涅槃玄義發源機要 2.8

2.8

Third, the purity of nature. Within the text, there are also two parts: first, explaining the purity of nature; below the words "profound and clear," explaining nirvāṇa. The first text says "neither cultivated," etc., meaning that the three thousand realms and the three truths are fundamentally possessed from ordinary beings at the outset. "Neither a cultivated cause nor a cultivated fruit, neither primary karma nor manifest karma": the characters are mistaken; "zuò" (作) should be "zhèng" (正, primary), and "yǔ" (與) should be "qī" (期, manifest). Because it is not mental karma, it is called "not primary karma." Because it is not bodily or verbal, it is called "not manifest karma." The thirty-fourth fascicle of the sūtra states: "'Primary karma' refers to mental karma. 'Manifest karma' refers to body and speech." The commentary explains: "The mind is the substance of karma. Because body and speech naturally correspond, as if meeting an appointment (qī), it is called manifest karma (qīyè)." Below the words "fundamentally self-," since it is neither cause and fruit nor the three karmas, we know that it is fundamentally complete, not something that only begins to exist through present cultivation into fruit and realization of awakening. Shì means beginning. Below the words "profound and clear," the meaning of quiescence is explained. "Neither arising nor perishing": because the nature is fundamentally quiescent, this nature is named nirvāṇa. Below the words "although in," it brings up the metaphor of the spring pond to explain it, as recorded earlier. The "five obstructions" are smoke, clouds, dust, mist, and the asura's hand, which are used to symbolize that the five entrenchments of afflictions do not defile the principle of the purity of nature, just as the five obstructions do not conceal the shape of the moon. Calling it "the shape of the moon" refers to the pearl within the pond; hence it cannot be concealed by the five obstructions. "Flowing with the current," etc., is as recorded earlier. Below the words "although submerged," the "Chapter on the Tathāgata-Nature" says: "It is like a royal wrestler who had a vajra jewel between his brows. Wrestling with another wrestler, they collided, and the jewel immediately sank into his flesh; he did not know where the jewel was at all. A sore appeared at that spot, and he summoned a doctor to treat it. The doctor was skilled in prescriptions and medicines, and knew that the sore was due to the entry of the jewel, and that when the jewel entered the skin, it immediately stopped there." This is explained extensively in the sūtra text. Now, using the jewel as a metaphor for the principle of the purity of nature being fundamentally quiescent, it therefore says "untainted by pus and blood." Below the words "these three," mutual interfusion is clarified. "Cannot be separated from one another": because their substance and nature mutually interfuse, they are only a single dharma. "Cannot be confounded with one another": since substance and function are distinguished, they naturally form three kinds. "The more they are gathered, the more they diverge": because the one is precisely three. "The more they branch out, the more they unite": because the three are precisely one. The horizontal is precisely the vertical, hence ever higher; the vertical is precisely the horizontal, hence ever broader. "Speaking of it once again": the meaning is explained again in terms of the dharmakāya.