出三藏記集 9.79

9.79

Since the ultimate teaching responded to the world, it differed from the mundane; the spiritual Way saves creatures, giving rise to differences in response to capacities. East of the Xuanpu Garden it is called the Great One; west of Kapiśa it is named the Rightly Awakened One. The eastern country clarifies misfortune and blessing within a single century; the western regions discern good and bad fortune across the three times. Longing for non-being and cultivating emptiness share the same principle. If one has desire for non-being, one lacks the lot to attain non-being; if one directs the mind to emptiness, how could one have the illumination that enters emptiness? Yet those who lecture on and seek the Buddhist teachings either say that union with principle may be gradual, or say that entry into emptiness must be sudden. Let us attempt to speak of this to serve as a fish-trap for profound lodging. Those who maintain gradualism hold that the accomplishment of all things is invariably gradual: solid ice begins with treading on frost; a nine-tiered tower is built by piling up earth. When a practitioner enters emptiness, though not yet fully in tally, it is like felling a tree: remove an inch and an inch is gone, remove a foot and a foot is gone. Climbing gradually through the three types of emptiness, how could it not be gradual? Those who maintain suddenness hold that the merit of seeking the good is surpassed by nothing more than contemplating the dharmatā. The dharmatā arises from conditions and is neither existent nor non-existent. Forgetting deliberate thought in neither existence nor non-existence, when principle and illumination become this one, that is termed understanding emptiness. If one fixes the mind on neither existence nor non-existence, so that object and cognition remain two, one has not escaped from existence. When fetters are suppressed within existence, there is not a lack of proof of daily reduction; yet when examining the mind on emptiness, there is not yet the efficacy of entering principle. To say that an arhat is admitted at a single hearing, or that the non-arising is settled in a single morning, are words of accommodation, not expressions that accord with the real. That wondrous attainment is not gradual is in principle necessarily so. Since the two discourses part ways and the two opinions contend, one discarding and one adopting without either being settled, we find that the master who grasped the essential meaning began with Zhi Daolin and Shi Dao'an. Zhi Gong's discourse on the non-arising took the seventh stage as the sufficient concealment of wisdom; at the tenth stage, one's ability extends to all directions; in traces these differ, but in terms of illumination they are one. Dao'an's discrimination of differences held that contemplating the three vehicles is the cause of initial deficiency, while praising concentration and wisdom is the reality of final accomplishment. In this record, it is held that initial seeking can accord with capacities, but once entered into understanding, wisdom is non-dual. Parables also state: once the great adversity is quelled, there are no longer three; once the perilous road is passed, the conjured city vanishes. This means calling the one three; it is evident that there are not three awakenings. Sengdao said: the limbs of the Way can reach nirvāṇa, but are not the name of the arhat; the six pāramitās can reach the Buddha, but are not the so-called tree king. In the analogy of cutting wood, because the wood remains, feet and inches can be gradual; but in the realization of the non-arising, because birth is exhausted, its illumination must be sudden. Examining the nominal teachings of the three vehicles, they all take the exhaustion of birth and the cessation of illumination, discarding existence and entering emptiness, as the Way; one must not take models from material vessels. Now, the Wuliangyi jing also takes marklessness as its foundation. If what is realized were truly different, how could it be called marklessness? If entry and illumination must be identical, how could it be said to be gradual? Saying it is gradual when it is not gradual is merely the provisional teaching of a secret trap. The Tathāgata also said: an empty fist deceives a little child; with this he saves living beings. Using subtle text to accommodate the coarse, the gradual exposition may be fitting; but forgetting the images to grasp the meaning, the sudden principle is superior. I have merely presented the general outline; let those who discuss it choose.