維摩經略疏 3.60

3.60

Question: When it is said here that he was revered by the world, was he revered because he entered into many bodies with a single body, or was he revered because he was born here and there [in those realms]? Answer: Both meanings apply. This is analogous to the Universal Gate manifesting diverse bodies. Now we take specifically his feigning illness to inaugurate the teaching. Because the elder's single body was able to function skillfully in its traces, wherever he manifested there was none who did not venerate him; responding to their capacities to instruct and transform them, there was none who did not receive benefit. One should know that the elder's dharmakāya is free from all karmic conditions; he merely manifested thus for the sake of beings. Approaching the demonstration that the elder's body was fundamentally without illness and that he feigned illness to inaugurate the teaching for the sake of sentient beings, one must first recount the aforementioned expedients as a prelude. Here concludes the preceding benefit of forms and sounds, manifesting the fundamental through expedients by tracing down from the fundamental.