請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼三昧儀 1.3

1.3

There are four causes and conditions for revising this text: First, when it was initially compiled at Guoqing, I was just about to engage in personal practice at Lingxu. Being pressed by the deadline, it was hurriedly brought to completion; within it, phenomena and principle as well as sentences and phrases were mixed and disorderly, and the expansions and abridgments were not appropriate, making it difficult to comprehend at a glance. Following the Bailu, it was entitled 'The Repentance Method of Invoking Avalokiteśvara'. For this present revision, I strive to base it upon what is fundamental, designating it with the sūtra title in order to distinguish it from various [other] compositions and from the text originally revised. Second, because the Guoqing compilation contained many embellished expressions, I have deleted them all, entirely employing words from the sūtra, the commentary, the Zhiguan, and so forth; since citations are well-founded, this will cause later persons to increase their correct faith. Third, recently I obtained a copy compiled at Guoqing where later students, wild and unrestrained, added to the text of the repentance vows the four repentances from the Lotus Repentance text, together with phonetic transcriptions and Sanskrit characters. Furthermore, I saw another copy in which all the ritual forms, contemplative wisdom, and other passages were excised, merely copying out the names of the buddhas and the repentance vows, entitling it 'Ritual Text for Reverencing Avalokiteśvara'. Yet another copy was presumably transcribed by someone in old age: entire lines were omitted, and small annotations were not distinguished from the main text, with private annotation characters inserted between the lines with the intention of distinguishing them. I lament that such people, having a fondness [for the practice] without study, arbitrarily delete and select, thereby ruining the gate of nectar and bringing about no small accumulation of calamities. This present revision is undertaken to keep far from these faults. Fourth, taking all the passages on contemplative wisdom, I have placed them after the phenomenal [actions], so that the mobilization of mindfulness may be comprehensive and practitioners may be prevented from wasting their time fruitlessly. One should know that the three kinds of repentance in the Mahāyāna must take the contemplation of principle as primary. The Zhiguan states: 'The foundation of contemplative wisdom must not be lacking!' The Fuxing explains: 'Because if there is no contemplative wisdom, it merely becomes useless ascetic practice.' The Chan boluomi states: 'All the repentance methods explained in the Mahāyāna sūtras take this contemplation as primary. If one departs from this contemplation, it cannot be called a Mahāyāna vaipulya repentance.' The Buzhu yi states: 'In the ritual method of prostrating in repentance, although worldly people commonly imitate the phenomenal rituals, the mobilization of visualization is mostly not thorough. Either they read the repentance text roughly, half of it not fluent, or they push ahead with physical effort while rejecting the contemplation of principle, lacking the ethos of learning diligence and missing the entry clue. Therefore it is said: diligently practicing asceticism is not the cause of nirvāṇa.' The clear admonitions of our ancestral Great Physician are right here. The above four intentions correspond to the four siddhāntas. The explanation of the causes and conditions is finished.