宗鏡錄 77.9

77.9

Answer: The substance being one is real; the names being two are provisional. Dharmas are established on account of feeling; reality is illumined by means of wisdom. Feeling and wisdom naturally divide, while reality is originally unmoving. They cannot be definitively identical, because the conventional truth is not destroyed; they cannot be definitively different, because the ultimate truth is not lost. The Nirvāṇa Sūtra states: "Knowledge and ignorance: the foolish consider them to be two; the wise thoroughly understand that their nature is not two. The nature that is not two is precisely the real nature." An ancient worthy explained this in terms of the ten dharmadhātus, saying: "The 'foolish' refers to the folly of the nine realms. The foolish grasp at characteristics and see all dharmas; dharmatā, following their minds that grasp at characteristics, is entirely ignorance—like thousand-year solid ice in a cold valley that has never become water. The 'wise' refers to the wisdom of the Buddha realm. Practitioners of the perfect contemplation who open the Buddha eye see identically to the ancient Buddhas. What the perfect eye sees is that ignorance is fundamentally pure dharmatā—like the sun constantly shining upon the seawater, which has never become ice. The natures of ice and water are one, yet following conditions they become two. The one does not preserve its nature, constantly and spontaneously following conditions. Even though it follows conditions, it does not destroy its own nature." How much more so with dharmatā and ignorance: how could they be definitively one, or how could they be definitively different? Thus, without losing substance in accordance with phenomena, they are neither unified nor divided; without preserving nature while according with conditions, they are both identical and distinct.