樂邦遺稿 2.29

2.29

If it is said that one lodges at will in the heavens or the human realm, then what is cultivated does not transcend the three realms. Since it does not transcend the three realms, one still falls back into transmigration. It is what the ancients called: 'The wild fire burns it, yet it is hard to exhaust; / When the spring breeze blows, it grows again.' If it is said that one does not receive a body of fragmented life and death, ultimately where does this person take birth? If it is said that great wisdom independently enduring is called a Buddha, ultimately, according to the distinction and judgment of the Four Teachings, what Buddha-body does this constitute? Truly we know that if one is not adept in the essential purport of the five dwellings, the two deaths, the three bodies, and the four lands used by our Tiantai school from the sūtras and treatises, one cannot yet discuss with them the path of cultivation and proceeding toward the fruit. Formerly, the disputation seat at Tiaoxi resolved disputes and thoroughly clarified this meaning, saying in outline: 'A Mahāsattva of the six abodes still retains fragmented birth; a true person of the four fruits still undergoes transformed death.' If one can truly investigate such scriptural teachings deeply, then there is naturally a shortcut to transcend and ascend to that shore, and it is truly difficult to be misled by other cultivations.