梵網經古迹記 2.11

2.11

The Commentary says: The gate of manifesting the primary and derivative bodies broadly contains four tiers. Here is the first: the other-enjoyment body (parasambhogakāya). It is traditionally said that this body corresponds to the precept-pāramitā of the second ground (bhūmi), because it is the fundamental tenet of this sūtra, not the self-enjoyment body (svasaṃbhogakāya). The Avataṃsaka and other texts state that the latter is boundless. 'Presently' (fang) means 'just now' or 'properly'. The thousand-petaled pedestal collectively forms the pure land of second-ground bodhisattvas. The top of this central pedestal is where this body abides, and the thousand petals are the tribes/realms being converted. As the Benevolent Kings [Sūtra] says: 'Bodhisattvas of receptive faith manifest hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands of bodies in the lands of a hundred Buddhas, a thousand Buddhas, and ten thousand Buddhas.' The Daśabhūmika-sūtra says: 'Because bodhisattvas of the second ground enter a thousand worlds and see a thousand Buddhas, there is a separate Buddha seat upon this pedestal.' Some say that this thousand-petaled pedestal is the seat itself, which is not correct. For the earlier fascicle separately states that Locana Buddha sits on a brilliant light seat of a million lotus flowers. Since it states: 'I abide in the Lotus Pedestal Treasury World Sea, whose pedestal is surrounded by a thousand petals, each petal being a world, and I transform into a thousand Śākyamunis, and there are further a hundred kotis of Merus,' we clearly know that it is a land. An objection asks: 'Could that land be narrower than Amitābha's round aura? For the sūtra states that that Buddha's round aura is like a hundred koṭis of trichiliocosms.' This objection is not valid: a Buddha's radiance is not fixed, and Śākyamuni also illuminates immeasurable lands. Alternatively, since it says 'like', it merely compares vastness and does not necessarily signify equal measurement, just as an eye is used as a metaphor for the ocean; hence we know that the million lotus flowers serve as the seat. Why do all Buddhas take a lotus flower as their seat? It symbolizes that although a Buddha is in the world, he is like [the lotus] undefiled by water.