宗鏡錄 91.17

91.17

答曰。菩薩代眾生受苦者。由大悲方便力故。但以眾生妄執。不了業體。從妄而生。無由出苦。菩薩教令修行止觀兩門。心無暫替。因亡果喪苦無由生。但令不入三塗。名為代眾生受苦也。是以三界生死之苦者。皆是眾生妄受。以不了根塵無性。本末常空。於畢竟無中。執成究竟之有。因茲貪取。結業受生。於無量劫來受輪迴苦。無明所罩莫省莫知。菩薩於是垂大悲心。愍茲顛倒。說性空之法藥。破情有之病根。則達苦無生。不造惡業。知諸受互起。能破惑因。妄受之苦既空。對治之樂自絕。所以先德云。苦是樂。樂是苦。只箇修行斷門戶。亦無苦。亦無樂。本來自性無繩索。以茲妙悟。入一際門。遂得人法俱空。不為心境所縛。當處解脫。永出苦源。豈非代苦。乎。又經云。說法是大神變。能令即凡成聖。變禍為祥。於地獄火輪之中。踊淨剎蓮臺之上。豈非神變耶。

Answer: That a bodhisattva takes on suffering on behalf of sentient beings is due to the power of great compassion and skillful means. It is simply because sentient beings deludedly grasp and do not comprehend that the substance of karma arises from delusion, having no way to emerge from suffering. The bodhisattva teaches them to cultivate the two gates of śamatha and vipaśyanā without ceasing for even a moment; when the cause is destroyed and the effect vanishes, suffering has no way to arise. Merely causing them not to enter the three evil paths is termed taking on suffering on behalf of sentient beings. Therefore, the sufferings of birth and death in the three realms are all deludedly undergone by sentient beings. Because they do not comprehend that sense faculties and dusts lack self-nature and that roots and branches are constantly empty, within ultimate non-existence they grasp and form definitive existence. Due to this, through greedy grasping, they bind karma and receive rebirth, undergoing the suffering of saṃsāra over immeasurable kalpas, covered by avidyā, unconscious and unknowing. The bodhisattva thereupon extends a mind of great compassion, pitying this inversion, and expounds the Dharma medicine of the emptiness of nature to smash the root of the affliction of sentimental existence; thus they realize that suffering is unarisen and do not commit evil karma, knowing that sensations arise mutually and are able to destroy the cause of delusion. Since the deludedly received suffering is already empty, the antidote of joy naturally ceases. Therefore, a master of old said: 'Suffering is joy, joy is suffering; / Just this cultivation severs the gateways. / There is neither suffering nor joy; / Originally, the self-nature has no bonds.' Through this wondrous awakening, entering the gate of the single limit, they then attain the emptiness of both person and dharmas, no longer bound by mind and objects; right where they are, they obtain liberation and eternally emerge from the source of suffering. How is this not taking on suffering? Furthermore, a sūtra says: 'Expounding the Dharma is the great spiritual transformation; it can cause the ordinary immediately to become noble, turning misfortune into auspiciousness, leaping from amidst the wheel of fire in the hells onto the lotus throne of a pure kṣetra.' How is this not a spiritual transformation?