宗鏡錄 65.9.1

65.9.1

Answer: Although it is unreal, it also does not constitute falsity. Just like seeing a tree stump as a thief: where is there any thief? Because it has no substance. A verse in the Avataṃsakasūtra says: 'If one can comprehend incorrect dharmas / as real and not inverted, / knowing that falsity is originally true itself, / seeing the Buddha is then pure.' The Awakening of Faith says: 'Although there is a defiled citta, it is constantly permanent and unchanging.' The Venerable Fazang said: 'The different views of sentient beings are not false; therefore from being ordinary people they aspire to seek the Buddha-ground. If the different views were false, one would never proceed from being an ordinary person to the true Buddha-ground. Why is this? The realm of sentient beings is just the realm of buddhas; the realm of buddhas is just the realm of sentient beings. Therefore proceeding from an ordinary person to enter sainthood, and manifesting from sainthood as an ordinary person—the names differ, but the single substance is immovable.' However, this Record of the Mirror of the Source discusses only the one reality, just as the Lotus Sūtra takes the real characteristic as its substance. Although this single word 'real' universally encompasses the ten thousand dharmas because it is their substance and nature, when discussing its source comprehensively, one does not separate the true from the spurious. But if discussing it in terms of views, understanding, jñāna, and realization, one must distinguish superior from inferior, because feelings harbor grasping and rejection, and jñāna has shallows and depths. The Profound Meaning of the Lotus says: 'The correct substance is mysterious and transcendent, hard to know at first glance. Moreover, the names of the heterodox and lesser confuse the correct and great, like fish eyes mixed among bright pearls. Therefore one must eliminate the spurious, which consists of six aspects: first, elimination with respect to the ordinary; second, elimination with respect to outsiders; third, elimination with respect to the lesser; fourth, elimination with respect to the partial; fifth, elimination with respect to metaphors; sixth, elimination with respect to awakening. First, elimination with respect to the ordinary: the commentary says: When worldly texts also speak of "the real," it refers to protecting the state and ordering the family that is called real. When outsiders also speak of "the real," it is heterodox knowledge and perverse understanding that they call real. When the Small Vehicle speaks of "the real," it is weary of suffering and seeking rest, taking the partial truth as real. All such things have only the name "real" without its meaning. Why is this? Worldly sorcery, illusions, and magic arts are also called real, but are mostly seductive methods of ghosts and spirits. When this method enters the citta, one becomes bewildered, drunk, and deranged, boasting of oneself as good and fine, claiming to surpass what is true and real, standing out and stirring up the crowd, displaying extraordinary characteristics: holding excrement in a skull and, before many people, opening the mouth wide to swallow it; or eating raw fish and foul meat in repulsive ways; or going naked in ragged clothes, scorning rules and standards; or coming and going straight on, neither asking nor answering, using all kinds of deception and seduction to lure the unwise into faith and defiled attachment; having fallen into it, seeking liberation is impossible. Internally it sickens and harms their bodies; externally it executes their families and exterminates their clans, extending calamity to relatives and neighbors. In the present life they suffer many miseries, and in the future they suffer the prolonged night of torment in hell, obstructing the Path life after life with no period of liberation. This is what is currently seen in the world; what reality can be spoken of? It is subsumed under dull latencies and discourse born of craving. As for the classics of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius, methods of governance and rites, military and medical methods, astronomy and geography, the eight trigrams and five phases, worldly canonical texts: using filial piety to govern the family, loyalty to govern the state, each treating their relatives as relatives, each treating their children as children, respecting superiors and loving inferiors, benevolence and righteousness, deference and yielding, giving peace to the common people and establishing the state. If these methods are lost, the strong oppress the weak, all under heaven is thrown into turmoil, the people have nothing to rely on for life, birds have no leisure to perch, and beasts have no leisure to crouch. If one relies on these methods, all under heaven is at peace, and cattle and horses head inward. One should know that these methods are called real because of cherishing the people and governing the state. The Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtra says: Śakra Devānām Indra's various superior treatises are of this meaning. They are merely the intention of the ten virtues. Cultivating the ten virtues accords above with the mind of heaven, all the devas rejoice, and seeking the retribution of heaven, this method is superior; hence they are called superior treatises. Furthermore, the Great Brahmā King's exposition of the treatise on leaving desire is cultivating dhyāna to leave the mire of desire; this is also subsumed under discourse born of craving. In the world there are also occult arts: ingesting elixirs for longevity, refining the body and changing one's appearance, becoming flying immortals or vanishing from sight, claiming that these medicinal formulas are secret, essential, and real. This too is subsumed under discourse born of craving and dull latencies. Second, elimination with respect to outsiders: these are the texts of the heterodox outsiders. If one ingests medicine to seek knowledge, becoming clever, sharp, and clear-sighted in investigating principles, claiming that this medicinal formula is superior and real: the power of medicine gives slight knowledge, unable to perceive far; at the touch of medicine it is lost, and when the medicine wears off it is lost; it too is not real. If like Zhuangzi and Laozi here, of non-action and desirelessness, natural, vacant, and quiet, ceasing all boasting immortals, abandoning the world and cutting off knowledge, etc., this is simply nothingness. What they harbor does not even step outside the simple four views; how could it pertain to the noble Dharma? Even if they were to step outside the simple four views, they would still fall into the complex four views, walking within the net of views, not the path of liberation. As for the foreign master of debate, he accepted a wager, issued an open call, and composed five hundred brilliant challenges. One said: 'Did Gautama teach one ultimate path or many ultimate paths?' The Buddha said: 'Only one ultimate path.' The master of debate said: 'The various teachers each teach an ultimate path.' The Buddha pointed to Śiraskapāla: 'Do you know that man?' The master of debate said: 'I know him; among those of the ultimate path, he is foremost.' The Buddha said: 'If he had attained the ultimate path, why did he abandon his own path to become my disciple?' The master of debate was immediately awakened, praising that within the Buddha's Dharma, there is uniquely one ultimate path. Also, as Dīrghanakha said: 'All treatises can be refuted, all words can be overturned; contemplating the real characteristic of dharmas, for a long time I have not found a single dharma that can enter the citta.' The commentary says: Dīrghanakha grasped the view that 'neither exists,' and also says: he also posited the view that it is 'inexpressible.' Such classes are of hundreds of thousands of kinds, false and frivolous discourse, revolving in delusion; their net of views is vast and their heterodox knowledge overflowing, giving rise to attachment upon encountering objects. Or at times they fold and double: existence and non-existence as existence, no existence as non-existence, and so on up to having neither-existence-nor-non-existence as existence, and no neither-existence-nor-non-existence as non-existence. Across hundreds and thousands of folds, all are inverted views, the various extremes of birth and death, not the true and real. The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra says: 'Bound by the cangue of ignorance, tied to the pillar of birth and death, circling around the twenty-five states of existence, unable to attain liberation'—this is just this meaning. Third, elimination with respect to the lesser: within the Śrāvaka-dharma, they also speak of being free from existence and free from non-existence.