大毘盧遮那成佛經疏 5.15

5.15

The sūtra says: "What is the precept? It is contemplating and relinquishing one's own body to offer it to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Why is that? If one relinquishes one's own body, one relinquishes those three things. What are the three? They are body, speech, and mind." Next, this explains that upholding the non-active precept fully endows one with wisdom and upāya. The practitioner contemplates that within the bhūta-koṭi of the body, no body can be apprehended; this itself is the Tathāgata's liberation. Therefore, he completely relinquishes this body to offer it to all Tathāgatas. From this point onward, in all movements, pauses, gifts, and deeds, whatever he does is for the Tathāgata's liberation, not for his own body. Although he blazes with the myriad practices in various ways, adorning Buddha-lands and maturing sentient beings, the dharmatā is naturally so and is not produced. For one who can reverently practice in this way, it is called an endless accumulation of merit; it is called an inexhaustible river of merit. Whatever droplet of wholesome roots he produces is cast into the ocean of the dharmadhātu, and therefore, extending even to the utmost limits of the realm of sentient beings, it is never exhausted. The ācārya said: "In the recitation of the Sanskrit text there is a verse: 'If there is a liberated person / who upholds this dharma of liberation / and makes offerings to the liberated ones, / this merit is the most supreme.'" If a mantra practitioner does not understand such a pure precept, then even if his mouth recites mantras, his body holds secret mudrās, his mind abides in the samādhi of the deity, and he fully cultivates the sequential rites to make offerings to the deities, this is still termed 'producing dharmas' and has not yet escaped the net of self and person; how could he be called a bodhisattva? Therefore the sūtra next says: "Hence, son of good family, by receiving the precept of body, speech, and mind, one is called a bodhisattva. Why is that? Because one is free from that body, speech, and mind. Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas should train like this." Here, 'should train' was translated in the old versions as śikṣākāraṇīya, like the fifth category of precepts which encompasses the vinaya-skandhas and rules of deportment. Scholars of the Mahāyāna are also like this: they should uphold this upāya of the precept and universally enter into all mantra practices. If the precept is deficient and yet one can accomplish the bodhisattva practice, there is no such possibility.