大毘盧遮那成佛經疏 1.32

1.32

The Buddha said: “To summarize, this good man or good woman accomplishes immeasurable merits.” At that time, the Secret Lord, Vajra-in-Hand, questioned the Buddha again in verse, up to: “Those who do not know the emptinesses / Cannot know nirvāṇa. / Therefore, one should understand emptiness, / Leaving behind annihilationism and eternalism.” Regarding this: In what the Buddha explained above as the main purport of the sūtra, the gateway to the dharmatā of the mind was briefly completed. At that time, Vajrapāṇi, wishing to cause future sentient beings to be endowed with upāya and have no remaining doubts, questioned the Buddha in verse, asking the World-Honoured One to broadly expound its meaning. Herein there are briefly nine lines. “How does the World-Honoured One say / That this mind’s bodhi arises?” refers to the arising of the bodhicitta. While sūtras such as the Avataṃsaka broadly praise the merit of generating the bodhicitta, here he directly inquires about the mind's secret seal: How is one to know that this mind’s seed of bodhi has sprouted? If it has sprouted, what is its nature? The second line says: “And by what marks / Is the generation of the bodhicitta known?” Marks (lakṣaṇa) mean that when nature is established internally, there must be marks displayed externally, just as the marks of an avaivartika are broadly explained in the Prajñāpāramitā. Here, too, he asks: When the bodhicitta arises, what marks does it have?