止觀輔行傳弘決 2.32

2.32

Below 'Practitioners', it exhorts and encourages. Having known that the mind has the ten realms, one contemplates according to the four phases as they arise. Good and evil are precisely the six destinies; all thoughts pervade the four sages. Not dwelling in the nine realms yet looking back upon the nine realms is termed 'reflective illumination'. Furthermore, 'good and evil' indicates that both good and evil matters must be observed; therefore, the text below precisely passes through acting and experiencing with good and evil to serve as the object of contemplation, thus passing through the ten realms to manifest non-dwelling. Below 'Next, passing through', directly according to various good [actions]: first showing the setting aside of the extensive to follow the brief, next explaining passing through the twelve matters, intending to discuss giving in common according to the twelve matters. Experiencing means reception, what is received being the six dusts. Acting means doing, doing these six marks. Question: How is silence called acting? Answer: The marks of acting and silence do not go beyond the ten realms. What is first stated as 'if there are various dusts' and so forth: because dusts generate experience, those who have dusts are caused to arouse contemplation based on experience, hence it is said that they must give [them] up. Although headed by giving up, the beginning must be endowed with the six perfections, as explained extensively later. What is stated as 'if one lacks wealth and goods' and so forth: although wealth and goods are manifold, they do not go beyond the six dusts; therefore, lacking wealth and goods, one sets aside the dusts for the moment and exclusively focuses on the six actings to be endowed with the six perfections. Cultivating the six actings is not without contemplating dusts; cultivating contemplation according to whatever is predominant, they are therefore spoken of interchangeably. Third, in the direct explanation: first experiencing, next acting. In cultivating the good of giving in phenomena jointly through acting and experiencing, making it become the dharma-dhātu, the subsequent individual discussions of the six [perfections] are also like this; only then is it named contemplation following one's own intention. Within experiencing, there are three contemplations: first emptiness, next provisionality, and finally middle contemplation. In the first contemplation of emptiness, it also first takes up the four phases to serve as the object of contemplation. Below 'Also reflectively contemplating', directly explaining within the contemplation of emptiness, stating 'arising from within without relying on causes and conditions': this follows ease of phrasing; it should say 'the cause arising from within without relying on conditions'. Below 'The observed', the marks of completion of the contemplation of emptiness. Question: The Vimalakīrti states, 'The visible forms observed are equal to blindness'; why does it now say that what is observed is like space and what can observe is like blindness? Answer: The Vimalakīrti's statement of the observed precisely manifests the observer: because the observer is like blindness, what is seen is like space; because what is seen is empty, the observer is like blindness. That translator skillfully used the observed to discern the observer; now, explaining that meaning, observer and observed are distinguished. 'Space and light each lack seeing' and so forth: when the eye sees visible form, only through the conjunction of five conditions can it see it—namely space, light, sense organ, sense object, and consciousness. The ear, nose, tongue, and body do not rely on the condition of light; the remaining four conditions are not different from the eye. The present text's wording is brief, hence it does not mention consciousness; it is also that consciousness is endowed with the above conditions to achieve seeing. Unlike the Small Vehicle, which sometimes says consciousness sees or sometimes says the sense organ sees. Below 'Causes and conditions', next explaining the provisional contemplation. The initial text takes up the preceding contemplation of emptiness: dharmas produced from conditions can serve as the common cause for the ten realms. Furthermore, taking the uninterrupted, ceasing mind as the cause, and the sense organ, dust, space, and light as conditions, the conjunction of causes and conditions produces visual consciousness. 'Visual consciousness through causes and conditions produces mental consciousness': visual consciousness serves as the cause, also taking the sense organ, dust, space, and light as conditions, producing mental consciousness in uninterrupted succession. 'Relying on mental consciousness there is visual consciousness': precisely because the uninterrupted, ceasing cause of mental consciousness forms the mental faculty, when confronting other objects it again produces visual consciousness; therefore, the two consciousnesses mutually serve as causes for each other.