起信論疏筆削記 9.27

9.27

"Although [the marks] again..." is fifth: synthesizing and subsuming according to principle. First, it concedes and recapitulates the preceding text, meaning: the subtle is not the coarse, affliction is not karma, attachment to dharmas is not attachment to self, and the fundamental consciousness is not the object-engaging consciousness. The prior stage differs from the subsequent stage, hence it says "gradation." "Yet its..." subsumes those distinctions of coarse and subtle into a single thought-moment. The expression "a single thought-moment" has two meanings: first, it is simply a single thought of fundamental ignorance; second, it is a thought-moment of a single kṣaṇa. For example, suppose a person suddenly encounters an enemy and proceeds to kill him (arising of karma), conceptualizing him as a person named Zhang or Wang (reckoning names), definitively declaring, "He bears an enmity toward me" (clinging and grasping), with an evil mind continuing uninterrupted (continuation), differentiating between enemy and friend (mark of cognition). That [enemy] constitutes the seen (manifesting mark), oneself constitutes the seer (transforming mark), and the mental thought begins to stir (karmic mark)—thus within a single thought-moment, the eight marks are fully present. Yet between the two meanings, it is strictly only the former meaning. It can also be that "a single thought-moment" is just the One Mind; hence the text below states: "A single thought-moment corresponding" is precisely the single thought of no-thought. "Because coarse..." brings out the reason. Someone might ask: "Since there are gradations of coarse and subtle, before and after, how can it be spoken of as a single thought-moment?" Hence this explains it: although there are gradations of coarse and subtle, they are produced by the One Mind. How could the mind be present in the mark of cessation while there is no mind in the mark of arising? If one says it is absent, upon what would arising depend? Nor can this One Mind be divided to correspond to the four marks. Since the mind cannot be divided, and further has no before and after, how could the four marks have a before and after? It is like one person dreaming of various matters: though the dream-matters are manifold, they have no before and after. "Therefore it is said..." adduces proof, namely the concluding text on actualized enlightenment. The text properly says: "Yet in truth there is no difference of actualized enlightenment, because the four marks exist simultaneously, none having self-subsistence; they are fundamentally equal, being the same enlightenment."