宗鏡錄 19.5

19.5

Answer: The triyāna mostly speaks in terms of realization in principle. Or it is said: 'The dharmakāya is immediately equal, but the reward and transformation bodies are not yet complete.' It is also said that realizing Buddhahood in a single thought-moment is entirely spoken from principle. Now the Ekayāna school maintains that principle and phenomena are equally uniform. An ancient worthy said: 'This comes from the great import of the Huayan, and is difficult to grasp and understand.' However, if all sentient beings are viewed from the positions of humans and devas, they are fully endowed with the two selves of person and phenomena. In the Hīnayāna, there are only the real phenomena of the five aggregates. In the Mahāyāna, it is either said to be merely what is manifested by the mind, or said that illusory existence is identical to emptiness, with both person and phenomena dismissed; or it is said to be solely the tathāgatagarbha, because it is endowed with nature-virtues as numerous as the sands of the Ganges; therefore sentient beings are the dharmakāya entangled in defilement—'dharmakāya' and 'sentient beings' being one in meaning and different in name, which is still spoken on the basis of principle. There are further explanations saying: 'Characteristics are originally extinguished of themselves, and the nature is originally manifest of itself; one cannot say it is identical to Buddha or not identical to Buddha, and so forth.' If one relies on the Huayan school, it has originally been completed from of old, and is also already in nirvāṇa. It is not in terms of the same substance, where this one's realization is that one's realization. If so, why are there presently sentient beings who are not identical to Buddha? If one looks from the position of sentient beings' views and understanding, they do not even see that mind-only is immediately empty, so how could they see the matters in the Perfect Teaching? It is like mistaking east for west: precisely because they cling to west, if all emotional views are suddenly shattered, then the dharmadhātu is completely manifested, and there is none who has not already achieved it. It is like that awakened person: the place of west is entirely east. Therefore Sudhana and the Dragon Girl are both ordinary beings who personally realized it within a single lifetime. People in the provisional teachings of the triyāna whose faith does not reach this call it an apparitional manifestation. As the Xuan yi ge says: 'People say that Sudhana and the Dragon Girl were dharmakāya bodhisattvas who transformed into illusory performers, pleasing ordinary people for a time and causing them to exert themselves unceasingly.' The critique says: 'If so, the noble would have the fault of deceiving the ordinary, and the ordinary would have no share in directly becoming noble; the teaching-gate would be established in vain, and what use would there be in studying it? Therefore it is not so.'