摩訶止觀 4.57

4.57

Practitioners should contemplate their own minds: between the two precepts of literal detail and principle, which precept is slack and which is urgent? Among the three ranks of the literal, which rank is strongest? Among the three ranks of principle, which rank is weaker? Knowing one's own depth and shallowness, one also recognizes future wholesome and unwholesome retributions. Once one knows oneself, one also knows others. Applying this contemplative mind, one also recognizes the purpose of the assemblies listed in the various sūtras, and one also recognizes the Tathāgata's adaptation to capacities, whether great or small. Therefore, in the Huayan [Sūtra], when ghosts and spirits all say that they 'abide in the teaching gate of inconceivable liberation,' this is the provisional coming to lead the real, enabling those who previously cultivated the urgent vehicle of the inconceivable to attain the path. The assembly listed in the Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] is also like this. If one examines this meaning in detail, widely traversing the urgency and slackness of the vehicle and precepts in the four teachings to discern their causes, and subsequently traversing the five flavors to clarify their fruits, all will be made distinct. In general, with such differences in causes and fruits, rising and sinking are not just one. How could one make the objection: 'If the principle-based precepts attain the path, what is the use of literal precepts?' Having the good fortune to receive the path among humans and gods, why deliberately suffer entering the three wretched paths?