佛祖統紀 3.59

3.59

The two flavors and four capacities of the Avataṃsaka. The commentary states: From the past, when teaching beginners, people made diagrams of periods and flavors; on top they placed 'high mountain,' and below they matched it with the 'flavor of milk,' yet none ever investigated it. Now, examining the text of the Miaoxuan, the period of the Avataṃsaka itself contains the distinction of two flavors and four capacities. The first is exclusively teaching the Dharma-body, namely the forty-one stages of partially realizing the middle way; this is called clarified butter. The second is ordinary beings of great capacity who enter the first abode of the round teaching and realize a portion of the middle way onward; this is also called clarified butter. The third is those newly entering the ten faiths; although they have severed only the four abodes of delusion and have not broken through ignorance, this is merely called milk. The fourth is those of small capacity who are deaf and mute, remaining completely raw like milk. Therefore, those named clarified butter comprise two capacities, and those named milk also comprise two capacities. The Miaoxuan states: 'To the small it is like milk, to the great it is like clarified butter; a partial metaphor cannot be pursued completely.' As the Qian states: 'The Avataṃsaka's partial metaphor is the first flavor, but it does not capture the suddenness of the Avataṃsaka and the two teachings of distinct and round; it merely possesses the characteristic of the sequence of the five flavors.' (Text) One should know that calling the Avataṃsaka milk precisely refers to the intention of establishing the conversion from the sudden to open the gradual.