首楞嚴義疏注經 1.20

1.20

The sūtra has five designations, and the title contains three appellations, because it comprehensively encompasses teaching and practice, person and principle, cause and fruition, and exoteric and esoteric fully and completely. First, to briefly correlate them: The first three characters are general, being the Dharma-essence of the entire sūtra, generally containing teaching, principle, practice, and fruition; the teaching and practice are explicitly indicated, while the principle and fruition are implicitly contained. As for explicit indication, the text states, 'There is a samādhi called the Great Buddha-Crest,' which indicates practice. It also states, 'Although having received the Tathāgata's Buddha-Crest divine mantra,' and 'This mantra is also called the Tathāgata's Crest,' which indicates teaching. Teaching has the exoteric and the esoteric: explicitly expounding and demonstrating to enable one to awaken and cultivate without falsity refers to all the preceding and following texts; secretly upholding it to exhaust hindrances and render virtue prominent refers to the mantra phrases. As for implicit containment: quiescently illuminating and containing empty space is called 'great'; the nature of awakening being wondrously bright is called 'Buddha'—this reveals the principle. 'I united with the tathāgatagarbha through non-cessation and non-arising, pervading the dharmadhātu,' and so forth, is called 'great'; 'the culmination of brightness is the Tathāgata' is called 'Buddha'—this reveals fruition. 'Crest' (uṣṇīṣa) has the meaning of the utmost and unsurpassable. If these three characters are explained entirely in terms of principle: the essence of the womb pervading everywhere without failing to contain anything is called 'great', which is greatness of essence; the spiritual illumination being unclouded and free of all conceptual thoughts is called 'Buddha'. 'Buddha' has two meanings: first, the meaning of self-nature's manifest illumination, which is greatness of attributes; second, the meaning of manifesting benefits according to conditions, which is greatness of function. This greatness and Buddha are most revered, most supreme, unsurpassable, and peerless, the Dharma that is the teacher of all buddhas; hence it is called 'Crest'. The meaning of the three greatnesses is not separate from the one mind; hence the one mind is called the 'Great Buddha-Crest'. From 'Tathāgata' onwards, it distinctively reveals superior capability. The first eight characters are distinctively revealed in terms of the fruition-person's self-practice, cultivation, and realisation, and expounding the teaching to benefit others: namely, the tathāgatas of the ten directions rely on this Dharma-door to cultivate causes and realise fruition, explicitly expounding it to benefit others definitively. The eight characters from 'the Bodhisattvas' onwards are distinctively revealed in terms of causal persons practising and being endowed with all self-and-other practices: the bodhisattva's doors of practice for benefiting oneself and benefiting others are vastly numerous and measureless, and this true samādhi is fully endowed with them; hence Mañjuśrī praised it: 'This is the single road to the gate of nirvāṇa for dust-mote buddhas,' and so forth. Next, the extensive explanation: 'Great' acquires its name from the substance itself, with permanence and omnipresence as its meaning. 'From the substance itself' means that unlike the Faxiang school, which distinguishes the small to name the great—where having the small outside the great to be distinguished is still a limitation, so how could it be the utmost great?—here, because the nature of the womb-essence has no boundaries and transcends all measures, it is forcibly designated 'great'. As for 'permanence and omnipresence': permanence vertically exhausts the three times, and omnipresence horizontally encompasses the ten directions. Vertically, it has no beginning in the past and no end in the future; no single dharma precedes it, and it alone precedes all dharmas; hence it is called 'great'. The Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] says: 'What is called