注大乘入楞伽經 1.12

1.12

或謂學者以為達磨所指唯四卷，較諸七軸之多，且易為力。殊不知首經初譯，文字簡古，首尾文闕。洪儒碩德，尚且病其難於句讀。序引題跋，自有明文（蘇東坡元豐間，為張文定公寫此經四卷本，自作跋云：「《楞伽》義趣幽眇，文字簡古，讀者或不能句。」蔣穎叔為首序亦云：「之奇常苦《楞伽經》難讀，則餘人可知。」）。斯經參同三本，得其純全，句義昭著，試發而讀之，則知思過半矣！

Some may say that students believe what Bodhidharma pointed to was solely the four-fascicle text, which, compared to the bulk of the seven fascicles, is easier to manage. Little do they know that when the sūtra was first translated, the language was concise and archaic, lacking portions at the beginning and the end. Even great scholars and eminent masters were troubled by the difficulty of reading and punctuating it. The prefaces, citations, titles, and colophons have clear documentation of this (during the Yuanfeng era, Su Dongpo transcribed this four-fascicle edition of the sūtra for Duke Zhang Wending and wrote a colophon himself, saying: 'The purport of the Laṅkā is profound and obscure, its language concise and archaic, so that readers at times cannot even parse its sentences.' Jiang Yingshu, in his preface, also said: 'Zhiqi has often suffered from the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra being difficult to read; one may imagine how it is for others.'). This sūtra compares and harmonizes the three editions, obtaining its pure completeness, with sentences and meanings clearly evident. If you try to open and read it, you will know that the essentials are more than half understood!