大乘百法明門論開宗義記 1.2

1.2

Now, omniscient comprehensive illumination merges paramārtha and saṃvṛti at the source of the mind; profound compassion widespreadly imbues, delivering the partial and complete [teachings] into streams of speech. Truly, this is because nature and characteristics further converge, with the ten thousand dharmas returning to a single Suchness; text and meaning mutually harmonize, with the eightfold pitaka galloping through the fourfold unhindered eloquence. How could emptiness and existence follow divergent ruts? How could the broad and the concise take different paths? Those who fathom their origin will surely share the same taste as the hundred rivers; those who get stuck on their branches vie in diverging into the five slanders. Therefore, the Hīnayāna drifted into existence, and the attachments of the Sarvāstivāda sect multiplied profusely; the ultimate truth drowned in emptiness, and disputations over emptiness arose in abundance. Still driven by delusive objects, they had not yet crossed the dark road; vainly facing the wind of truth, they were fruitlessly moistened by the rain of Dharma. Therefore, our [Bodhisattva] of the next life, Maitreya, broadly proclaimed the Yogācāra[-bhūmiśāstra], blocking the gates of the two views and opening the single, true path. However, because its principles are comprehensive and its phenomena vast, its purport scattered and its words immensely extensive, earlier practitioners grew weary of transmitting and circulating it, while subsequent aspirants were exhausted by pursuing its study. Thereupon there was a Bodhisattva named Vasubandhu, whose rank reached the pinnacle of the three stages of worthies and whose virtue bordered on the ten stages of sages. He composed a thousand treatises, his renown towering over the five Indias; wonderfully tallying with the Buddha's mind, he elegantly upheld the recorded preachings. Feeling compassion for the worldly fortunes and degenerate age with its shallow roots and feeble capacities, [where people] fear the ocean of Dharma and remain alienated forever, or shrink from the mountain of doctrine and are permanently obstructed, he thereupon gathered the essence from the extensive texts and tied together the cardinal tenets in a concise treatise, enticing those of beginning capacities by compiling this short treatise. Desiring to cause them to linger in the ultimate teaching and be gradually imbued with the true doctrine, he pointed out to those who had lost their way the direction to return, and guided the weary travelers onto a shortcut. First, he clarifies the existence of the hundred dharmas; later, he reveals the emptiness of the two selves. The beginning and end mutually illumine, and origin and outcome reflect one another. Extreme attachments having been dispelled, the middle contemplation is inaugurated; waves of consciousness thereby diminish into insignificance, and the source of truth depends on it to become clear and expansive. Utmost indeed is the profound purport of this treatise! As for initially entitling it "Mahāyānadharmasatadharmamukhaśāstra", it presents the superior benefit of the doctrine upheld, and establishes the common name of its own division. Furthermore, saying "Briefly Recording the Names and Numbers from the Vastusaṃgrahaṇī", it marks the exceptional reliance from which the treatise arose, and distinguishes it from the specific titles of different expositions. "Mahāyāna" is an exalted appellation based on broad conveyance; "hundred dharmas" manifests the name based on the number of entities; "gateway to understanding" has opening wisdom as its function; "treatise" is a designation for exposition and debate. "Vastusaṃgrahaṇī" investigates the ultimate nature of dharmas; "from the" refers to the doctrinal division of the relevant section; "briefly recording" means suppressing those redundant words; "names and numbers" refers to presenting these key outlines. Used to manifest the elegant purport, this grand title was established. Therefore it is said: "Mahāyānadharmasatadharmamukhaśāstra: Briefly Recording the Names and Numbers from the Vastusaṃgrahaṇī".