鐔津文集 2.5

2.5

Mind alone is what is called the Way. Elucidating the Way is what is called the teaching. The teaching is the sage's trace sent down. The Way is the great foundation of sentient beings. Grave indeed is the sentient beings' aberration from their foundation, and long has it lasted! If the sage had not arisen, the myriad things would remain dark to the end. The sage is that by which the myriad things are granted great illumination. The mind has no exterior, and the Way is everywhere centered; therefore, no thing fails to partake of the Way. The sage is not selfish with the Way, and the Way does not abandon things. Wherever the Way abides, the sage participates in it. For this reason, in establishing his teachings, he penetrates the unseen and the manifest, he penetrates the worldly and the supramundane; there is nothing he does not penetrate. 'Penetrating' means unifying. Unifying them so as to rectify them, he desires that they must share the same virtue as the sage. In vastness and numinous luminosity, nothing equals the Way; in divine virtue and wondrous functioning, nothing equals the mind. In indulging delusion and binding oneself with karma, nothing is worse than straying from the foundation; in drifting through the various destinies, nothing is worse than birth and death. In knowing the faults and afflictions of sentient beings, none is more adept than the sage; in rectifying the foundation for the myriad things, nothing is better than establishing the teachings. When rectified, it is firm and bright; when bright, it is firm and wondrous; when wondrous, its Way is firmly coalesced. Therefore, the teaching is the sage's great starting point for illuminating the Way and saving the world. Now, the teaching is the sage's inconceivable great functioning that accords with the times and responds to capacities. Therefore, for those whose capacity is great, he acts suddenly; for those whose capacity is small, he acts gradually. 'Gradual' speaks of the expedient; 'sudden' speaks of the real. The real is called the Mahāyāna; the expedient is called the Hīnayāna. With the Great and Lesser Vehicles, the sage encompasses the host of capacities, and the unseen and manifest are exhausted. Partaking in the sudden, one hears the gradual; partaking in the gradual, one hears the sudden. This again is how the sage marvels above gods and humans, beyond the calculation of gods and humans. The sage displays the expedient in order to proceed toward the real; the sage reveals the real through relying upon the expedient. Therefore, the expedient and the real, the partial and the complete, never cease to take regard of one another. As for the expedient, there is the manifest expedient and the hidden expedient. When the sage makes the expedient manifest, it becomes shallow teachings and small ways, providing those who believe with a place for a brief rest. When the sage makes the expedient hidden, it becomes heterodox ways, other teachings, and sharing in the deeds of good and evil, serving as a distant condition for those who do not believe to eventually attain the Way. The manifest expedient can be seen, but the hidden expedient cannot be fathomed. The real is the ultimate real. When it is the ultimate real, then object and self are one. Because object and self are one, the sage brings them to completion through the multitude of living beings. If one speaks of the sage's expedients, they encompass the good under heaven and pervade the ways of the hundred schools—is this not the great expedient for saving the world and benefiting things? If one speaks of the sage's reality, it extends across the Dharma realm and together with all things reaches the utmost—is this not the great Way under heaven that exhausts principle and fulfills nature? The sage is the sage among sages. Because he is beyond birth and death, he manifests death and manifests birth, appearing the same as humans, yet none perceives the reason why it is so. How could this be merely a sage of old who was gifted with spirits, offering wisdom, vast, flourishing, and complete? Therefore, in establishing his teachings, there is the divine way and there is the human way; there is constant virtue and there is extraordinary virtue. One cannot seek them under a single uniform rule. They cannot be deliberated upon through worldly ways: success lies in spiritual comprehension; failure lies in comparing external traces.