注維摩詰經 3.125

3.125

[Kumāra]jīva says: Whenever emptiness is spoken of, impermanence is spoken of first; impermanence is the initial gateway to emptiness. The initial gateway is called impermanence, and the ultimate is called emptiness. Although their purport is the same, they differ in depth according to their subtlety and coarseness. Why do we say this? When speaking of impermanence, one says that thought-moment after thought-moment does not abide; if it does not abide, one then binds it to abiding through existence. Although this eliminates prolonged abiding, it does not yet clarify non-abiding; this is merely coarse impermanence, not yet having reached the ultimate. Now, if this single thought-moment is made to be bound to abiding, then subsequent ones should also abide. If it abides now and abides later, then from beginning to end there would be no change; that there is no change from beginning to end is, in terms of facts, not the case. It is precisely because when it abides it does not abide that it goes toward cessation. That abiding is non-abiding is true impermanence. Originally, abiding was taken to be existence; now that there is non-abiding, there is no existence, and having no existence is ultimate emptiness. Ultimate emptiness is the wondrous purport of impermanence; hence it is said that ultimate emptiness is the meaning of impermanence. Because Kātyāyana had not exhausted it yet took it to be the ultimate, he brought upon himself the reproof of false conceptualisation.

[Seng]zhao says: This discerns the Tathāgata's original intention in his brief preaching. The Hīnayāna contemplates the production and cessation of dharmas as the meaning of impermanence; the Mahāyāna takes non-production and non-cessation as the meaning of impermanence. The name 'impermanence' is the same, yet the profound purport is transcendentally distinct. Its path is empty and subtle, certainly not what ordinary sentiments can measure; the one who wondrously grasped its purport was the Pure Name himself.

[Dao]sheng says: Speaking of impermanence is based on verifying it through the cessation of affairs. If the end indeed has cessation, could the beginning be otherwise? If the beginning is indeed so, then production is not fixed. If production is not fixedly produced, what cessation could be fixed? Since production and cessation are already not fixed, where can the true substance lie? Deducing that having nowhere to lie is the principle—this is the reality of all dharmas. If reality takes non-production and non-cessation as its meaning, how could this not be where impermanence resides? That being so, although impermanence clarifies that permanence is non-existent, it also expresses that there is no impermanence. 'Ultimate' means it cannot be otherwise.