注維摩詰經 6.59

6.59

[Kumāra]jīva says: If sentient beings had real, fixed characteristics, then inconceivable mahāsattvas should not uselessly press and test them to make them suffer. Because they are not real and can easily be brought to fruition, [the mahāsattvas] afflict and press them. Furthermore, the Buddha-Dharma has two types: first, existence; second, emptiness. If one consistently remains in existence, one is burdened by ideational attachments; if one consistently contemplates emptiness, one abandons the roots of goodness. If emptiness and existence are used alternately, these two faults are not incurred, just as the alternation of the sun and the moon brings the myriad things to completion. Above, existence has already been explained; therefore, the gate of emptiness is now clarified. Contemplating sentient beings is like this. 'Sentient being', 'spiritual ruler', and 'self' are simply one meaning. It is like a foolish person walking on a road who comes upon an abandoned box containing a large mirror. Opening the box and looking into the mirror, he sees his own reflection, thinks it is the owner of the box, bows in gratitude, abandons it, and runs away. Sentient beings entering the treasure-mirror of the treasury of the Buddha-Dharma, grasping characteristics and imputing a self, discarding it and going away, are also like this. It is also like a blind person walking along a path who happens to meet a prince of the realm, embracing him tightly without letting go. Shortly after, the king's officials and retinue arrive, inflict extreme pain, and forcefully wrench [the prince] away, after which he lets go. Just so it is with sentient beings of wrong view seeing a self in what is non-self: when impermanence and suffering arrive, and they disperse and disintegrate according to conditions, only then do they know there is no self. It is like clouds in the sky: when approached, they are not there. The true benevolence that contemplates all dharmas as empty is true wisdom; the objectless benevolence born from within true wisdom is called true benevolence. Also, with benevolence as the fundamental basis, explaining the true Dharma for others is called true benevolence. Also, taking benevolence as the fundamental basis and thereafter practicing the myriad deeds such as giving is named accordingly; [these types of benevolence] are named either according to their self-nature or according to their cause. From this point onward, the analogies may be traced in like manner. [Seng]zhao says: The contemplation of self-regulation by the mahāsattva of compassionate illness, with its subtle words and profound import, has already been fully set forth in the preceding text. Yet the characteristics of dharmas are vacant and obscure, not to be seen by the conceptual mind; true contemplation is dark and silent, not to be debated by those who speak. Why then does he not realize nirvāṇa but share illness with the multitude of beings, and display inconceivable manifest traces without fixed origin, even acting as a Māra-king pressing and oppressing beginners? These are all the doings of the mahāsattva of self-regulation. In the contemplation of self-regulation, other and self are completely empty, yet when taken as similes for events, [the difficulty] becomes even greater, causing those aspiring to the principle to be bewildered by the import of abandoning speech, and those clinging to self to increase their view of sentient beings. This is why the path of wordlessness is difficult to express in words. In order to take similes close at hand to illustrate from afar true contemplation, thereby removing the burden of the people of the age being bound to words, this question was raised. [Dao]sheng says: The preceding inconceivability was the manifest trace of responding to and transforming sentient beings. Responding without fixed directions resembles having the sentiment toward sentient beings. One who has the sentiment toward sentient beings cannot transform them; hence it was necessary to ask about this.