大般涅槃經集解 68.26

68.26

Baoliang states: Explaining the seventh person. From the arhat on up to the Buddhas, they are comprehensively designated as one person; hence the metaphor is borrowed from the divine turtle that can travel on both water and land. However, the two matters of water and land correspond to what is in the text. Although there are seven kinds of distinctions in the worldly river, none of them departs from the water. In nirvāṇa it is likewise: though there are the differences of the seven persons, none of them departs from the water of buddhadhātu. Yet the meaning of buddhadhātu is subsumed according to circumstances, whether as conditioning cause or as cognitive object; such numerous factors, whether causes or fruits, are all buddhadhātu.