英語訳
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This is why I admire and long for the Chan school. Please no longer find this strange.
That which can reveal the secret ultimate of the Tathāgata's great compassion, applies the different skillful means of despising the impure and delighting in the pure, causes the three realms to bid farewell through this, points to directions and establishes characteristics to open the gate of great meaning, enables the five vehicles to enter equally from this point, where Buddha's power provides protection like the moon reflecting in water, where sincere devotion creates resonance transforming iron into gold, pointing to this direct path and showing this essential gate to enable sentient beings of the turbid world with heavy obstacles to quickly enter non-regression and suddenly transcend myriad eons of cultivation - nothing surpasses the advocacy of the Pure Land masters.
What truly corrupts this teaching through "simplicity" is this emotional notion of simplicity, not the Buddha-patriarch's simplicity. One should pay deep attention to the sincere teaching that "though easy to reach, no one goes there."
That which analyzes and distinguishes between transformative and regulatory teachings to establish the constant standards for the seven groups, distributes prohibitions and prescriptions to show the great foundation of communal practices, raises up the three practices and extracts the essentials from the extensive vinaya, expounds and clarifies all vehicles to spread benefit among all categories of beings, vigorously reviving the pure source of balanced cultivation of the three studies, purely opening and proclaiming the mysterious gate of the dual operation of śamatha and vipaśyanā, with antidotes in proper sequence growing from small to great - like felling a tree by first cutting the branches to make the roots gradually decay, true cultivation climbs step by step from bottom to top, analogous to climbing a five-story tower which must begin from the first level - that which recovers the ancient path of the four reliances and noble eightfold path in the age of semblance dharma is most perfectly found in what Master Nanshan took as his foundation.
Someone asks: What Nanshan composed was generally just explanations of the vinaya. As for discussing the path of concentration and wisdom, we haven't heard much. Doesn't today's praise differ greatly from that school? Answer: Your question arises entirely from not understanding the Nanshan school. This will be clarified at the appropriate time.
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The six schools mentioned above, though their gateways have great differences, in their inner sanctums the flavors of principle all converge. It's like medical treatment of illness - the medicinal formulas are not uniform. There are warming, supplementing, nourishing and moistening formulas; there are cooling and attacking formulas; there are gentle regulating formulas. Supplementing, purging, warming and cooling are used or discarded according to the illness; sovereign, minister, assistant and envoy [ingredients] change according to the prescription. Though the prescriptions have many differences, when it comes to the function of treating illness and nourishing life, there is no superiority or inferiority at all. Therefore, those who give medicine and those who take medicine should only carefully examine the authenticity of the medicinal substances, the quality of the compounding, and the appropriateness of medicine to illness. One should not fixate on [judgments like] "this medicine is good medicine, that medicine is not good medicine, this formula is acceptable, that formula is unacceptable," etc. The doctrinal meanings of all schools are also like this. Students should immediately discard biased attachments and delusory thoughts like "this school is wonderful and lofty, that school is coarse and base," and only deeply refine [their judgment of] whether their capacity matches the teaching, whether understanding and practice accord with the true dharma, etc. If one can think and observe in this way, forging day by day and refining month by month, then even if one doesn't reach enlightenment, this person will achieve mundane understanding without losing their status as a Buddhist disciple.
Among the ten schools, why do I raise only six schools without presenting the other four? The other four schools are not practiced in the world today. Moreover, Abhidharmakośa and Satyasiddhi are Hinayāna schools - teachings of personal emptiness. Madhyamaka and Yogācāra are the initial gate of Mahayāna - teachings of dharma emptiness. If one takes these two emptiness teachings as skillful means for Mahayāna ultimate teachings, then they are most wonderful. To take these teachings as ultimate is contrary to principle.
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However, in establishing schools and transmitting lineages in the age of semblance dharma, one must necessarily use elevation and suppression as the vanguard. If one were to propagate those four schools nowadays, wouldn't the veneration of sectarian sentiments necessarily give rise to the fault of elevating the small while suppressing the great, praising the provisional while denigrating the ultimate? Should we not fear following the mistaken path of Vimalamitta, Śuddhamitra and Jingang? Reflecting on this, one can understand why those four schools should not be practiced in the final age.
Question: That elevating small over great and suppressing ultimate with provisional should be feared is naturally so. But if followers of the six schools cling to the ultimate while destroying the provisional and small, wouldn't this also be a fault? Answer: Those who use the ultimate to attack the provisional and small also commit grave error. However, among those six schools, those who grasp the correct essence can use the ultimate to generate the provisional and small, while provisional and small can complete the ultimate. Provisional and ultimate support each other and are inseparable, like the śāla and khadira trees - how could one destroy and attack them? When those who fall into biased attachment use the ultimate to destroy and attack the provisional and small, this is the fault of those who cling to teachings, not an error of the school-vehicles themselves.
Question: That all six schools' establishments are wonderful gates for embracing beings - I deeply understand this principle. But I'm not clear on how the six schools are established. I would be grateful to hear their essential points. Answer: The doctrinal meanings of the six schools are lofty, distant, vast and great - how could they be easily explained? Looking back at ancient discussions of eight or ten schools, they are extremely crude and shallow. Moreover, later transmission has produced various distortions, eroding the truth of the original schools. If we leave this without clarification, we will ultimately cause the correct intent of buddhas and patriarchs to be extinguished beyond recovery. Therefore I take up the brush with determination to outline their general features for the study and refinement of beginning students. What are the six schools? They are: first, Huayan school; second,
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Tiantai school; third, Maṇḍala school; fourth, Chan school; fifth, Pure Land school; sixth, Nanshan Vinaya school.
First, the Huayan school: I will now divide this into five sections for explanation. What are the five? First, briefly describing the patriarchal lineage; second, Huayan doctrinal characteristics; third, Huayan sectarian aims; fourth, the scope of vehicle-teachings; fifth, cultivational entry into the dharma realm.
First, briefly describing the patriarchal lineage: In the Sui dynasty there was Master Dushun Dixin. His spiritual wisdom was outstanding; he awakened to the Huayan dharma realm and composed the Five Teachings and Three Contemplations, expounding the One Vehicle dependent origination and ten mysterious gates. Though his written words were merely several dozen lines, their purport contained inexhaustible principle. The so-called Five Teachings Śamatha-Vipaśyanā are: first, the gate of dharmas existing but no-self - this is Hinayāna teaching; second, the gate of birth being non-birth - this is Mahayāna initial teaching; third, the gate of perfect fusion of phenomena and principle - this is Mahayāna final teaching; fourth, the gate of dual extinction of words and contemplation - this is Mahayāna sudden teaching; fifth, the Huayan samādhi gate - this is One Vehicle perfect teaching. The so-called Three Contemplations are: first, true emptiness absolute characteristic contemplation; second, unobstructed phenomena and principle contemplation; third, universal encompassing contemplation. The Five Teachings use teachings to show śamatha-vipaśyanā; the Three Contemplations use principle to manifest mind-contemplation. They mutually embrace each other and principle returns to one essence. This is entirely the wisdom-seal of the great Huayan teaching ocean. The Huayan school's essential plan had its origins here. The Venerable Zhixiang Yan had long studied the teaching-vehicle of Buddhatrāta and Guṇaśrī, deeply explored the mysterious profundities of this sutra, and also received the dharma from Dixin, further investigating the secret depths of the dharma realm. Moreover, he received instruction from an extraordinary monk, engaged in concentrated contemplation, and greatly awakened to the six characteristics of Indra's net. Later he composed the Huayan Exploration of Mysteries Record, Essential Meanings Chapter, etc., to develop and promote this school. The wonderful intent of the One Vehicle's sameness and difference was established here; the profound meaning of five teachings and ten mysteries became brilliant here. National Master Fazang of Xianshou, endowed from long ago with spiritual faculties, cultivated the Way on Great White Mountain, eating [bark and] wood for several years,