大般涅槃經集解 69.42

69.42

Sengliang comments: Loathing suffering and desiring its cessation is called wholesome. Therefore, it is called contact: extinguishing suffering requires the Dharma found in good friends. The sūtras say that one wholeheartedly and attentively receives the Path; when one receives it, one can engage in wholesome reflection; having received it, reflecting on its meaning causes the factors of the Path to increase. Through the fourfold karmavācanā, one takes morality as the basis of leaving the household life. The fourfold [procedure] is the root of attaining the precepts, named contact and named cause. Regarding the two kinds of precepts: taking precepts as the root of the Path is called grasping; that is, from initial generation onwards, there is an uninterrupted continuity of similarity. For example, the four grades of wholesome roots: lower, middle, and upper. The lower grade is named root, the middle grade is named cause, and the middle is similar to the lower. "Increase" means having completed, it can generate a similar upper grade; extinguishing the middle grade is called similar; being able to generate the upper-upper is called generating the similar, and the upper-upper resembles the upper. Arising from the middle and lower constitutes the root of increase; that is, upon completion, increase can then be put to use. It is like boiling rice for provisions: when cooked, it is called the cause; when eaten, it is put to use.

Baoliang comments: The remaining three kinds below are readily apparent upon examining the text. However, ordinary beings and devas cling [to views], claiming that only the true uncontaminated [state] can be designated by these nine terms. Therefore, these nine stages are applied everywhere without fixed hierarchy; even the designations of the twelve links of dependent origination can be explained via these nine. Although he has explained this several times, people still did not understand. Thus Kāśyapa asked again: "How are the three dharmas, such as knowing the root, differentiated previously?" The Buddha again gave several layers of explanations. These three dharmas correspond precisely to the lower, middle, and upper grades, successively producing one another; since their causal, fruition, and functional applications differ, they receive these three names.