肇論疏 3.47

3.47

"Interrogating" (jie) means questioning/challenging. "Gradual" (jian) means diminishing, according to the Guangya. Here he interrogates how the three vehicles gradually sever afflictions and cannot eliminate them suddenly. "The Named One says: The myriad entanglements flourish and spread, based on false imagination": flourishing and spreading means multiplying. The Laozi says: "As laws and orders flourish and spread, thieves and robbers multiply." Because they are rooted in false imagination, the myriad entanglements multiply. "When false imagination is dispelled, the myriad entanglements completely cease": qu means to send away. One version has qu (to remove), which also means to eliminate and send away. Because the afflictions of the two vehicles are exhausted, it is said that they attain the knowledge of exhaustion (kṣaya-jñāna). Because bodhisattvas attain the tolerance of the non-arising of dharmas, it is said that they attain the knowledge of non-arising (anutpāda-jñāna). When the two vehicles attain the knowledge of exhaustion, their fetters are forever eliminated. When bodhisattvas attain the knowledge of non-arising, false imagination is completely exhausted. "When the fetters are eliminated, the mind is unconditioned": one awakens to the unconditioned. "When the mind is unconditioned, the principle is without obstruction": if one awakens to the unconditioned, then with regard to the principle one sees clearly without obstruction. "The sūtra says: All these noble knowledges do not contradict one another; they neither emerge nor remain, for in reality they are all empty": this is a text from the "Xi ying pin" (Chapter on Practice and Concordance) of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. The two vehicles only emerge, so they do not remain. A bodhisattva does not emerge from the world, because he knows that all dharmas are empty. "It also says: The great path of the unconditioned is equal and without duality": this is a text from the Zheng fahua jing. "Since it is said to be without duality, it admits of no differing minds": since the Dharma is without duality, those who embody the Dharma should not have minds that differ. "If one does not embody it, then let it rest; if one embodies it, one should exhaust the subtleties": yi means to stop. If one does not embody it, one stops and does not discuss it; since one discusses embodying and awakening to it, one should exhaust its subtleties. "Yet to say that one embodies it without exhausting it is what I have not yet understood": he objects to the previous claim that because they have not exhausted the unconditioned, there are three. Being unable to understand it, he therefore says "not yet understood."