淨名玄論 5.29

5.29

Question: How do the two cognitions eradicate afflictions?

Answer: This sūtra states: 'The Buddha taught the eradication of afflictions for people of overweening pride'; in reality, there is no eradication.

Question: Both the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna sūtras and treatises explain the eradication of delusions; why is there no eradication?

Answer: If you say there is eradication, let me ask now: Is there a delusion that can be eradicated, or is there no delusion that can be eradicated? If it really exists, then it cannot be eradicated. Furthermore, a sūtra says: 'If phenomena exist first and are nonexistent later, all buddhas and bodhisattvas would incur transgression.' How could one speak of eradication? If there is no delusion, what is there to eradicate? Moreover, [positing that] there is delusion is the view of existence; [positing that] there is no delusion is called the view of nonexistence; both existence and nonexistence, as well as neither existence nor nonexistence, are all afflictions. How could afflictions eradicate afflictions?

Furthermore, even granting that afflictions are what is eradicated and wisdom is what eradicates: does wisdom eradicate because it sees delusion, or does it eradicate without seeing delusion? If it sees it, then light and darkness stand together; how could it eradicate it? If they do not see each other, what further is there to eradicate? If the sūtra were to say that understanding and delusion are opposed to each other and that [wisdom] eradicates from afar, then lighting a lamp in India would dispel darkness in China, and a single grade of understanding would eliminate all delusions.

Again, does wisdom eradicate alone, or does it borrow companions to eradicate together? If it can eradicate alone, why do bodhisattvas cultivate the eightfold noble path? If wisdom alone cannot eradicate, even if it borrows companions it still cannot eradicate, just as if one blind person cannot see, a crowd of blind people cannot either.

Again, does it eradicate in a single thought-moment, or in continuity? If in a single thought-moment, delusion is also a single thought-moment; they would arise together and perish together, so how could it eradicate? If it eradicates in continuity, does it continue by perishing, or continue without perishing? If it perishes, there is nothing left to continue; if it does not perish, there is no further capacity to continue. How could it continue? Deducing it in this way, there is nothing eradicated; therefore, one should not say that cognition eradicates delusion.

Question: If so, then there should be no eradication. Why does the sūtra say: 'Wisdom conjoined in a single thought-moment eradicates afflictions'?

Answer: Deducing it as above, there is ultimately no eradication. To comprehend it thus is itself eradication. Why is this? When one seeks where delusion comes from in all places, one knows that the mind has nothing to depend on. When the mind has nothing to depend on, all entanglements are purified; hence it is named eradication. This does not contradict your meaning of eradication.