起信論疏筆削記 16.32

16.32

Second, seeking by category. The commentary says: "Manifesting that the above is not mind": this clarifies the phrase "is not cognition, etc." Above, it generally marked "neither matter nor mind"; now this "is not cognition, etc." reiterates the meaning of "not mind." "Manifesting that the above is not matter": as can be seen above. It may also be that this phrase reiterates the preceding meaning of "not matter, etc.," meaning that being neither matter, mind, cognition, consciousness, etc., it thereby comprehensively subsumes all mutually reliant dharmas, mundane and supramundane, as non-existent. Now, fearing that hearing this non-existence people will immediately form an understanding of nothingness and fall into the view of annihilationism, it now re-examines and clarifies that both existence and non-existence are completely terminated. Furthermore, it is a re-examination of the previous antidotal detachment, wherein the dharmas of emptiness and existence—both antidote and what is remedied—are both unestablished. Previously, medicine was used to treat the illness; here, both medicine and illness are discarded, and the meaning of ultimate detachment is thereby revealed. The treatise says: "The mark that is ultimately ineffable": this is the conclusion. This has two meanings: first, in terms of time, meaning it clarifies that marks such as matter and mind are not merely ineffable temporarily, but to the end of the future are also ultimately ineffable. Second, in terms of dharmas, it does not mean that the dharma-essence cannot be made into marks such as matter and mind, but because all marks whatsoever—the rest [such as] unity and difference, ordinary and noble, cause and effect, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa—are ultimately ineffable. The preceding Tathatā Gate said: "All dharmas from the beginningless past are detached from the mark of verbal explanation, detached from the mark of names," and so on. Now, marks are exhausted and return to suchness, uniting with the fundamental essence, entering the Tathatā Gate.