止觀輔行傳弘決 3.41

3.41

The passage from 'Next explaining' onward discusses opening and uniting in terms of two and four [truths]. It differs from the preceding only in being horizontal or vertical; when discussing their essential nature as truths, there is no further distinction. Within this there are again four parts: first, determining horizontal and vertical; next, listing from 'then there are' onward; third, directly clarifying opening and uniting from 'arising and perishing' onward; fourth, matching them with verses in orderly sequence. Question: What are called horizontal and vertical? Answer: The three truths, viewed in comparison with one another, differ in depth and shallowness, and are therefore called vertical. Suffering, origin, cessation, and the path, when paired two by two and viewed against each other, have no depth or shallowness, and are therefore called horizontal. Furthermore, viewing two against two also has no depth or shallowness; they differ merely as the antidote and what is remedied. For this reason, the four truths are called horizontal. Question: In the previous three [teachings], the three and four [truths] may well be vertical and horizontal, but in the perfectly interfused [teaching], how can the three and four be horizontal and vertical? Answer: It is indeed as you ask. When speaking here of horizontal and vertical, as in the case of the three truths, we temporarily base it on opening the one into two or three, which are then called expedients; viewed against the real, the expedients can also be called vertical. When expedients are opened and the real is revealed, there are no longer two or three, so what verticality could be discussed? Yet since within the one real, without dividing, it is divided into the three truths, what prevents these three—though neither horizontal nor vertical—from being called vertical? The four truths are also like this: in terms of the expedient teachings, they can be described as horizontal. The unconditioned four truths are fundamentally mutually identical; with what could they be discussed as horizontal? It is also that without dividing, they are divided into four truths; what prevents them—though neither horizontal nor vertical—from being called horizontal? Just as the six identities of stages are neither horizontal nor vertical yet can be called vertical, and the pāramitās are neither horizontal nor vertical yet can be called horizontal, so one knows that horizontal and vertical, high and broad, are non-dual. The citation of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā from 'Now taking' onward merely uses the four propositions of skillfulness and unskillfulness in contemplating the truths to subsume all truths.