顯密圓通成佛心要集 2.14

2.14

Tenth, the gateway through which all buddhas and Tathāgatas still seek to learn it: As the Mahāyāna Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra says, "All buddhas also seek dhāraṇī-mantras; how much more so should ordinary beings not fail to uphold and recite them?" Thus that sūtra says: "Within a single pore of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva are immeasurable realms and immeasurable buddhas, bodhisattvas, and so forth. Samantabhadra Bodhisattva entered into a single pore of Avalokiteśvara and spent twelve years without knowing its limits." It also says: "Avalokiteśvara has the Six-Syllable Great Vidyā Dhāraṇī; all Tathāgatas do not know the place of its attainment—how could a bodhisattva at the causal stage know it? It even tells of Padmottara Buddha who, only after having attained buddhahood, visited various buddhas to seek this Six-Syllable Great Vidyā," and so forth. Question: "A buddha is endowed with all-knowledge; how could he not know or attain a dhāraṇī?" Answer: "There are three meanings: First, this demonstrates that this dhāraṇī is supreme and most profound, causing people to generate veneration; therefore it is said that buddhas do not know it and seek it themselves. Second, it refers to buddhas in the provisional teachings, who cannot know or attain the esoteric mantras of the perfect school, just as the ultimate fruition of the Hīnayāna cannot know or attain the profound Dharma of the Mahāyāna. Third, the esoteric school's dhāraṇī-mantra is in its very essence the ocean of perfect and all-complete fruitions, and therefore buddhas do not 'attain' it. As the Śikṣāsamuccaya / Commentary on the Mahāyāna says: 'Even buddhas do not attain the ocean of the perfect and all-complete.' The Six-Syllable Great Vidyā and the Cundī dhāraṇī-mantra are in their very essence this ocean of perfect and all-complete fruitions." (All dhāraṇī-mantras in the esoteric section now correspond to the Dharma that is expressed in the exoteric teachings. Discussed in truth, they fully contain both what expresses and what is expressed: all the spoken texts of the dhāraṇī-mantras correspond to the words that express in the exoteric teachings; the Six Syllables and Cundī now correspond to the ocean of fruition in the exoteric teachings. Question: "The Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra only states that buddhas do not know or attain the Six-Syllable Great Vidyā; why do you now say that buddhas also do not know or attain Cundī?" Answer: "That Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra, having spoken of the Six-Syllable Great Vidyā, immediately speaks of Cundī; thus we know that Cundī is likewise the ocean of fruition. Furthermore, what buddhas know and what buddhas speak belong, among the five divisions, to the Buddha division; now Cundī alone transcends the five divisions. If it is not the ocean of perfect and all-complete fruitions, what dharma could it be?" Question again: "Mantras are merely the spoken teachings that express, having sound, names, phrases, and syllables as their essence; how can they be judged as the ocean of perfect and all-complete fruitions?" Answer: "If one poses this question, it is because one does not yet understand the fundamental tenet of the esoteric teaching. The secret dhāraṇī-mantras in the esoteric teaching are the dharmas that are expressed; all spoken texts are the words that express, as was already stated above. Furthermore, even if dhāraṇī-mantras were to belong to what expresses, to raise this question is merely the understanding of the Hīnayāna. That is to say: in the Hīnayāna teaching, the spoken teachings that express mostly take sound, names, phrases, and syllables as their essence; the initial Mahāyāna teaching takes either sound, names, phrases, and syllables as their essence, or takes consciousness-only as their essence; the final teaching states that they take tathatā without nature as their essence; the sudden teaching states that they take non-relative tathatā as their essence; the perfect teaching states that they take either the ten mysteries as their essence, or the ocean-reflection samādhi as their essence. If the expressing words in that exoteric teaching are already thus—namely, non-relative tathatā, the ten mysteries, and so forth—how much more so should the esoteric school's dhāraṇī-mantra correspond to the one true dharmadhātu within the exoteric perfect teaching? Furthermore, the Commentary on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, relying on the expressing teachings within the gateway of arising and ceasing, brings characteristics back to nature, taking tathatā as their essence, or mostly the one mind as their essence; and within the tathatā gateway, it takes non-relative tathatā as their essence. Furthermore, in both the Treatise on the Profound and Subtle Principles and the Treatise on the Immovable Fundamental Source, which extensively and briefly explain the non-dual ocean of fruition, what do the expressing words in those two treatises take as their essence? Inferring from principle, one knows that they take the non-dual ocean of fruition as their essence; those expressing words themselves correspond to the non-dual ocean of fruition. How much more so the Six-Syllable Great Vidyā and the Cundī dhāraṇī-mantra, whose meaning corresponds to the Dharma expressed in those two treatises? Furthermore, all the masters from antiquity have said: 'Secret dhāraṇī-mantras are the mind-seal of all buddhas; only buddhas understand them, and they are not comprehended at the causal stage.' And now the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra says: 'Even buddhas do not know the dhāraṇī-mantras.' If they are not the ocean of perfect and all-complete fruitions, what dharma could they be? May all students maintain an open mind to realize this, and not be bound by narrow views.")