肇論新疏 1.2

1.2

From the beginning, I was fond of reciting this treatise and also casually savoured its phrases, but I was not yet able to absorb the flavour of its principle with my mind. When I was assigned to Xingjiao in Fanchuan, I obtained the commentary of Chan Master Yunan Da; some years later, responding to a summons to Ningxia, I further obtained the commentaries of Chan Master Guangyao of the Tang and Master Jingyuan of the Song. Examining them back and forth, their pure and flawed aspects were mingled and disordered, and there seemed to be many depths of the treatise's purport that were not fully brought to light. Moreover, the profundity, purity, terseness, and subtlety of this treatise have been praised since its inception; its phrasing is literary and its argumentation unfolds with eloquence—unless one has penetrated deeply into dharmatā and sits upon the peak of delightful eloquence and skillfulness, none could have composed it. I indeed consider it to be the great key that unlocks the vaipulya, the vast vessel that cruises the ocean of nature, the balanced chariot that conveys the provisional and the real, and the correct discourse that banishes deviant views: truly an elegant composition of the ekayāna siṃhanāda. I wish that those of us who study our nature would first apply the whip here; if one thoroughly penetrates this, then the principle of the Great Square will be wonderfully attained without anxious seeking. Alas! From the Yao Qin to the Tang, over more than two hundred years, successive sages and holy monks like Xianshou, Qingliang, and Guishan all cited it to resolve great doctrinal points; yet none elaborated its intricate essentials to summon those to come, causing diverse explanations to be as misfitted as a chisel in a mortise, leaving people not knowing how to judge correctly. Thus, on a day of leisure, I have carefully gathered the explanations of past enlightened ones and separately made an instructional commentary to impart to my assembly. I feel ashamed that, constrained by extraneous busyness, whenever I explain the doctrines and cite authorities I have not been able to exhaust the subtleties in my investigation. I hope that gentlemen of the same robe and the same virtue will forgive my rough, unpolished errors and correct them.