On the Importance of the “Expedient Means” and “Life Span” Chapters—Chapter6

———————————-（contimued from Chapter5)————————————-

The founders of the Flower Garland and True Word schools, Fa-tsang, Ch’eng-kuan, Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, Pu-k’ung, and the others, stole the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life from the “Life Span” chapter, the heart of all the sacred teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha’s lifetime, and then claimed that this doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life was to be found in the Flower Garland and Mahāvairochana sutras, the sutras that their own schools were founded on and which had never from the beginning ever contained such a doctrine. And the scholars of later ages, deceived by these thieves, firmly believe that what they say is true. What foolishness, what foolishness!

As a result of all this, the teachers of the True Word school state, “[The Buddhist teachers of China] vied with one another to steal the ghee [of True Word] and claim that it is the possession of their own school.”¹¹ Or they say that the attainment of Buddhahood by persons of the two vehicles and the attainment of Buddhahood in the remote past described in the Lotus Sutra belong to the region of darkness, but the doctrines set forth in the Mahāvairochana Sutra represent the realm of enlightenment.¹² And the Flower Garland teachers say that the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life set forth in the Lotus Sutra is a mere branch or leaf; the doctrine as expounded in the Flower Garland Sutra is the root, the original doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life.¹³

Statements such as these represent erroneous views that have no ground or basis to support them. If anyone claims that the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life is to be found in the True Word and Flower Garland sutras, he is merely playing with words. How ridiculous! Such a doctrine has no more reality than turtle fur or rabbit horns!

——————————–（continued to Chapter7)——————————————-