佛祖統紀 4.4

4.4

The preface states: The teachings of the single lifetime preached by the Tathāgata had as their intent nothing other than to open and reveal the one great cause and condition. When the capacities of people had already received the great benefit, he further stated for them: 'Those who should be saved have all already been saved.' Thereupon he proclaimed his entry into extinction, in order to display that the ritual of transformation has a beginning and an end, intending to arouse the longing mind of the negligent and to bequeath instructions to people of the future. When it comes to the saying, 'I do not enter extinction, but constantly abide on the Vulture Peak,' this is the import of the Tathāgata’s great parinirvāṇa of neither birth nor death.