宗鏡錄 32.5

32.5

The answer says: If one were to say that within the sūtras there is no meaning of explaining by matching with Dharma gates, then in this sūtra's Chapter on the Buddha Path, Bodhisattva Samantarūpasaṃdarśana asked Vimalakīrti: 'Householder, who are your parents, wife, children, relatives, retinue, and so forth?' The Great Being answered in verse, saying: 'The perfection of wisdom is the mother of the bodhisattva,' and so forth. Since Vimalakīrti was a lay bodhisattva, how could he have lacked parents, wife, children, and a home? Yet he did not answer according to external facts, but answered entirely in terms of inner practice and Dharma gates. One should know that the buddhas and bodhisattvas, without giving up the qualities of the Path, manifest the affairs of ordinary beings; although they manifest ordinary affairs, they all inwardly express the qualities of the Path. For instance, the place of the Buddha's parinirvāṇa was between the twin trees, four withered and four flourishing: how could one take them merely to be wooden trees? Moreover, the sincere words of the Tathāgata all represent the partial and complete, the withered and flourishing. Now, being in the Āmrapālī grove in Vaiśālī and wishing to expound the Dharma gate of inconceivable liberation, he did not abandon the qualities of the Path but manifested traces identical to the ordinary, dwelling in Vaiśālī: does this not represent the Dharma gate in which the ultimate stage abides? When the Avataṃsakasūtra explains the ten cities and the ten parks, could they merely be worldly cities and parks? The later text of this sūtra, the Chapter on Bodhisattva Practice, says: 'Whatever deportment the buddhas assume in advancing and stopping is nothing other than buddha-work.' How could one interpret them entirely as mundane affairs and not reflect at all on the inconceivable teachings of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and on their matters of expedient, secret expression? Furthermore, the Lotus Sūtra says: 'If one wishes to preach this sūtra, one should enter the room of the Tathāgata, put on the robe of the Tathāgata, and sit on the seat of the Tathāgata. The room of the Tathāgata is the mind of great loving-kindness and compassion; the robe of the Tathāgata is gentleness and forbearance; the seat of the Tathāgata is the emptiness of all dharmas.'