說無垢稱經疏 4.19

4.19

The Commentary says: This explains the unconditioned and characteristicless leaving of home. According to the meaning of the principle of emptiness: one who leaves home originally desires to extinguish conventional phenomena that have characteristics, aspiring toward the unconditioned emptiness of nature of the ultimate truth. Within the emptiness of nature, how could there be merit or advantage? According to the meaning of proper reason: all noble ones are distinguished by the unconditioned. The unconditioned is simply nirvāṇa, liberation, and the cessation through the principle of tathatā. Nirvāṇa and liberation are free from the bonds of saṃsāra; tathatā is serene and tranquil, free from false inversions; and the nature of analytical cessation (pratisaṃkhyā-nirodha) is free from the two superior hindrances. Leaving home is undertaken to seek this, because it is the root of all virtues. It is not for the sake of the conditioned, which is not the root of virtue. Therefore, in the unconditioned, there is neither merit nor advantage. In the root of the unconditioned there is no differentiation; the merits of nature and characteristics likewise have no differentiation; and although the supreme advantages of function are not absent, they are the unmoving merits and supreme advantages. Furthermore, one who leaves home is free from conceptual discrimination and clinging; having merit and having advantage involve conceptual discrimination, which is not true leaving of home. Therefore, true leaving of home destroys conceptual discrimination and clinging, having neither merit nor advantage.