維摩經略疏 6.22

6.22

From “quiescent extinction” downward is fourth: extensively explaining true bodhi. Why is it extensively explained? Above, [Vimalakīrti] having refuted [their understanding] with difficulties and exhorted them to abandon their views, those who believed in the partial teachings had nowhere for their minds to turn, and those who received the Perfect [Teaching] but had not entered it did not know the correct meaning either. Therefore, he had to demonstrate extensively the twenty-five instances of the correct meaning of bodhi. The text has three [parts]: first, one instance briefly states the topic as the bodhi of true reality; next, twenty-two instances clarify bodhi according to true wisdom and severance; third, two instances conclude the bodhi of true wisdom and severance by returning to the marvelous principle of true reality. The reason for this is that above, it was refuted that without wisdom and severance one cannot receive prediction; since the clinging afflictions of those who received the four teachings have been removed, he now conversely explains for them that the meaning of true wisdom and severance is entirely bodhi. Thus, the three virtues of bodhi are like the worldly letter 'I' [𑖄]: that is the true bodhi of the Perfect [Teaching]. In explaining these twenty-five statements, the Perfect [Teaching] is applied exclusively. As for “quiescent extinction is bodhi”: all dharmas converge in the mind, and the mind is the Middle Way. The principle of true suchness is fundamentally unarisen, and therefore now without extinction. Unarisen, it is not wisdom; unextinguished, it is not severance. This is the meaning of true quiescent extinction, and also the unarising of great nirvāṇa. That this unarising, unarising [nature] cannot be spoken of as bodhi is the bodhi of true reality in the Perfect Teaching. As for “extinguishing all marks”: if one does not know the bodhi of true reality, and cannot speak of it, clinging to the marks of the four teachings gives rise to the afflictions of birth-and-death. These four marks have sixteen marks from which all marks emerge; hence there is the turbulence of all afflictions and birth-and-death. If the bodhi of true reality is the unarising, and the unarising cannot be spoken of, then the four gates are all extinguished. How much more so would the three kinds of marks of the four gates—such as arising and unarising—and all marks and delusions not be extinguished? Vimalakīrti's intent is that true reality is markless and able to extinguish all marks; hence he says “extinguishing”.