禪源諸詮集都序 2.2.5

2.2.5

The distinction between the expedient teaching of the ox-cart Mahāyāna and the real teaching of the white-ox cart One Vehicle has explicit passages in more than thirty sūtras and treatises.) revealing that the dharmakāya of the three vehicles enters equally into the path of the One Vehicle. Furthermore, when I was about to enter extinction, between the twin śāla trees at the city of Kuśinagara, I roared the great lion's roar, revealed the eternally abiding Dharma, and definitively stated: 'All sentient beings possess the buddhadhātu. All who have minds will certainly become buddhas. Ultimate nirvāṇa is permanent, blissful, self, and pure.' I caused them all to abide securely within the secret treasury. (The Lotus Sūtra provisionally gathers the two vehicles; only when reaching the Nirvāṇa Sūtra does it universally gather the six destinies. Harmonizing the expedient to enter the real must be gradual.) This is no different from the sudden realization of the great assembly at the ocean-like assembly of the Avataṃsaka during the Lion's Sprint. (The Lotus and Nirvāṇa are the culmination within the gradual teachings. In depth, they do not differ from the sudden teachings such as the Avataṃsaka; all are the third teaching that explicitly reveals the true mind as the nature.) Since those I should deliver have all been delivered, and for those not yet delivered I have already created the causes and conditions for deliverance, I therefore enter the concentration of great quiescence and extinction between the twin trees, returning to the origin and source, eternally abiding in the dharmadhātu with all the buddhas of the ten directions and the three periods of time, constantly quiescent and constantly illuminating. The appraisal says: The preceding three sheets are entirely records of the Buddha's own words from the various sūtras. Only because of copying and recording, at points of continuous compilation, two or three words were inevitably added, subtracted, or changed. Only the line and a half describing the Avataṃsaka uses the sūtra title to reveal the Buddha's intent, and is not the Buddha's original words. Please take this self-stated original intent of the Buddha to judge the previous three teachings and schools. How could one say that the expedient and the real are identical? How could one say that the beginning and the end are two dharmas? When the Chan school is compared to the doctrinal teaching, who would say it is not so? My humble wish to harmonize them is truly due to this. Who, hearing this explanation, would not eliminate doubt? If one still clings to delusion, I will not respond further. However, in what was cited above, the Buddha himself said, 'I see that sentient beings all accomplish right awakening,' and also said, 'Their faculties are dull, blind, and foolish'—the words seem contradictory. If I wished to interpret and clarify them in sequence therein, I fear mixing the Buddha's words and tangling the textual marks. Now, after this, only relying entirely on the ancestral master of previous generations, the bodhisattva Aśvaghoṣa, I will fully clarify the origin and culmination, beginning and end, of delusion and awakening of the one mind of sentient beings, causing them all to become manifest. Naturally, one will see that sentient beings, who are fully buddhas, are turbulent in birth and death; buddhas, who are fully sentient beings, are quiescent in nirvāṇa; habitual propensities, which are fully sudden awakening, grasp at conditions thought after thought; sudden awakening, which is fully habitual propensities, is quiescent and illuminating mind after mind. Right at the points where the Buddha's words contradict each other, one will naturally see that there is no contradiction. That is to say, the root of ordinary beings of the six destinies and sages of the three vehicles is entirely the numinous, luminous, pure, single dharmadhātu nature of mind, whose jewel-light of awakening is completely perfect in each. Originally it is not named 'buddhas', nor is it named 'sentient beings'. Yet because this mind is numinously wondrous, sovereign, and does not keep its own nature, it follows the conditions of delusion and awakening: creating karma and receiving retribution, it is thereupon named 'sentient beings'; cultivating the path and realizing truth, it is thereupon named 'buddhas'. Furthermore, although it accords with conditions, it does not lose its own nature; therefore, it is constantly non-delusory, constantly unchanging, and indestructible. It is only the one mind, and is thereupon named 'tathatā'. Therefore, this one mind constantly possesses the two gates of tathatā and production-and-extinction, never lacking either for an instant. Yet within the gate of according with conditions, ordinary and sage are indeterminate: because originally one was never awakened, affliction is said to be beginningless; if one awakens, cultivates, and realizes, then afflictions are completely severed, and so it is said to have an end. In reality, however, there is no distinct initial awakening, nor is there non-awakening; ultimately they are equal. Therefore, this one mind inherently has the two meanings of true and deluded; each of the two meanings further has two meanings; thus it constantly possesses the two gates of tathatā and production-and-extinction. As for each having two meanings: the true has the two meanings of unchanging and according with conditions; the deluded has the two meanings of empty substance and producing affairs. Because the true does not change, the deluded substance is empty, which is the gate of tathatā. Because the true accords with conditions, the deluded produces affairs, which is the gate of production-and-extinction. Since production-and-extinction is identical to tathatā, the various sūtras say: 'There are no buddhas and no sentient beings; originally nirvāṇa is the mark of constant quiescence and extinction.' Furthermore, since tathatā is identical to production-and-extinction, a sūtra says: 'The dharmakāya transmigrating through the five destinies is named sentient beings.' Having understood that delusion and awakening, ordinary and sage, reside in the gate of production-and-extinction, now within this gate I fully display the two marks of ordinary and sage: the compounding of the true and deluded, being neither one nor different, is named the ālayavijñāna. In ordinary beings, this consciousness originally and constantly has the two meanings of awakening and non-awakening. Awakening is the root of the sages of the three vehicles; non-awakening is the root of ordinary beings of the six destinies. Now, I will first demonstrate the origin and end of ordinary beings, which has ten stages in total. (Now for each stage, a dream metaphor is annotated beside it, matching each one.) First, it is said that although all sentient beings possess the true mind of original awakening (like a wealthy, noble, upright, and wise person residing sovereignly in a house), second, not having met a good friend who reveals it, they are inherently and originally unawakened (like the person in the house falling asleep without knowing it himself; the treatise says: 'relying on original awakening, non-awakening exists'); third, due to non-awakening, thoughts inherently arise (like in sleep, dreams inherently occur; the treatise says: 'relying on non-awakening, three kinds of marks are produced'; this is the first); fourth, because thoughts arise, there is the mark of a perceiver (like thinking within a dream); fifth, because of perceiving, sense faculties, body, and world falsely appear (in a dream, separately seeing oneself having a body of poverty and suffering in another land, and seeing various pleasant and unpleasant affairs and objects); sixth, not knowing that these arise from one's own thoughts, one clings to them as definitively existing, which is called attachment to dharmas (while dreaming, one inherently clings to the seen objects as real); seventh, having clung to dharmas as definitive, one then sees the distinction between self and other, which is called attachment to self (while dreaming, one must take the body of poverty and suffering in another land as one's own body); eighth, because of clinging to these four great elements as one's own body, one inherently craves objects agreeable to one's feelings wishing to nourish oneself, resents objects disagreeable to one's feelings fearing harm and annoyance to oneself, and harbors foolish sentiments of various calculations (these are the three poisons; like in a dream, regarding agreeable and disagreeable affairs seen in another land, craving and anger also arise); ninth, due to this, one creates good, bad, and other karma (in a dream, stealing, robbing, beating, scolding, or practicing kindness and bestowing virtue);