釋門歸敬儀 1.73

1.73

"Fourth, regarding 'relying on definitive sūtras and not on non-definitive sūtras': Both of these sūtras are authoritative sage speech. All who enter the Way must first understand them; then nothing will be obstructed and unresolved, and all doubts will be settled. Yet because the nature and consciousness of sentient beings vary in depth and in sharpness or dullness, the Great Sage was led to teach differently according to sentiments. However, based on the ultimate Way, it is merely one's own mind. Thus a sūtra says: 'The phenomena above and below in the three realms, I teach to be only mind.' This clarifies mind in terms of the circumstantial retribution of the world. It also says: 'Suchness and the true limit, nirvāṇa and the dharmadhātu, the various mind-made bodies—the Buddha teaches they are only mind.' This clarifies mind based on the essence of supramundane dharmas. Ultimately exhausting the true reality, one wholly reaches this source; following the flow to respond to conditions, one returns to the definitive meaning as the ancestor. Thus the Buddha used the Dharma to make provisions for provisional faculties. How is this known? For instance, with the distracted goodness of the desire realm (bowing to the Buddha, reciting sūtras, visualization, mindfulness of the Buddha, etc., are all worldly goods and cannot transcend existence), its essence is confined to the lower realm; when sūtras speak of them as immovable karma and as achieving Buddhahood, these are both non-definitive meanings. Because these ordinary fools have little aversion to the sufferings of desire, if one causes them to cultivate pure contemplation, many will fall back and drown; therefore, in accordance with their inclinations, it is spoken of as the work of the Way. However, as this karma has a distracted cause, its fruit is fixed; examining its cultivation and realization, it achieves a semblance retribution, enabling birth in good destinies and pure lands of phenomena, yet ultimately it is not the enterprise that secures the fruit of Buddhahood. Later, on the basis of the former karma, one cultivates and clarifies it again; only when tranquil wisdom becomes pure does one fulfill the previous vow. Thus a treatise says: 'If there are those who recite and uphold the name of Prabhūtaratna Buddha and attain birth in a pure land, this refers to a distant intention for another time.' Even within a single provisional teaching, coarse and subtle naturally divide; blessings and the Way are intertwined, and the pure and mixed are both present. Fearing that those newly hearing this might become confused, I briefly abridge it with brush and ink. The rest is explained in broad detail in sequence, as in the practices of ordinary beings and sages. This single chapter distinguishes and determines the deviant and the correct; if one does not understand and does not practice, then it is not what I set forth."