宗鏡錄 71.19

71.19

Answer: Ancient commentaries explain four kinds. As for the sovereign condition, it excludes the imaginary as a phenomenon lacking substance; it must be a phenomenon possessing substance that can serve as a sovereign condition. That is, the two natures of the dependent and consummate are both phenomena possessing substance, serving the meaning of a sovereign condition. Phenomena lacking substance—that is, self, dharmas, and the like—are completely devoid of substance; arising from false grasping, they are not sovereign conditions. First, the favorable: as water and earth are favorable sovereign conditions for green grass and the like; the practice of the six pāramitās is the favorable sovereign condition for the Buddha-fruit; the two branches of feeling and grasping are the favorable sovereign conditions for the seeds of the five fruits. Second, the contrary: as frost and hail serve as contrary sovereign conditions for green grass; also as wisdom serves as a contrary sovereign condition for delusion—namely, in a single thought-moment when wisdom arises, delusion is severed; thus one knows that a single thought-moment has two sovereign [aspects]: in a single thought-moment, while acting as a contrary sovereign [condition] toward delusion, it immediately acts as a favorable sovereign [condition] toward the truth of the two emptinesses. Third, the potent sovereign [condition], also called the immediate sovereign [condition]: as the five sense-faculties generate the five consciousnesses and so forth. Fourth, the non-potent sovereign [condition]: that is, this person's five faculties, relative to that person's five consciousnesses, are non-potent sovereign [conditions], also called remote sovereign [conditions]. As when a lamp flame is just arising, all phenomena such as the great earth do not obstruct the arising of this flame, which is called a remote sovereign [condition]. Taking merely the aspect of the meaning of non-obstruction, it is called a sovereign condition.