少室六門 1.84

1.84

問。如佛所說。我於三大阿僧祇劫。無量勤苦。方成佛道。云何今說唯只觀心而制三毒即名解脫。答。佛所說言。無虛妄也。阿僧祇劫者。即三毒心也。胡言阿僧祇。漢名不可數。此三毒心。於中有恒沙惡念。於一一念中。皆為一劫。如是恒沙不可數也。故言三大阿僧祇。真如之性。既被三毒之所覆蓋。若不超彼三大恒沙毒惡之心。云何名為解脫。今若能轉貪嗔癡等三毒心。為三解脫。是則名為得度三大阿僧祇劫。末世眾生。愚癡鈍根。不解如來三大阿僧祇祕密之說。遂言成佛塵劫。斯豈不疑誤行人退菩提道。

Question: As the Buddha said, 'Only after countless hardships over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas did I accomplish the Buddha path.' How can you now say that merely contemplating the mind and restraining the three poisons is called vimokṣa? Answer: The words spoken by the Buddha are not false. The asaṃkhyeya kalpas are the mind of the three poisons. 'Asaṃkhyeya' is the foreign word; in Chinese it means 'innumerable'. Within this mind of the three poisons, there are evil thoughts as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and within each single thought there is a kalpa. Thus they are innumerable as the sands of the Ganges; therefore it is said, 'three great asaṃkhyeyas'. Since the nature of tathatā is covered by the three poisons, if one does not transcend those three great poisonous and evil minds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, how can it be called vimokṣa? Now if one can transform the minds of the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion into the three liberations, this is called crossing over the three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas. Sentient beings of the end times are foolish and of dull faculties; not understanding the Tathāgata's esoteric teaching of the three great asaṃkhyeyas, they then say that accomplishing buddhahood takes dust-kalpas. How could this not mistakenly cause practitioners to doubt and retreat from the path of bodhi?