宗鏡錄 54.25

54.25

Answer: The eighteen nimittabhāgas arise from the eighteen real bases; thus there are eighteen nimittabhāgas. It is just like seeing the reflections of countless persons in a single mirror: externally there are eighteen actual persons, the mirror is single, and on the mirror there appear the images of eighteen persons. The darśanabhāga is also like this: a single darśanabhāga is able to take the eighteen nimittabhāgas as conditions. If there are eighteen bases and images, because they are the objective objects, there is no error. If there were eighteen darśanabhāgas in a single thought-moment, that would incur the error of having multiple minds. 3. Solitary in meditative absorption: this also takes the eighteen dhātus, the one hundred phenomena, past and future objects, and tathatā as conditions; whether nominal or real, it is able to take all of them as conditions. Differentiating the three kinds of valid cognitions: if it is the lucid manovijñāna, its prior and subsequent thought-moments span the three kinds of cognition. The solitary in dreams is exclusively non-valid cognition, because it does not correspond to the object. The waking spans the three kinds of cognition: when taking substantial phenomena as conditions, because it takes the five sensory spheres and so forth as conditions, it spans direct perception; when taking the five faculty dhātus, the seven mind dhātus, and so forth as conditions, it is inference; when taking sky-flowers, past and future objects, and so forth as conditions, it spans inference and non-valid cognition. If it is in meditative absorption, it is exclusively direct perception; although it takes nominal phenomena as conditions, because it does not falsely grasp them and has no conceptualization, it is exclusively direct perception. Furthermore, the solitary manovijñāna is the solitary, dispersed mind that takes the approach of reflections as its object. As for reflections: all subtle atoms, which are the two forms of extreme distance and extreme minuteness, are both nominal reflected forms. They are merely in the contemplating mind: analyzing coarse form to the limit of form, one nominally posits subtle atoms; they are merely reflections of the contemplating mind and have no substantial reality at all.