大乘百法明門論疏 1.3

1.3

First, as for clarifying the purpose of composing the treatise: When one contemplates sentient beings of the three realms, drifting and drowning in the five destinies, revolving unceasingly, transmigrating without respite, there are none who are not tangled in mind by [the views of] annihilation and permanence, emptiness and existence. Therefore the Bodhisattvas descended into birth, setting an example to benefit beings. To eliminate both clingings to emptiness and existence, they opened the two gateways of emptiness and existence. By first clarifying that the hundred dharmas possess intrinsic substance, they dispel the clinging to emptiness; by subsequently clarifying the two types of emptiness—of person and of dharmas—they eradicate the view of existence. As for having intrinsic substance, on the level of conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya) it is not non-existent; as for being called empty, on the level of ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya) what exists? Medicine is prescribed according to the sickness; when the sickness ceases, the medicine is discarded. To cling to the medicine becomes a sickness; to awaken from the sickness becomes the medicine. Neither empty nor existent, simultaneously existent and empty, it completely terminates the hundred negations and dissolves the four extremes. Yet, because the ultimate purport is revealed through exposition, a treatise is provisionally used to elucidate it. Since it is preached without preaching and listened to with nothing to be heard, the arising of the treatise truly lies in this! This is the first [section], clarifying the purpose of composing the treatise.