維摩經略疏 8.5

8.5

Question: If being accomplished is being like a phantom and therefore empty, how does this differ from the *Fangguang*? Answer: Although that [text] explains that being like a phantom is immediately empty, it grasps emptiness as conceptual proliferation and destroys the eye of wisdom. It does not even attain entry into the true, so how could it enter the middle through true emptiness? This sūtra explains that by contemplating the three truths, tracing the source, and exhausting the nature, deduction reveals there are three kinds of sentient beings: first, conventional; second, true; third, middle. As for the conventional truth, gathering the five aggregates of delimited [transmigration] forms provisional-name sentient beings, all like illusions and dreams. If one sees the true truth, one gathers the five aggregates of transformative [transmigration] to form sentient beings. If one sees the Middle Way, that is the five aggregates of Dharma-nature forming sentient beings. Therefore the *Great Sūtra* explains that the buddha-nature of sentient beings is not separate from the six dharmas. The *Dàzhìdù lùn* says: "The supreme among sentient beings is the Buddha; the supreme among dharmas is nirvāṇa." Now, since the Middle Way is precisely the five aggregates of Dharma-nature, why can it not be called "sentient beings"? Exhausting the source of sentient beings and fathoming the three kinds of sentient beings is precisely the meaning of the bodhisattva's contemplating sentient beings.