華嚴五十要問答 1.46

1.46

問：一乘教相建立云何？答：此義相難。令舉喻顯。如一樓觀內外嚴飾盡其功思，唯有一門，有智慧者能扣開門。示無智者一乘教義亦復如是，性起樹藏內莊一乘，外嚴三乘及小乘等。有一覺門向菩提樹下，唯有因果二位佛及普賢二人開見，為諸有情可化眾生張大教網，絙生死海漉天人龍置涅槃岸。諸教相中示彼小乘及三乘教，令物生信起行分證；示一乘教，令其見聞後得入證。故彼教相似成內外及教義不同，即如《法華經》界外大牛車，及《地論》第八地已上文，即是其事。

Question: How are the characteristics of the Ekayāna teaching established? Answer: This principle is difficult. Let a metaphor be presented to reveal it. It is like a storied pavilion, adorned inside and outside to the utmost limit of skill and thought, having only a single gate, which can be knocked upon and opened only by someone endowed with wisdom. Showing it to those without wisdom, the teaching of the Ekayāna is just like this: the nature-origination tree-matrix internally decorates the Ekayāna, while externally adorning the triyāna, Hīnayāna, and so on. There is a single gate of awakening facing beneath the bodhi tree, which is opened and seen only by two persons—the Buddha and Samantabhadra, across the two stages of cause and result—spreading a vast net of teaching for all sentient beings who are fit to be transformed, stretching across the ocean of saṃsāra to scoop up devas, humans, and nāgas and place them on the shore of nirvāṇa. Among the various teaching characteristics, showing those teachings of the Hīnayāna and triyāna causes beings to give rise to faith, arouse practice, and partially realize [the truth]; showing the Ekayāna teaching causes them to see and hear it, and later attain entry and realization. Therefore, those teaching characteristics appear to form an internal and external, as well as a distinction in doctrines. It is just like the great ox-cart outside the realm in the Lotus Sūtra, and the passage above the eighth ground in the Daśabhūmika-śāstra; these are precisely this matter.