維摩經略疏 5.99

5.99

From "Silently go away" below: third, concluding the two slanders. The text has two parts: first, concluding the slander of subtraction; second, concluding the slander of addition. As for the first passage, taking the wheel-turning king as proof, its meaning is clear. "Silently go away": stopping his slander of subtraction, he therefore says "silently"; stopping his slander of addition, he therefore says "go away." "Go away" means to depart. The true body has no illness, so why bother begging for milk? Therefore he tells him to depart. If one says there is illness, that is an addition. As for "Do not let outsiders hear these crude words": non-Buddhists cherish divergent views, so they are "outsiders." If they hear that the Buddha has an illness, they will think that the Buddha's practice of good is still crude, that the fruit of bliss is incomplete, and that he still has illness and distress, in no way different from worldly people. It would increase their erroneous slander, so he advises him to silently go away. As for "Do not let..." and so forth: the retributions of minor good are all free from illness; if they hear Ānanda say that the Buddha has an illness, they will deeply marvel that he does not understand the wheel-turning king. Because the king practiced the ten good deeds and taught others through three lifetimes, even this modest merit still obtains freedom from illness; how much more so for the Tathāgata, whose universal convergence of immeasurable merit is supremely superior? The Buddha cultivated Mahāprajñā for immeasurable kalpas to guide myriad practices, merging with the true extremity of principle and realizing the fruit of eternal bliss; how could he have an illness? If one says he has an illness, he would then be inferior to a wheel-turning king, and would this not be a great subtraction [from his status among] the pure lands and majestic gods?