翻譯名義集 3.287

3.287

Ordinary mortals are sunken in delusion, swayed by external objects; their hearing does not transcend sound, and their sight does not go beyond color. Now scriptures and treatises are cited to enable them to penetrate sound and color. For example, the Da zhidu lun asks: "'The mind and mental factors are formless, so they can be called boundless. Matter has form and is visible; how can it be boundless?' Answer: 'There is no place where it does not exist; matter cannot be measured in terms of distance or weight. Just as the Buddha said that the four great elements have no place where they do not exist, hence they are called "great." One cannot grasp their limits with the five senses, nor measure their quantity or weight with pecks and balances; therefore, matter is said to be boundless. Furthermore, in the past of this matter, its beginning cannot be found; in the future, it cannot be exhausted even in kalpas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, therefore it has no latter bound. Since the beginning and latter bounds are absent, the middle is also absent. When there are no longer bounds, it is called the mark of matter; when this matter is analyzed and broken down, its boundaries cannot be found, and it has no intrinsic mark.'" Furthermore, the Mahāyāna Bao yan jing says: "Just as a painter draws the image of a ghost or spirit and immediately terrifies himself; so it is, Kāśyapa! All ordinary mortals create for themselves the phenomena of matter, sound, smell, taste, and tangibles, and cycle in birth and death in just the same way." Again, the Da zhidu lun states: "The Bodhisattva Mahāpramodya had this thought: 'Sentient beings are easy to deliver! Why is this? Because what sentient beings cling to is all deceptive and unreal.' For example, a person has a child who likes to play in filth, piling up earth as grain, and using grass and trees as birds and beasts, giving rise to attachment; if someone takes them away, he gets angry and cries. His father, knowing this, thinks: 'Although this child is now attached, it is easy to leave behind; when he grows up, he will naturally cease. Why is this? Because these things are not real.' The bodhisattva is also like this: seeing that the multitude is attached to the impure, foul body and the five desires, which are impermanent causes of various kinds of suffering. When such sentient beings complete the cultivation of the five faculties such as faith, they are immediately able to abandon them. If what the young child was attached to were truly real things, even if he reached the age of a hundred, his attachment would grow deeper and he could not leave it. Because all phenomena are empty, deceptive, and unreal, when one obtains the taintless, pure eye of wisdom, one can immediately leave behind what was clung to, feeling great shame. Just like a madman who performs improper acts, once awakened, he is full of shame and cannot show his face." We look forward to future sages contemplating matter as an illusion, holding no grasping or attachment toward internal and external sense realms.