宗鏡錄 23.19

23.19

Answer: As has already been said above: when one truly understands the one mind, principle and phenomena are unhindered. Why rigidly cling to doubts about the object and doubts about citta? Therefore the Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra says: "Each saw the World-Honoured One right before them." A verse in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra says: / Gandharvas and kiṃnaras / Each offered to their own Buddha. / The first patriarch of Niutou explained: "As when contemplating greed, one sees the nature of greed; greed is itself sentient beings. Awakening to the wisdom of the nature of greed is itself the Buddha. The greedy sentient beings themselves see the Buddha before them. All [cases] are like this." Furthermore, "each offered to their own Buddha" means that within each and every Dharma-door, each person illuminates it for themselves; properly directing attention in accord with principle is itself each offering to the Buddha. Even if there are offerings of incense and flowers as phenomenal practices, a sūtra says: "The Buddhas of the ten directions manifest in response to the capacities [of beings]." Since they appear in response to resonance, how could they depart from one's own citta? Just as the four assemblies and eight classes of beings on Vulture Peak each saw the Buddha differently according to their faculties, capacities, and mental thoughts—as the dragons saw a great dragon king, the ghosts saw a great ghost king, and so forth—the exposition that there is no dharma outside citta has both textual authority and principle, whereas the view of clinging to form outside emptiness has neither principle nor textual authority. Suppose there are people of vicious intellect and deviant views, who harbor doubt and lack faith, intending to set forth wild explanations and forcibly seeking to dismantle it: this is like using a single mosquito's proboscis intending to drink up the great ocean's water, or like using the claws of ten fingers wishing to destroy the wondrously high mountain [of Meru]. This exposition of ours of the complete and sudden, the principle of tathatā, is like a knife cutting water, or the wind blowing against light: they will merely wear out their spirits in vain, and on the contrary incur deep blame.