華嚴法界玄鏡 2.49

2.49

Commentary: The explanation also has three parts: first, indicating what it relies upon; second, explaining it; third, concluding. In the first part, it is only looking from the one to the many that there is taking in and entering. Next, under “Generally, there are four propositions...”, it explains it: because it looks from the one to all, the one comes first. However, the sixth gate also looks from the one to the many, but it only has the two propositions of accommodating and pervading, and lacks taking in and entering. The seventh gate only looks from the many to the one, and having taking in and entering it also has only two propositions. Now the eighth gate, although looking from the one to all, has both the one and the many as capable of taking in and capable of entering, and thus receives the name “mutual involvement”. Furthermore, as for mutual involvement: in the previous seventh gate, the many could take in the one, which meant the many were also capable of entering; now in the eighth gate, the many take in the one, and the one that is taken in can also take in the many. Thus, the many that are capable of taking in conversely become that which is taken in, and therefore their entering into the one receives the name “mutual involvement”. Since both the one and the many are capable of taking in and entering, there are four propositions. Although they resemble eight propositions, because two and two are combined, there are only four propositions, each fully possessing taking in and entering. The first proposition says, “the one takes in all, and the one enters all”: that is to say, in the first clause the one is capable of taking in and all are that which is taken in, while all that are taken in also become capable of taking in, so that the one that was capable of taking in above conversely becomes that which is taken in; therefore, the one above conversely enters into all, and thus it says, “the one enters all”. The second proposition says, “all take in the one, and all enter the one”: in the first clause all are capable of taking in and the one is that which is taken in, while the one that is taken in also becomes capable of taking in, so that all above conversely become that which is taken in, saying “all enter the one”; this proposition is merely the reverse of the first proposition above. The third looks from one to another one. The fourth looks from all in the third proposition again to another all, because for these four propositions, on the side of being capable of taking in they are identical to principle’s encompassing, and on the side of being capable of entering they are identical to principle’s pervading. Furthermore, the four propositions all arise from being neither identical nor different from principle: by being not identical to principle, there are the essences of one and many that can perform taking in and entering; by being not different from principle, they can perform taking in and entering. If we use the ten mirrors as an analogy, one mirror is the one, and nine mirrors are the many. When the first proposition says, “the one takes in all, and the one enters all”, it should say: one mirror takes in nine mirrors, and one mirror enters nine mirrors. That is to say, the one mirror above is capable of taking in, so the nine mirrors are that which is taken in; and the nine mirrors taken in are also capable of taking in, so the one mirror that was capable of taking in above conversely enters into the nine mirrors, saying “one mirror enters nine mirrors”. The lower three follow this pattern. The second proposition says, “all take in the one, and all enter the one”; it should say: nine mirrors take in one mirror, and nine mirrors enter one mirror. That is to say, the nine mirrors above are capable of taking in, so the one mirror is that which is taken in; because the one mirror taken in is also capable of taking in, the nine mirrors above that were capable of taking in conversely enter into the one mirror that is taken in, saying “nine mirrors enter one mirror”. In the third proposition, “the one takes in one phenomenon, and the one enters one phenomenon”, it should say: one mirror takes in one mirror, and one mirror enters one mirror. That is to say, the first one mirror takes in the second one mirror, and the first one mirror also enters the second one mirror. The fourth proposition says, “all take in all, and all enter all”; it should say: the ten mirrors each take in nine mirrors, and the ten mirrors all enter into nine mirrors. That what is entered and what is taken in are only called nine mirrors is because one is reserved for taking in and entering. As for the statement that “some versions place ‘entering’ at the head of the latter two propositions”, it means they say: “the one enters one phenomenon, the one takes in one phenomenon; all enter all, all take in all”. Because this is not consistent with the preceding, we follow the current text, where taking in is placed first in all four propositions.