佛祖統紀 3.78

3.78

Regarding the second period, the Deer Park period: The Buddha originally intended to deliver sentient beings with the Mahāyāna, but for those who were incapable of it, he devised expedient means and proceeded to Vārāṇasī (translated here as "river-encircled city," a territory of central India; the Deer Park is within the city), and within the One Vehicle path he distinctively expounded three, which was the opening of the Tripiṭaka teaching. Not only did Śākyamuni conceal his immeasurable divine virtues to carry out this gradual transformation; the Buddhas of the past and future do likewise. One should know that after the initial sudden, the gradual was subsequently opened. The faculties suited for the gradual were, in relation to the sudden, entirely raw like fresh milk; within the Tripiṭaka they were transformed from ordinary beings into sages, likened to changing milk into curds, each arising sequentially without regard to rich or thin (Miao xuan, fascicle 10). Because for those of the three vehicles' faculties and nature there was no benefit in the sudden, without moving from the tranquil bodhimaṇḍa he journeyed to the Deer Park, took off the precious royal robe of Rocana, put on the worn, soiled garments of the sixteen-foot body, and first expounded for the five men the teachings of the Four Truths, Twelvefold Dependent Origination, and phenomenal six pāramitās (Sijiao yi. The Wenju states: "Past is called roots; future is called nature." Reaching the small from the great is why it says "without moving." The superior response of the exalted and distinctive [body], adorned with samādhi and wisdom, is likened to the precious royal robe; the inferior response of the birth-body, bearing the afflictions of beings and phenomena, is likened to the soiled garments. The Buddha was born among humans, twice the height of human stature, hence sixteen feet tall; just as when Maitreya is thirty-two fathoms tall, the people of that time will be sixteen fathoms).