四明尊者教行錄 3.171

3.171

Fourth, the uncontrived four truths of the perfect teaching: these four establish the name 'uncontrived'; directly pointing to its essentials, it does not go beyond taking cultivation into nature, and therefore all practices are uncontrived. Now expanding upon this meaning, there are three points: First, medicine and illness are mutually identical. As the Miaoxuan says: 'Because of delusion about the principle, bodhi and affliction are called the truth of origination, and nirvāṇa and saṃsāra are called the truth of suffering. Because of the ability to understand, affliction is bodhi, called the truth of the path, and saṃsāra is nirvāṇa, called the truth of cessation.' One should know that the single word 'identical' (ji) is the gate to all wonders. Affliction and saṃsāra are the illnesses of sentient beings; now, by experiencing and guiding them with the contemplation of the one real principle, illness is medicine and medicine is illness; medicine and illness are as one, with nothing further to be contrived; hence it is said to be uncontrived. Second, outside the one reality there is nothing remaining. The Zhiguan says: 'The aggregates, sense-bases, and elements are suchness; there is no suffering to be abandoned. The dust of labor is originally pure; there is no origination to be eradicated. Extremes and deviations are all middle and correct; there is no path to be cultivated. Saṃsāra is nirvāṇa; there is no cessation to be realized.' That it is like this is truly because what the perfect teaching expounds does not go beyond the one reality, and outside the one reality there is no other phenomenon. As Nāgārjuna said: 'Except for the true mark of all phenomena, everything else falls into Māra's affairs.' The true mark is markless and pervades all phenomena; there is no mark of saṃsāra and no mark of nirvāṇa, and all marks, mark by mark, are true reality; therefore, the four truths are all called uncontrived. Hence the Sijiao yi says: 'Explaining the four real truths based on the one reality, these four are ultimately unobtainable, being immediately the one real truth; this is called the uncontrived four real truths.' Is this not its meaning? Third, the intrinsic evil is interfused. In the perfect and real teaching, all suffering and origination are intrinsic evil, and the path and cessation are intrinsic good. Now discussing the practice of intrinsic virtue: if one gives rise to cultivation entirely from the nature, then every single action and karma is completely uncontrived; if cultivation resides entirely within the nature, then even the slightest thought is fully accomplished. Thus we know that although the nature is fundamentally existent and unalterable, it does not prevent the three thousand intrinsically possessed by the nature from arising entirely as the three thousand of cultivated virtue; although cultivation involves training and contrivance, it does not prevent the three thousand of cultivated virtue from being entirely the three thousand intrinsically possessed by the nature. Thus outside the nature there is no cultivation, and outside cultivation there is no nature; cultivation and nature are as one, essence and function mutually identical. Hence the Xuanqian says: 'In the nature, the whole of cultivation becomes nature; giving rise to cultivation, the whole of nature becomes cultivation; nature does not shift, yet cultivation is ever distinct'—this is it. Great is the perfect vehicle! Since it neither increases nor decreases in cultivation or in nature, the meaning of 'uncontrived' is all the clearer here. Other schools do not understand intrinsic inclusion, so the myriad phenomena entirely belong to the conditioned. Comparing with this, they truly cannot be mentioned on the same day. The perfect discussion of the three meanings collectively clarifies 'uncontrived'; it is solely because this teaching is only lightly deluded about the middle that this name is established from the principle beyond the realms.