維摩經略疏 7.37

7.37

From "Vimalakīrti..." below is the second [part], Vimalakīrti's answer. The text has four [parts]: three are the consolations according to the three teachings, and the fourth concludes them. Here, clarifying that the three teachings console only bodhisattvas and do not include the two vehicles is because [the two vehicles] lack compassion and enter nirvāṇa forever. Here, using the Tripiṭaka and connecting [teachings] together to form a single teaching of consolation: within the realm [of transmigration], the conditioned illness of views and thoughts has not yet been severed, and bodhisattvas have the actual illness of the cause and effect of fragmented [samsāric birth and death]; therefore the Tripiṭaka is needed to assist the connecting [teaching] of the Mahāyāna in consoling them. One may also combine it with the separate and perfect [teachings] for consolation. If one speaks of the separate [teaching], it is precisely for consoling bodhisattvas with unconditioned causal aggregation who have the actual illness of the cause and effect of ignorance and change [birth and death]; hence the separate teaching is used to console them. If one speaks of the perfect [teaching], it is precisely for consoling bodhisattvas with intrinsic causal aggregation who have the actual illness of intrinsic cause and effect; hence the perfect teaching is used to console them. Now, first clarifying the use of the Tripiṭaka assisting the connecting [teaching] for consolation, this exhorts them to enter the contemplation of emptiness from provisionality and cultivate all wisdom eyes. The text has two [parts]: first, entering emptiness from resultant provisionality; second, entering emptiness from causal provisionality. The result is the body of the deluded confusion of the five aggregates, which exists by virtue of the three provisionalities and is therefore called resultant provisionality; this is the first of the four practices of the truth of suffering: impermanence. "Speaking of the body as impermanent, but not speaking of loathing and detaching from the body": if śrāvakas contemplate the body as impermanent, they give rise to revulsion and loathing, casting away and distancing themselves from birth and death. The bodhisattva is not like this: contemplating the body as impermanent, whether by analytical reduction or by understanding its essence, is to break the inverted view of permanence; not speaking of revulsion and loathing is to shatter the two vehicles' mentality. Although knowing it is impermanent and perishing moment by moment, as long as sentient beings are not yet delivered and the buddha-dharmas are not yet fulfilled, [the bodhisattva] ultimately does not abandon it. "Speaking of the body as having suffering, but not speaking of delighting in nirvāṇa": śrāvakas contemplate suffering and joyfully seek nirvāṇa. The bodhisattva is not like this: whether by analytical reduction or understanding its essence, understanding suffering as without suffering is to break the inverted view of conceiving pleasure; as long as sentient beings are not yet delivered and the buddha-dharmas are not yet fulfilled, [the bodhisattva] ultimately does not enter nirvāṇa without remainder. "Speaking of the body as selfless, yet speaking of teaching and guiding sentient beings": śrāvakas contemplate the body as selfless and verify cessation without compassion, not delivering sentient beings. The bodhisattva is not like this: whether by analytical reduction or understanding its essence, contemplating the provisional self to enter selflessness is to break the sixteen inverted views of conceiving a self, yet without grasping the characteristic of sentient beings as ultimately empty; thus [the bodhisattva] can explain such a Dharma of selflessness for sentient beings and guide them. "Speaking of the body as empty and tranquil, but not speaking of ultimate tranquility and extinction": the śrāvaka's Dharma enters truth and falls into tranquility and extinction. The bodhisattva is not like this: whether by analytical reduction or understanding its essence, entering the two emptinesses of the provisional and the real, one understands the principle of the Middle, not taking biased truth as ultimate. This means that although entering emptiness from provisionality again, it is intended to serve as a prelude to entering the Middle, not abandoning all living beings. Hence it differs from the śrāvakas' contemplation of suffering. The intent lies precisely here.