止觀輔行傳弘決 6.18

6.18

Next, among the four gates of the distinctive [teaching], first the differences are briefly distinguished. From "the Great Sūtra" downward, the characteristics of practice are distinguished. "The sūtra says that upon hearing the Great Nirvāṇa there is the unsurpassed path," and so forth, is fully explained in the Shiqian under the holy practices. Here, where it says "the phenomenal sequence does not differ from the Tripiṭaka," this refers to such as morality, concentration, and the wisdom of arising and ceasing—these three holy practices are entirely like the Tripiṭaka; whereas the holy practices of the three wisdoms such as non-arising do differ from the Tripiṭaka. Speaking now from the beginning, it is said not to differ. Furthermore, in terms of the pedagogical path of the teaching, at first one does not know the perfect; the rest is as in the five sequential practices in the Shiqian. In the first gate, where it says "liberation is precisely non-empty" and so forth, this is a passage from the hundred phrases of liberation in the fifth fascicle of the Great Sūtra. Generally speaking, those hundred liberations do not go beyond the four gates, yet they mostly illuminate neither-existence-nor-non-existence; know that the hundred phrases are the gates that can penetrate. The nirvāṇa of the three virtues is the principle to be penetrated; because those hundred phrases combine the meanings of both the perfect and the distinctive, they are cited now in the distinctive gate. Regarding "the ten similes of the tathāgatagarbha," the two texts differ. Citations across various texts sometimes say "buddhagarbha" simply for ease of expression. The passage is in the Vaipulya Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra. In that one-fascicle sūtra, preached by the Buddha for Bodhisattva Vajragarbha, although the text has ten similes, their meanings seem to be only nine, because the first two passages share the same meaning. The first passage says: "With the Buddha eye, I contemplate all sentient beings; amidst all afflictions there is the Buddha's wisdom-eye, there is the Tathāgata's body sitting cross-legged, dignified and unmoving. Good son! For example, when one with the divine eye sees a Tathāgata within an unopened flower, once the flower is removed he becomes manifest. The Buddha's seeing sentient beings is also like this." Below, the nine similes have in total nine rounds of prose and verses of four or five lines each; taking now the essentials, one line is extracted from each to show the aspects of the similes. The first says: "Like a faded, altered flower / Whose petals have not yet bloomed, / One with the divine eye sees / The Tathāgata's body undefiled." / The second says: "Like honey on a cliff tree, / Surrounded by countless bees; / One skilled in means who takes it / First drives away the swarm of bees." / The third says: "Like all grain and rice / Before the husk and chaff are stripped away; / The poor still despise it, / Deeming it something to discard." / The fourth says: "Like gold amidst filth, / Sunken where none can see; / One with the divine eye sees it, / And immediately informs the people." / The fifth says: "Like the home of a poor person, / Inside which is a treasure trove; / The owner neither knows nor sees it, / And the treasure cannot speak." / The sixth says: "Like an āmra fruit / Whose inner core is undamaged; / Planted in the great earth, / It surely becomes a great tree king." / The seventh says: "Like holding a golden image / While traveling to another land, / Wrapped in worn, dirty cloths / And abandoned in the wilderness." / The eighth says: "Like an impoverished woman, / Extremely ugly in appearance, / Yet bearing a noble-featured child / Destined to become a wheel-turning king." / The ninth says: "Like a great foundry casting / Countless true-gold images; / Fools viewing it from the outside / See only scorched black clay." / In the text, each simile is matched with the Buddha-nature. In the Nigaṇṭha Sūtra, it says: "There was a city named Ujjayinī, whose king was named Yanzhi (Strictly Splendid). A Great Satyaka came into his kingdom, and the king went out far to welcome him. After seeing the king, he sat under a tree; the king approached and paid homage, whereupon he preached for the king the methods of governing a state, up to preaching for the king the marks of the Buddha's body and caste, up to making the king contemplate the Tathāgata's body, saying: 'Great King, you should know: contemplate the Tathāgata's body based on the body of afflictions; contemplate the Tathāgata's body based on aggregates, realms, and sense-fields. Why? Because this body is itself the tathāgatagarbha. In the storehouse of all defilements of affliction, Buddha-nature is complete—like gold in rock, fire in wood, water in earth, curd in milk, oil in sesame, grain in seed, gold in a treasury, an image in a mold, an embryo in pregnancy, and the sun behind clouds; therefore I say that within afflictions there is the tathāgatagarbha.'" Although the Nigaṇṭha Sūtra also has the name tathāgatagarbha, and its ten similes are largely the same as the present text, since it cites worn rags, which does not occur in Satyaka, we know it must be citing the Vaipulya Sūtra. Regarding "nirvāṇa is not existent" and so forth: nirvāṇa is neither that which names nor that which is named, hence it is called non-existent. Established on the basis of the conventional, nirvāṇa is called existent. Since it is neither form nor sound, how can it be said that one sees the subtle existent form and hears the name of nirvāṇa? As for "like a bottle of water, wine, or curd" and so forth, this is also a passage from the hundred phrases. That passage says: "Furthermore, liberation is named non-empty. Like a bottle of water, wine, curd, ghee, or honey: when there is no water, and so forth, it is still called a bottle of water, and so forth. Such a bottle can be called neither empty nor non-empty. If called empty, it could not have color, aroma, flavor, or touch; if called non-empty, in reality there is no water, wine, curd, and so forth." In the gate of neither existence nor non-existence, where it says "transcending the four" and so forth: the intention is to point to the middle as the principle to be realized, for the principle is free from the four. If there are not even the four phrases, how could there be the hundred negations? Although this fourth gate is subsumed under the four phrases, it is now spoken of in terms of the principle, hence it is said to transcend the four. This is also true up to the gate of existence. Therefore, the Great Sūtra is cited: "Neither eternal nor cut off is named the middle way," to prove that the principle is also a double negation. From "thus" downward evaluates attainment and loss. If one grasps the meaning, one enters the first stage (bhūmi), which is called seeing the real; if one fails to grasp the meaning, it merely becomes an expedience level prior to the stages. Following the previous explanation of the four gates of the Tripiṭaka, attainment and loss were explained after each gate; to avoid tedious text, they are explained here collectively.