西方合論 2.13

2.13

Sixth, the emptiness of impure marks: As the *Dàzhìdù lùn* says: “Suppose a man has a son who enjoys playing in filth, heaping up dirt as grain and using grass and wood as birds and beasts, cherishing them deeply. If anyone takes them away, he cries in anger. The father sees this and thinks: ‘Although this child currently cherishes them, this is easily relinquished; when he grows a little older, he will naturally stop. Why? Because these things are not real.’ The bodhisattva is also like this: observing that sentient beings cherish an impure, foul body and various five desires, once their five faculties, such as faith, are perfected, they can renounce them. If what the child clung to were real, even at a hundred years old his attachment would only grow deeper. If the things sentient beings clung to were truly existent, even if they attained the five faculties, they would be unable to abandon them. Because all phenomena are empty, deceptive, and unreal, they can be abandoned.” The Tathāgata’s expounding of the Pure Land to sentient beings is also like this: because that which sentient beings cling to is unreal, they are easily guided and transformed. It is like a person who in youth delights in beauty, in prime of life pursues official rank, and in old age craves profit. If these things were truly worth clinging to, they would not change with the months and years. Because they change, when the Pure Land is taught, they also delight in it, pursue it, and crave it, like a person in a dream who awakens as soon as he is called; if the dream were real, calling him would be of no avail. Because both are unreal, the Buddhas expound such a Dharma gate to all sentient beings.