顯密圓通成佛心要集 1.3

1.3

In the past, the Tathāgata dwelt as the venerable one transcendent of the world and set forth the path for transforming humanity, propagating the great teaching and guiding the host of the deluded. He opened diverse gates, so that although expedients are deployed across the myriad dharmas, all intentions and aims return to the Ekayāna upon entering the perfectly round ocean. Yet the exoteric teaching and the esoteric school encompass nature and comprehend characteristics: the purport of the exoteric branches out into five teachings, collectively called sūtra; the division of the esoteric embraces the three baskets, uniquely designated dhāraṇī. Those who practice the exoteric teaching, being self-contradictory over emptiness, existence, meditation, and vinaya, do not exhaust the ultimate, perfect principle; those who study the esoteric divisions merely take mandalas, mudrās, syllables, and sounds as the Dharma, not yet knowing the mysterious tradition of the esoteric secrets. This has led the exoteric teaching and the esoteric teaching to come into conflict and attack one another, and the Dharmatā school and Lakṣaṇa school to become like mortise and tenon that fail to fit together. Falsely defaming each other, minds bent on censure and dispute have arisen; persistently clinging to one side, they are ignorant of the nature of perfect interpenetration. Had there not been supreme wisdom, who could harmonize divergent traditions? An endeavor must reach completion, for humans are capable of making the Way great. Now, the Master of the Dharma of the Perfect Interpenetration of Exoteric and Esoteric Teachings was acclaimed in his time for his brilliant understanding, endowed by nature with eloquence and intelligence. In his youth he paid homage to famous teachers, and at age fifteen he made his way through academic quarters, practicing meditation and seeking the Way, becoming broad, accomplished, and widely learned. Internally, he refined the tenets of the five teachings; externally, he was adept in the profundities of the hundred philosophical schools. Unstained by gain and fame, unaffected by love and hate, he subsequently grew weary of dwelling in the imperial capital and gave free rein to his aspiration amid crags and ravines. Accumulating years of diligent toil, he plumbed the depths of the Great Canon. Grasping the essential pivots, he held their recitation sincerely in his heart; dissecting doctrinal principles, it was as if he were pointing to his own palm. He considered that all the teachings of the greater and lesser vehicles he had examined do not go beyond the two paths of the exoteric and the esoteric: both are essential fords to realizing sageliness, wondrous ways to entering the real. Examining their textual forms, they differ like plates and bowls, each displaying roundness or squareness; yet returning to the correct principle, they are identical like empty vessels and rooms, all relying on voidness. Nevertheless, scholars have errantly given rise to divergent disputes, blind to this accommodating path. On this account, he interwove spiritual texts, compiled the essentials of the mind, and composed a text in one fascicle, which exhausts the myriad paths in principle. He synthesized the four teachings to return collectively to the perfect school, and gathered the five esoteric divisions to enter entirely into the single category; the flavors of milk and curd are all transformed into ghee, and the moisture of clouds and mist become amṛta together. Truly, this is the essential compilation of all the Buddhas, a compass for later generations. It enables those who read it to be as though obtaining a wish-fulfilling jewel, having all that they seek fulfilled; those who rely upon it are like one who eats the fruit of good sight, having no illness left uncured. My own learning is shamefully vacant and shallow, and my words lack eloquence. Yet on a day of leisure I had the opportunity to visit my master; regularly being present at his talks with the deer-tail whisk, my limited view of the leopard through a tube was broadened considerably. As this work is due to be transmitted to the world, he entrusted me with composing this text; always ashamed of my ability to expound principle, I have merely written this introduction to head the scroll.