四明尊者教行錄 3.19

3.19

The tenth query: The Jinbi says: 'A guest asked: Why does the provisional teaching not say that the two causes of conditioned [requisites] and illumination are pervasive? I answered: Sentient beings have from beginningless time grasped at self and what belongs to self; pointing from what they grasp, it should not yet be said to be pervasive. In the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, bringing along the provisional to explain the real, space is used to illustrate the direct [cause], but not yet used to illustrate the conditioned and illumination. If a teaching is exclusively provisional, then all three causes are limited, just as in the separate [teaching] the beginner hearing of the direct [cause] is also limited; the womb nature and nature of principle are all like this. Therefore, ordinary mortals hearing that insentient beings lack it—relying on delusion to point to delusion—say that what can create is [Buddha-nature], and adhering to the provisional to establish nature, say that what is created is not.' (The above is entirely from the Jinbi, without changing a single character.) When the two causes are not pervasive, it is still called 'bringing along the provisional'; if the direct [cause] is confined to sentient beings, it distinctly belongs to the separate [teaching]. Since the final teaching is like this, how can one cling to it as being perfect?