釋氏要覽 1.198

1.198

三千威儀經云。出家行。有始終上中下業。下者。以十戒為本。盡形壽受持。雖捨家緣。執作與俗人等。中者應捨作務。具受八萬四千向道因緣。身口意業。未能具足。清淨。心結猶存。未能出離。比上不足。比下有餘也。上者根心猛利。應捨結使纏縛。禪定惠力。心得解脫。淨身口意。出於緣務煩惱之家。永處閑靜清涼之室。是名上等出家弟子。

The Sūtra of Three Thousand Dignified Manners states: "The practice of leaving the household has beginner and advanced, superior, middling, and inferior karma. The inferior take the ten precepts as fundamental, upholding them to the end of their bodily lives; although they have renounced household ties, their practical labor is equal to that of secular people. The middling should renounce practical duties, fully receiving the eighty-four thousand causes and conditions directed toward the Path; their bodily, verbal, and mental karmas are not yet fully purified, and inner knots still remain, so that they have not yet achieved liberation—compared to the superior they are deficient, but compared to the inferior they have surplus. The superior have sharp and forceful roots of mind, abandoning the fetters of the defilements; through the power of concentration and wisdom their minds attain liberation, purifying body, speech, and mind, leaving behind the house of conditional duties and afflictions, and abiding forever in the chamber of quiet and cool serenity. These are called superior disciples who have left the household."