宗鏡錄 43.3

43.3

Answer: In setting forth the source school earlier, the grand purport has already been solely raised. If one decisively enters with faith and correct understanding is free from error, then raising one case exemplifies all others, and the path of words and thoughts is cut off. Yet I observe that modern students remain solely within intellectual intention, largely attaching to verbal explanations; they merely say there are no dharmas outside citta, while thought after thought they constantly arise following objects; they only know how to speak of emptiness with their mouths, while step after step they constantly roam within existence. They merely bring up the general name of citta, while remaining ignorant of its subtle aspects of operation. If we discuss the immeasurable Dharma gates, speaking of them extensively could not be exhausted in an eternity of kalpas. What is recorded now is to establish the previous meaning; there is ultimately no other purport falsely laid out. This Dharma gate of the one mind is the root of the ordinary and the sacred. If one does not first clarify its aspects of operation, how can one deeply investigate its root source? Therefore, one must use the three pramāṇas to determine its correctness and falsehood, so that genuine cultivation is not haphazard; and use the four parts to establish its substance and function, so that correct principle is unmarred. Thereafter, through the ten causes and four pratyayas, one discriminates the places where defilement and purity arise; through the three retributions and five fruits, one discerns that to which the conventional and the ultimate return. Then one can reject the small, eliminate the heterodox, carve out sentiment, and shatter clingings. Thereupon Bodhisattva Dharmapāla’s correct doctrine became perfectly clear and was widely practiced in India, and the teaching was transmitted to this land. The sun of the Buddha sank and shone anew; the clouds of prajñā dispersed and arose again. Thus citta and objects blend in harmony, and self and other penetrate each other: neither one nor different, touching an object one accords with the source; neither existent nor empty, following conditions one joins with the Way. If one does not master the three pramāṇas, how can truth and falsity be distinguished? If one does not understand the four parts, substance and function are both lost. Therefore we know that vainly speaking the name of citta while being utterly blind to its subtle aspects of operation will ultimately not avoid being bound by the conditions of citta and objects and fettered by views of self and other. At present one's suspicions are unending; at the point of death, what crossing can one rely upon? Therefore prajñā is the talisman that escorts the spirit, able to make one unobstructed in birth and death at the end of life. It is only because people are blind without the eye of wisdom and unclear in teaching and contemplation that from the beginningless past they have been unable to penetrate and comprehend: defying direct perception, they lose the substance of their own citta; pursuing inference and fallacy, they mistakenly grasp external dust. All day long they use citta to grasp citta, and use illusion to take illusion as object—like a dog gnawing a dry bone, merely swallowing its own saliva; like an elephant's trunk taking water, only to wash its own body. Where there is definitively no external sphere, they construct remedies. Ever since receiving bodies and having consciousness, residing within the dust and toil of the three realms, they are like those with a fever who see ghosts, recognizing enemies where there are no enemies; or like cataracts producing flowers, giving rise to love where there is nothing to love. Falsely born and falsely dying, emptily affirming and emptily denying, they are completely unaware and cannot reflect even for a moment. If one still does not believe now, what further time is one waiting for? The ocean of saṃsāra is deep: without the boat of wisdom, one cannot cross it; the net of dust and toil is dense: without the blade of wisdom, it cannot be swept away. Its four parts, three pramāṇas, and numerous doctrinal approaches will be extensively analyzed below.