樂邦文類 4.79

4.79

承師有言「西方淨土，風吟寶葉、波動金渠。」此是何人境界？答曰：即此見聞，更無道理。既彰教義，寧免指陳？夫淨土依正俱宣妙法，聞者合了根塵絕跡、物我一如。豈執有人對他境界？此間圓頓行者，以根對塵起識之時，即了以法界。對法界起法界，實非心外之境、境外之心，則心自知心、境自見境。境豈見境？心豈知心？知見既忘，言詮亦絕，故強名云不思議境觀也。凡位修之尚爾，聖位證之奚言。又若強論所離之境差別之相者，麁中之麁，凡夫境界；細中之細，是佛境界。斯蓋教道分別也。若今圓論不離而離，初心能離佛之所離，以一心三觀即佛智故。前書云「對一切境，以此觀照了之。」斯之謂矣。

You have noted my saying: 'In the Western Pure Land, the wind chants through precious leaves, and the waves stir in golden canals.' Whose realm is this? My reply is: It is none other than this seeing and hearing; there is no other principle apart from them. Since the doctrinal meaning has been made manifest, how could I avoid pointing it out? In the Pure Land, both the circumstantial and primary rewards proclaim the wondrous Dharma; those who hear it ought to understand that sense faculties and sense objects leave no trace, and that object and self are as one. How could one cling to the idea of there being a person confronting an objective realm separate from oneself? When a practitioner of the perfect and sudden teaching here gives rise to consciousness upon the sense faculties confronting the sense objects, he understands that it is through the dharmadhātu. Confronting the dharmadhātu, one gives rise to the dharmadhātu; it is truly not an object outside the mind, nor a mind outside the object. Thus the mind of itself knows the mind, and the object of itself sees the object. Yet how could an object see an object? How could the mind know the mind? Once knowing and seeing are forgotten, verbal explanation is also cut off; thus it is forcedly named the inconceivable object and contemplation. If this is already so when practiced in the ordinary ranks, what need be said of its realization in the ranks of sages? Moreover, if one were to forcedly discuss the differentiated aspects of the realms that are abandoned, the coarsest among the coarse is the realm of ordinary beings, and the subtlest among the subtle is the realm of the Buddha. These are merely distinctions in the pedagogical teachings. If one now speaks of it perfectly as abandoning without abandoning, the beginner is able to abandon what the Buddha abandons, because the single mind's threefold contemplation is itself the Buddha's wisdom. This is what was meant in my previous letter: 'Confronting all objects, illuminate and understand them through this contemplation.'