維摩經玄疏 4.37

4.37

First, clarifying the grading of the shared teaching by the stages of the Tripiṭaka teaching: if we discuss śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, they are not different from the two vehicles explained in the shared teaching; if we discuss stages according to the Great Vehicle, they differ greatly. Why is this? The Tripiṭaka teaching explains cultivating practice for three asaṃkhyeya kalpas up to becoming a successor, which is the pure, stainless stage; it can only equal compliant forbearance, the ground of nature, and the medium forbearance within the dharma of forbearance in the shared teaching. As for the Buddha of the Tripiṭaka, he can only equal the ground of the Buddha in the shared teaching, where primary defilements and residual habits are both exhausted, matching them in this manner. Secondarily speaking, the Tripiṭaka Buddha uses the wisdom of analyzing dharmas, which is unskillful; the Buddha of the shared teaching embodies dharmas, which is skillful. As the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: "The ground of the arhat is called 'Buddha' in the śrāvaka sūtras, for both attain two kinds of nirvāṇa." We maintain now that in both, primary afflictions are eradicated, so they are equal to the ground of what has been done; but if one takes the fulfillment of the two truths and the exhaustion of residual habits, how could an arhat be equal to a Buddha?