宗鏡錄 13.2.3

13.2.3

"He also forms this thought: 'All the buddhas of the three times, all the buddhadharmas, all sentient beings, all lands, all worlds, all three times, all realms of space, all dharmadhātus, all realms of verbal designation, and all realms of quiescent nirvāṇa—all such various dharmas, I shall, with wisdom corresponding [to them] in a single thought-moment, fully know and fully awaken to, fully see and fully realize, fully cultivate and fully sever. Yet within them, there is no conceptual discrimination, free from conceptual discrimination; there is nothing various, no distinctions, no merit, and no objective realm; they are neither existent nor nonexistent, neither one nor two. By means of non-dual wisdom, I know all duality. By means of formless wisdom, I know all forms. By means of non-discriminating wisdom, I know all conceptual discriminations. By means of wisdom without difference, I know all differences. By means of wisdom without distinctions, I know all distinctions. By means of wisdom free from the world, I know all worlds. By means of wisdom free from worldly [knowledge], I know all times. By means of wisdom free from [the concept of] sentient beings, I know all sentient beings. By means of wisdom free from clinging, I know all clingings. By means of wisdom without an abode, I know all abodes. By means of wisdom free from defilement, I know all defilements. By means of inexhaustible wisdom, I know all exhaustion. By means of wisdom of the ultimate dharmadhātu, I manifest bodies in all worlds. By means of wisdom transcending speech, I display inexpressible sounds. By means of wisdom of the one intrinsic nature, I enter into the absence of intrinsic nature. By means of wisdom of the one objective realm, I manifest various objective realms. Knowing that all dharmas are inexpressible, I manifest discourses of great sovereignty. Having realized the stage of all-knowledge, in order to teach and tame all sentient beings, I display great spiritual powers and transformations in all worlds.' This is the tenth, the non-inferior mind."

As minutely analyzed above regarding the source of principle and phenomena, only then is it seen that sentient beings who are completely the Buddha are alert and unobscured, and the Buddha who is completely sentient beings is distinct and without doubt. Awakening to the root is like arriving at one's home village; attaining its function is like [moving] one's own hands and feet. How can one be deluded about the real and cling to the illusory, abandoning the actual to rely on the void, disappointing one's own spiritual [nature] and burying the family treasure, exalting the supreme sages from afar while despising oneself as an inferior ordinary being? All this is simply because they merely recite empty texts without plumbing the real meaning. Merely memorizing the words "the mind itself is the Buddha," in what year will they personally realize it? Only learning the saying that "the ten thousand dharmas are consciousness-only," who will actually realize it in the present? Having transgressed both doctrine and contemplation, and lacking an enlightened teacher, though claiming to carry on and magnify [the tradition], they merely deceive themselves. The minute details of the Mirror of the Source are precisely for such people: to enable them to understand its meaning and know their own citta, to open its texts and see its Dharma, feeling gratitude for the earnest words of the sages and feeling shame before the intentions of the ancient worthies. Only upon reading these fascicles will they know that it is ultimately not empty or false—like high [winds] sweeping away clouds and mist to suddenly behold the blue sky, or like going deep into the dragon palace to personally encounter the supreme jewel. Then they begin to realize that they had never before been discerning, that their studies were crude and superficial, and they can verify that at all times they entirely lacked strength. Before reaching the real ground, do not speak of its depth; before arriving at toil, do not speak of its hardship. Only when one sees the nature can speech be brought to rest.

Furthermore, the reason the sages handed down their teachings was universally for the born-blind ordinary beings, to keep them from clinging to birth and death; for the one-eyed [followers of] the two vehicles, to keep them from abiding in nirvāṇa; for the small bodhisattvas of nocturnal vision, to make them renounce the provisional vehicles; and for the separate bodhisattvas [veiled by thin] silk gauze, to keep them from clinging to the doctrinal path. For those who do not yet know that their own citta already possesses such vast spiritual virtue and boundless wondrous function, they clearly revealed it to let each personally know it. There are none among the buddhas of the ten directions who do not inherit my majestic radiance, and none among all ordinary beings who do not rely on my gracious power. They encourage them to arouse longing and advance in the Path through extensive cultivation, breaking a single fine dust-mote to produce a scripture of the great chiliocosm. Then, through the power of concentration and wisdom, adorning themselves inside and out, they bring forth the fundamentally wondrous enlightened citta and the characteristics and functions of tathatā—like polishing an ancient mirror, or like burnishing a spiritual pearl, its light piercing the ten directions and its reflections penetrating the dharmadhātu, not letting a single small sentient being fail to receive this light. It is just as with Sudhana, for whom it could be accomplished in a single lifetime; or again like the dragon girl, who personally made an offering on Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa and received the Tathāgata's seal of approval. Therefore it says: "I offered the precious pearl and the World-Honoured One accepted it. Was this rapid or not?" The reply was: "Extremely rapid." The girl said: "By your spiritual power, watch me attain buddhahood even faster than this!" From this we know that as soon as one awakens to this Dharma, cause and effect are simultaneous; attaining the Path and saving sentient beings do not exceed the span of a single thought-moment. As the "Belief and Understanding" chapter of the Lotus Sūtra says: "Run swiftly to catch him"; and the "Parable" chapter says: "It is swift as the wind." How could one linger through many lifetimes vainly cultivating meritorious practices? Possessing such swift power of thought-moment-to-thought-moment correspondence, yet unwilling to undertake it—therefore the sages sighed in astonishment and extensively expounded it, casting the net of the eight teachings and preparing the carriages of the three vehicles, gathering both the great and the small, conveying both the provisional and the real, guiding and enticing, secretly meeting capacities and dispositions, whether seen or heard, whether before or after, all to cause them to enter this one vehicle's diamond treasury as the ultimate.

As cited in the "Expedient Means" chapter: "The buddhas of the ten directions and the three times all use immeasurable, countless expedient means, various causes and conditions, parables, and verbal expressions to expound all dharmas for sentient beings. These dharmas are all for the sake of the one Buddha-vehicle. All these sentient beings, hearing the Dharma from the buddhas, ultimately all attain all-knowledge (sarvākārajñatā)." Thus one must not be deluded by the expedient doors of the buddhas, clinging to intellectual understanding, taking literally the words of ready-made [teachings], and giving rise to the mind of grasping at phenomena and self. As in the Prajñā sūtra, the Buddha said: "Because I have no grasping toward any dharma, I attained a constant radiance of one fathom and a body of genuine golden colour." Therefore, only when both self-grasping and grasping at phenomena are wiped away does the one ray of constant radiance naturally appear, just as Śākyamuni personally verified the golden body. Thus the doctrinal teachings of all buddhas are all intended to reveal the source and destroy attachments. If one abides and clings as before, it instead augments the deluded mind—like a hot iron ball, if you grasp it, it burns your hand. It causes the amṛta of the sacred teachings, the excellent conditions for escaping suffering, to be of harm rather than benefit when encountered by such a person. As the verse in the "Expedient Means" chapter says: "Śāriputra, you should know / that the dharmas of all buddhas are like this: / with ten thousand kotis of expedient means,