宗鏡錄 59.3

59.3

Answer: They are neither one nor different, neither obliterated nor persisting. Why so? If they were one, the Benevolent King Sūtra would not say: "All bodhisattvas fully accomplish both conditioned merits and unconditioned merits." Furthermore, the Vimalakīrti Sūtra says: "A bodhisattva does not exhaust the conditioned, nor does he dwell in the unconditioned," and so forth. Both senses are clearly illuminated—how could they be one? If they were different, in the Prajñā Sūtra the Buddha tells Subhūti: "One cannot speak of the unconditioned apart from the conditioned, nor can one speak of the conditioned apart from the unconditioned." How could they be different? If one says both are obliterated, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra says: "In the conditioned realm, one demonstrates the principle of the unconditioned without annihilating the characteristics of the conditioned; in the unconditioned realm, one demonstrates the phenomena of the conditioned without destroying the nature of the unconditioned." Thus existence and non-existence, nature and characteristics, mutually persist without obstruction. If one says both persist, as the preceding treatise says, the two are nominally designated based on the nature of phenomena, referring to the tathatā revealed by emptiness and selflessness; both existence and non-existence are negated, and the path of mind and speech is cut off. Thus none of the hundred negations can confuse it, and the four propositions cannot express it. It is not something to be grasped by ordinary sentiment as existing or non-existing; only when wisdom transcends words and images can one reach the true nature of the conditioned and unconditioned as vijñapti-mātra. As the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa states: "Furthermore, regarding arising and ceasing phenomena: if mind exists first and arising exists later, then mind does not depend on arising. Why? Because the mind already exists beforehand. If arising exists first, then arising has nothing that arises. Moreover, the natures of arising and ceasing contradict each other: where there is arising, there should not be ceasing; at the time of ceasing, there should not be arising. Therefore, [arising and ceasing] at one time cannot be found, nor can they be found as distinct. This, then, is non-arising. If there is no arising, then there is neither abiding nor ceasing. If there is no arising, abiding, or ceasing, then there are no mental factors (caitta). If there are no mental factors, then there are no formations non-associated with mind (cittaviprayuktasaṃskāra) or material phenomena (rūpa). Because material phenomena do not exist, unconditioned phenomena also do not exist. Why? Because of the conditioned, there is the unconditioned. If there is no conditioned, then there is also no unconditioned. Therefore, one should not say that all phenomena exist." Furthermore, the Viśeṣacintabrahmaparipṛcchāsūtra says: "Regarding conditioned and unconditioned phenomena, the difference exists merely in written words and verbal explanations." The Lokadhāraparipṛcchāsūtra says: "The real characteristic of conditioned phenomena is itself the unconditioned."