宗鏡錄 21.17

21.17

Answer: In the dharma of dependent origination, there is indeed this principle. But when the sūtra speaks of cases like Mahānāma, is this not showing a purport, intending to clarify that dharmas have no fixed characteristics in order to dispel sentient beings' severe attachments? Because hungry ghosts are deluded, they see water as fire, but it does not thereby actually become fire. As for why their realms are separated: people of stone and sand cannot be born together in the Land of Peaceful Nurture. The commentary explains: ‘purity is understood as freedom from defilement’ means that one does not take form as pure, but takes the formless as pure. It also says: the seven treasures being free of the defilement of stone and sand is pure; one does not take the seven treasures themselves as pure. If the good karma of animals and humans is adjacent, they therefore tread upon stone and sand together. That ‘superior goodness produces refined states’ means that because human and deva karma are distinct, humans are cut off from ascending to the land of the seven treasures. That animals do not equal humans and suffer [more] pain is because they suffer the pains of being whipped, slaughtered, and devouring one another, whereas humans do not have these things; hence it is said they do not equal humans and suffer [more] pain. As for the ‘cauldrons’, the lighter destinies dwell together with humans, as the sūtra says: ‘The minor hells are between the Iron Surrounding Mountains, or by the seashore, in the wilderness, and so on.’ But the Avīci Hell and the like are separate from humans. Deva goodness is superior, and the seven treasures are refined; therefore they are demarcated and separated from humans.