妙法蓮華經玄義 料簡

If everything can mutually embrace everything else, are boundaries still needed? The more things can mutually embrace, the more necessary it becomes to know from which perspective one is speaking.

The flower represents the provisional, but not every provisional must be broken in the same way. When a skillful means for transforming others is grasped as ultimate, like remaining in the grass hut, its obstruction must be broken. The provisional within one’s own practice still opens for the sake of the real. Taking both cause and fruit as the purport likewise does not establish two purports: cause accomplishes fruit, and fruit is accomplished through cause; they are one mutually fulfilling path.

Purport and function can both speak of provisional and real, wisdom and severance, self and other, yet their boundary does not lie in their words. The purport asks through what cause and fruit one’s own practice reaches the Buddha-fruit. Function asks which Dharma can benefit another person now. Even if a skillful means for transforming others cannot reach the ultimate in one step, it has effective power when it properly fits that person’s faculties.

The heart of resolving questions is not to be deceived by identical wording or to sever relationships through distinction. The five meanings obtain what is shared because they can read all scriptures in common; each scripture retains its own answer and therefore does not lose what is separate. Communication with boundaries does not confuse; distinction with communication does not fragment.

The fifth pass uses a succession of questions and answers to clarify the boundaries among the five chapters.

Someone asks: If the flower opens for the sake of the lotus fruit and flower and fruit are necessarily present together, does this not fall into the view that “the fruit already exists within the cause”? The answer is that the fruit’s original presence within the cause is the false Dharma represented by the old physician and was already broken by the initial teaching. It does not even reach the comparatively coarse meaning of provisional and real, much less the wondrous cause, wondrous fruit, and true milk of the new physician.

Another asks: The flower represents the provisional, and the provisional is a Dharma of the Lesser Vehicle that ought to be broken like the grass hut. Since the grass hut is broken, why is the flower still used to represent the provisional? The answer is that the Lesser Vehicle is a provisional means established for transforming others, and attachment to it must therefore be broken. What is discussed here is the provisional practiced in the practitioner’s own practice, and so the flower can still represent it.

Another asks: The scripture has seven similes from the burning house through the physician and his children, none of which explicitly speaks of the lotus. Why then is the lotus alone selected for the scripture’s title? The answer is that the seven similes each separately reveal a meaning and are therefore particular; the lotus generally embraces provisional and real and is therefore general. Raising the general simile embraces the seven particular similes, and the lotus is therefore placed at the head of the title.

Another asks: If all Dharmas are Buddha-Dharma, why exclude the provisional and take the real as the scripture’s substance? The answer is that viewed from opening the provisional to reveal the real, all Dharmas can become the substance. Viewed from relinquishing the provisional to reveal the real, the true mark adopted in the preceding passage is taken as the substance.

Another asks: Why take both cause and fruit as the purport? The answer is that only through cause can fruit be reached, while fruit is what the cause accomplishes. Viewed from what is able to accomplish, the cause is taken as the purport. Viewed from what is accomplished, the fruit is taken as the purport. The two meanings originally accomplish one another and one side cannot be taken alone. Moreover, the Trace and Origin sections of the scripture both teach cause and fruit, and both must therefore be taken as the purport.

Another asks: In discussing the purport, the cause and fruit used to transform others are excluded. Why, when discussing function, are the provisional and real of both one’s own practice and transforming others included? The answer is that the purport discusses the practitioner’s own practice and therefore excludes the other; function discusses benefiting others and therefore takes both self and other.

The question continues: Since function concerns transforming others, why does it also take the provisional and real of one’s own practice? The answer is that these are first used to benefit oneself and are also used to benefit others.

The interlocutor then turns the argument around: On this account, the purport should likewise include the cause and fruit of both one’s own practice and transforming others, and should therefore take the transformation of others. The answer is that the cause and fruit used to transform others cannot bring the practitioner to the Buddha’s awakening, and so they are not taken as the purport.

The interlocutor again turns the argument around: The provisional and real used to transform others likewise cannot directly bring others to the ultimate, so it would seem that they should not be taken as function either. The answer is that the other person’s faculties at that time require precisely this benefit, and it must therefore still be taken as function. Effective power is judged by whether it accords with the person and enables that person to benefit, not only by whether it reaches the ultimate in one step.

Another asks: The purport and function both speak of the virtue of wisdom and virtue of severance. How are they to be distinguished? The answer is that if one speaks only in terms of one’s own practice, the virtue of wisdom is the purport and the virtue of severance is function. If one also considers transforming others, both wisdom and severance in one’s own practice belong to the purport, while both wisdom and severance in transforming others belong to function. The same terms retain clear boundaries because their assignments differ.

Another asks: Why establish exactly five chapters rather than four or six? The answer is that even if four or six were established instead, people could continue asking why some other number was not used. This would fall into questioning without end, and such a question cannot reach the real meaning revealed by the five chapters.

Finally someone asks: Every scripture has a different intent. How can the same five meanings be used to explain all the scriptures in common? The answer is that if each scripture received only a separate explanation, one could obtain only differences and would not see their shared relationships. By discussing the five meanings explaining the name, discerning the substance, clarifying the purport, discussing the function, and classifying the teaching in common, one obtains a shared way of reading without losing the individual differences of each scripture.

Opening and Combining says that the five chapters can mutually embrace one another. Resolving Questions immediately presses on the places most likely to be confused. If the lotus has flower and fruit at the same time, does that mean the fruit already exists within the cause? If the provisional has been broken, why can the flower still represent it? If purport and function both speak of cause and fruit, provisional and real, and wisdom and severance, how do they avoid collapsing into a single chapter?

These questions do not dismantle what preceded them. They test whether it can withstand counterargument.

What Must First Be Excluded from the Lotus’s Provisional and Real?

Flower and fruit being simultaneous means only that wondrous cause and wondrous fruit correspond; it does not mean the fruit lies hidden in fixed form within the cause. If simultaneity is mistaken for preexistence, the lotus simile falls back into the false cause and fruit already broken. A simile can reveal a relationship; it cannot congeal that relationship into an entity.

The flower represents the provisional, but this does not mean every provisional must be broken in the same way. When the provisional Lesser Vehicle for transforming others is grasped as ultimate, like someone remaining in a grass hut, attachment to it must be broken. The provisional of one’s own practice guides the practitioner toward the real from within the practitioner’s substance and can still be revealed by the flower. The name is the same, but its assignment differs, and so does the judgment.

The seven particular similes do not each mention the lotus precisely because the lotus is the general simile. The burning house, poor son, medicinal herbs, conjured city, jewel tied in the garment, jewel on the crown, and physician and children each reveal one aspect. The lotus generally embraces all those aspects through provisional and real. The general is not an eighth particular simile; it is the headrope that allows the seven to be gathered together.

If the Substance Pervades All Dharmas, Why Exclude the Provisional and Take the Real?

To say that all Dharmas are Buddha-Dharma is to view them after the provisional has been opened and revealed. To say that the provisional is excluded and the real is taken as substance is to view them from no longer grasping the provisional as ultimate. The same provisional Dharma occupies a different place when it is being established, when it is opened and revealed, and when attachment to it is relinquished. If those three relationships are not distinguished and one clings only to “all are substance” or “this is not substance,” the question and answer cannot stand.

The substance’s pervading all Dharmas does not make every attachment the correct substance. Excluding attachment does not mean that the earlier skillful means never had a guiding function. The work of resolving questions is to let pervasion and exclusion stand together.

Why Take Cause and Fruit Together, and How Are Purport and Function Then Separated?

Cause can accomplish fruit, and fruit is accomplished through cause. If only cause is taken, its destination is unclear; if only fruit is taken, the way to it has no basis. The purport therefore takes both the cause and fruit of one’s own practice, not as two parallel purports but as one mutually accomplishing path.

Function does not ask what is most honored and essential, but which Dharma can benefit the faculties present. Even if a Dharma used to transform others cannot bring someone to the ultimate in one step, it still has effective power if it properly accords with that person’s needs. The purport asks how one’s own practice reaches the Buddha-fruit and therefore does not take the cause and fruit for transforming others when they cannot accomplish that fruit. Purport and function can both discuss wisdom and severance; their boundary lies in one’s own practice and transforming others, what is honored and what benefits, not in whether their surface vocabulary repeats.

The final two questions push the inquiry back onto the five chapters themselves. If four or six chapters were established instead, their number could still be questioned endlessly. The real answer is not a preference for a number but whether the five questions can read a scripture completely. The five meanings can be asked in common of all scriptures while their answers remain distinct. A shared approach does not flatten the differences among scriptures, and their differences do not abolish the shared approach.

Through the Eye of the Shiqian

Zhanran reads the first three sections together as distinguishing the name, then distinguishes substance and purport, connects the counterarguments on purport and function into one chain, and finally distinguishes the five chapters as a whole. This analysis keeps “another question” and the arguments turned back upon the respondent from being mistakenly divided into extra groups.

The mirror uses the fact that cause and fruit share their names but differ in timing and teaching to break the first doubt. It preserves the flower simile through the provisional of one’s own practice within the substance and gathers the seven particular similes into the general lotus meaning. The five groups on purport and function are judged together as properly distinguishing function while also revealing the purport. The final statement “obtaining what is shared without losing what is separate” answers precisely how the five meanings can explain in common without flattening differences.

Read through this analysis, the series of questions and answers is not a collection of scattered debates. Beginning with the simile in the title, it tests layer by layer the entire system of five chapters, preserving throughout both difference within what is shared and communication within what is distinct.