大乘起信論略述 2.72

2.72

[Treatise:] What are the two? ... because they cannot fully know it.
[Exposition:] The explanation below has two parts: first, directly revealing the characteristics of function; second, question and answer to resolve doubts. In the first there are also two: first, directly revealing the characteristics of function; second, taking them up again to distinguish them. In the first there are also two: first, clarifying the nirmāṇakāya, and then the sambhogakāya. This is the first. Ordinary persons and the two vehicles, giving rise to mind and conceptualizing, see the Buddha by relying on the conceptualizing object-discriminating consciousness. This consciousness does not know that all objects are mind-only, but grasps at external objects. Ordinary persons and the two vehicles, not having freed themselves from this consciousness, see the Buddha's body; relying on this coarse consciousness to conceptualize the Buddha's body, they see only the coarse physical characteristics of the nirmāṇakāya, not seeing the subtle physical characteristics of the sambhogakāya. Therefore, what is seen by the small mind is called the nirmāṇakāya. The passage below from 'because they do not know' explains the reason they see the coarse: the Buddha-characteristics they see are all manifested by the evolving consciousness of the ālayavijñāna. That is, due to the perfuming power of the object-discriminating consciousness that disdains suffering, aspires to cessation, and vows to seek to see the Buddha, relying on the manifesting consciousness of the evolving consciousness, pure and superior objects of the Buddha's body are manifested. These persons do not know that the evolving consciousness manifests the Buddha, but think the Buddha comes externally from Tuṣita Heaven. They do not realize that form itself is entirely mind without boundaries; grasping at form as separate from mind, they seize upon boundaries of the Buddha's body as having only a sixteen-foot physical appearance. Because they cannot know that bounded form is precisely boundless, it is said that they 'do not fully know.'