維摩義記 3.47

3.47

From here below is the third [section], which clarifies discerning liberation by being identical to the three poisons. Śāriputra first asks: 'Is it no longer by abandoning lust, anger, and delusion that one attains liberation?' Śāriputra heard previously that all dharmas are characteristics of liberation, and therefore asked this question. From 'The devī' downward is the reply. 'For the arrogant, the Buddha expounds abandoning lust and so forth as liberation' distinguishes the Hīnayāna as different from the Mahāyāna. Practitioners of the Hīnayāna have not truly reached the ultimate, yet they generate notions of having reached the ultimate, which is called presumption; for these people, the Buddha expounded abandoning lust and so forth as liberation. Lust is greed, anger is hatred, and delusion is ignorance. 'For those without arrogance, the Buddha expounds lust and so forth as being themselves liberation' displays the Mahāyāna as different from the Hīnayāna. How are lust, anger, delusion, and so forth themselves [liberation]? There are two meanings in the explanation: First, expounded in terms of transformation. Although the buddhas and bodhisattvas have attained nirvāṇa, they constantly manifest the arising [of defilements]. Thus a later passage says: 'There are eighty-four thousand gates of defilement through which sentient beings become weary and exhausted, and the buddhas use these very dharmas to perform buddha-work.' Moreover, it is stated below: 'The bodhisattva manifestly gives rise to all defilements, which is called penetrating the buddha path.' The Daśabhūmika Sūtra calls this initiating superior practice. Second, expounded in terms of reality. Greed, anger, delusion, and so forth take the real as their substance; when one penetrates to the end of their essential nature, that is itself true liberation. Thus a sūtra says: 'When an ordinary being has not yet become a buddha, bodhi is defilement; when a noble one has become a buddha, defilement is itself bodhi.' This is similar to that. It is like a person who is confused about directions: the confused direction is itself the correct direction; one does not seek the correct direction outside the confused one. Understanding and knowing that greed and so forth are themselves true liberation, even though one attains liberation, one does not abandon greed and so forth.