大般涅槃經集解 68.12

68.12

Sengliang states: 'With effort' and 'without effort' are distinctions of sharp and dull faculties within receiving a body. Baoliang states: 'One who attains nirvāṇa with effort' explains the third person next. Among those who merely receive primary birth in the first dhyāna, their faculties have the threefold distinction of sharp and dull; this person is the dullest, cultivating the path through their entire lifespan and only then attaining the fruit; hence it is called 'attaining nirvāṇa with effort'. The Notes of Daohui say: 'Or through two further bodies' additionally presents different persons within the third [category of] attaining nirvāṇa through practice. As the treatise masters merely say there are three persons in the first dhyāna, saying here 'perhaps two bodies or four bodies' and 'not flowing upward' means that it is not only in the first dhyāna.