起信論疏筆削記 16.5

16.5

From 'Questioning this' downward: second, question-and-answer explaining the names. The question means: Tathatā is a dharma; generating attachment to it ought to be attachment to dharmas, so why instead is it called attachment to a personal self? This is entirely framed based on the object of attachment to form the objection. 'One says, etc.' resolves it in terms of the subject who grasps: this means that because one who has a personal self forms this attachment, it is not named after the object of attachment. 'The second says, etc.' resolves it in terms of the dharma attached to. 'Original enlightenment is a person': because within the dharma attached to, there is a portion of the meaning of luminous illumination that belongs to wisdom, it is called a person. Grasping this as the self, it is therefore called personal self. 'In actual truth': spoken in terms of the quiescent essence, it corresponds to the object of contemplation and belongs to dharma. 'Grasping phenomenal emptiness as the substance of dharmas': this is the worldly, inert voidness of space, which is transformed by consciousness and manifested by form; it is not the principle and dharma realized by the three vehicles, hence it is called phenomenal emptiness. This is because one grasps this phenomenal emptiness as the true substance of dharmas.