金剛般若論會釋 3.47

3.47

First, regarding comportment, the sūtra text has two parts: first, it raises an external doubt and refutes it; next, it questions and explains to reveal its reason. The treatise text has two parts: first, it designates the topic and matches it to the sūtra; next, it resolves difficulties sequentially. In Vasubandhu's treatise, the third subsection below is refuting doubts. The doubt says: "If bodhisattvas do not receive that karmic reward, how do sentient beings enjoy the merit of bodhisattvas?" To refute this doubt, the text is divided into four sections: 1. Explaining that because the nirmāṇakāya externally benefits beings, it also receives merit, whereas the dharmakāya has no coming or going and therefore does not receive merit. Next, from "breaking down into fine dust" onward, explaining that the dharmakāya is one and nirmāṇakāyas are many. 3. From "If someone says, 'The Buddha spoke of a self'" and so on onward, explaining that the self and phenomena lack reality. 4. From "If a bodhisattva, with inexhaustible..." onward, explaining that the nirmāṇakāya possesses inexhaustible merit. The verse says: "This merit should be requited / In order to transform all sentient beings. / Naturally, such karma / Is manifested by the Buddhas across the ten directions." This single verse directly refutes the external doubt. The next verse reveals the meaning of neither coming nor going, stating: "The nirmāṇakāya Buddhas come and go, / But the Tathāgata is ever unmoving. / In that locus of the dharmadhātu, / They are neither one nor different." The first half of the verse directly explains the meaning of neither coming nor going; the second half gives rise to the subsequent sūtra passage. As for "If someone says, 'The Tathāgata...'" and so forth, this raises the doubts and attachments of ordinary persons and the two vehicles: seeing the Buddha's body manifest appearances such as walking and staying, they consider him to be identical to ordinary persons in genuinely walking, standing, sitting, and lying down; or they call the nirmāṇakāya's attainment of awakening "coming," and its entry into extinction "going." "This person does not understand" relies on the preceding explanation of the name Tathāgata to block external attachments, clarifying that the Buddha realizes reality (tathatā) to become a Buddha, and in the Buddha as reality there are in truth no walking, staying, sitting, or lying down. If someone clings to the Buddha having coming, going, sitting, or lying down, they do not understand what I previously explained as the meaning of Tathāgata. Next, the inquiry asks: Why do they not understand? The explanation states: Above it was explained that the Tathāgata is precisely tathatā; having no prior limit, he has nowhere from which he comes; having no subsequent limit, he has nowhere to which he goes; having no middle limit, he also has no place of staying. A place of staying is unobtainable, how much less could sitting or lying down be obtainable? Therefore, in the *Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra*, the Bodhisattva Sadāprarudita asked the Bodhisattva Dharmodgata: "From where do the Buddhas come? To where do they go?" Dharmodgata replied: "The Buddhas have nowhere from which they come, nor anywhere to which they go. Why is this? The reality (tathatā) of all phenomena has no characteristic of movement; the reality of all phenomena is precisely the Buddha. In reality, not only is there no characteristic of going, there is also no characteristic of coming." Because the multitude mostly grasps at the appearances of coming and going through conceptual conditions, the Buddha, relying on the name Tathāgata, explained that because the Buddha goes nowhere and comes from nowhere, he is called "Tathāgata." This reveals that the Buddha's body, in the four deportments, resembles walking and staying but is pure as non-walking and non-staying.