is the beginning of the emptiness of dharmas and the start of the second root of goodness; being still far from the fire of the undefiled, it is compared to heat. Zhixiu states: 'In sequence, he further contemplates the twelve links of dependent origination': entering the Hīnayāna path through the four truths represents the branching of the three vehicles. Entering into these marks and further contemplating the twelve links of dependent origination is simply another method for entering the path according to conditions.