起信論疏筆削記 7.30

7.30

Śāstra: "Ultimate": means the supreme limit, meaning that establishing the word "empty" at its utmost limit is solely for the sake of revealing the real and true. "Can subsequently..." and so forth: taking the emptiness of delusion as that which reveals, and the real and true as that which is revealed. Were it not for that emptiness of delusion, how could this real and true be known? "Different from delusion in having no substance": delusion borrows the real to exist, whereas the real is fundamentally self-existent; hence it is called "different". "Flow of existences": "existences" refers to the three existences and twenty-five existences; "flow" refers to the four flows and nine flows. Because the afflictions of those existences can drift and drown sentient beings, they are collectively called "flows", which are the twenty-six fetters of root and secondary afflictions and so forth; in this śāstra, they are the three subtle and four coarse marks. Such afflictions are incalculably numerous, and hence are called "sands of the Gaṅgā". If based on what this śāstra explains, they exceed the number of the sands of the river; in principle they are truly immeasurable—how could they stop at the sands of the river? If there were a fixed number, it would probably not be the definitive teaching. As for the word "different": the former is called affliction, whereas the latter is called virtue; the former is defiled and the latter pure, the former empty and the latter existent. "Apart from each other": the substance of delusion is fundamentally empty and has nothing that can accompany [the real]; hence the text below says: "All defiled dharmas of affliction are falsely existent, their nature is fundamentally non-existent, and they have never associated with the tathāgatagarbha." "Unsurpassable dharmas": namely the meanings of the radiance of great wisdom and so forth, which are the dharmas realized by the Buddha, and are therefore called "unsurpassable". These are all virtues identical with nature, and the virtues are all nature itself, not abandoning or departing from each other; hence they are said to "accompany each other".