維摩經玄疏 2.56

2.56

First, explaining the analytical reduction of the provisionality of views to enter emptiness: this is precisely analytically reducing what is not the provisionality of views to enter emptiness. The contemplation of analytically reducing the provisional is like the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa's breaking down a piece of fine cloth down to atoms adjacent to space, analytically reducing this provisionality of fine material dust subject to arising and ceasing in order to enter emptiness; contemplating the internal body and mind is also like this. However, the three great Dharma masters of the Chengshilun each used their own emotional views to break down these fine particles: if the fine particles are completely extinguished, one cannot avoid the view of annihilation; if the particles are not completely extinguished, it remains the view of permanence. If one does not escape these two views, how could one enter emptiness? Examining now the intent of the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa, it is not as those masters inferred. The author of the treatise quotes the Buddha's words: 'Matter, whether coarse or subtle, when contemplated as a whole, is impermanent and without self; he did not speak of the existence of an infinitesimal particle of matter.' Now I maintain that if one knows that coarse and subtle matter alike are impermanent and without self, then they are causally composed, continuous, and mutually dependent—illusory, provisional, and unreal. Once one cannot grasp matter as existent, how could one stagnate in matter's being empty, both existent and empty, or neither existent nor empty? Thus, both the view of a self-body and extreme views are formed through the four conditions and the three provisionalities, and being unreal, they are all empty. When conceptualizations and contemplative thoughts are eliminated, the dharmas of verbal expression cease, and with single-minded dhyāna and stillness, because the mind is in concentration, one can know the characteristics of arising and ceasing dharmas in the world. If one knows that the four views and sixty-two views are impermanent, empty, and still, one suddenly awakens to the real and becomes a srotāpanna. This is the contemplation of entering emptiness by analytically reducing the provisionality of views.