四教義 9.3

9.3

First, regarding the variations in how sūtras and treatises present the bodhisattva stages of the distinctive teaching in terms of severing and subduing [delusions] and corresponding Dharma gateways: when one examines the distinctive teaching, it properly elucidates the principle of the provisional names of causes and conditions, Buddha-dharmas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, buddha-nature, and the eternal permanence of nirvāṇa. Bodhisattvas who receive this teaching contemplate the principle of the three truths, cultivate various practices over kalpas, and sever the distinctive delusions of ignorance as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, wishing to see buddha-nature and seeking the eternally permanent nirvāṇa of the four virtues. Thus the teaching is distinctive, the principle is distinctive, the severing is distinctive, the practice is distinctive, the stages are distinctive, the causes are distinctive, and the effects are distinctive. This clarifies solely the One Vehicle; hearing this, [practitioners of] the two vehicles are as if deaf and mute. However, as for the numerous variations in the various sūtras regarding the number and names of these distinctive stages, the higher and lower levels of severing and subduing, and their correlation to the various Dharma gateways, they are divided into three: first, variations in the number of stages; second, variations in the higher and lower levels of severing and subduing; and third, variations in the correlation to the various Dharma gateways.