釋禪波羅蜜次第法門 8.60

8.60

Second, explaining the mutual correspondence of the internal realm: all that has been explained above corresponds to external meanings. Why is this? Before the Buddha appeared in the world, the various immortals and those of mundane wisdom had also mastered this teaching; because names and concepts correspond, the preceding was called the meaning of the external realm. Although these various immortals had mundane wisdom and eloquence and could master the mundane, if they abide in this discrimination, their mental conduct remains outside the principle in the end, without seeing the true reality. In the Buddha's Dharma they are not called noble ones, but are still ordinary beings, transmigrating through the twenty-five realms of existence in the three realms, not yet having escaped birth and death. If they transform sentient beings, they are called old physicians or mundane physicians. Therefore, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: 'When cured by mundane physicians, after recovering [the illness] flares up again; but if cured by the Tathāgata, after recovering it never flares up again.' This is as explained below.