Chapter5(Revealing that no one can attain Buddhahood by practicing provisional teachings)
Therefore, if one practices the Tripitaka teaching, thinking that after three asamkhyas and a hundred major kalpas, one may in the end become a Buddha, then one must generate fire from one’s body, “reducing the body to ashes and entering extinction,” and thus destroy oneself. If one practices the connecting teaching, thinking to become a Buddha after seven asamkhyas and a hundred major kalpas, then likewise, as in the previous case, one must reduce the body to ashes and enter extinction, and thus destroy oneself, leaving no trace or form behind.
And if one practices the specific teaching, thinking to become a Buddha after twenty-two great asamkhyas and a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand kalpas, this is to become a Buddha of the provisional teachings in the dream realm of birth and death. Seen in the light of the waking state of the original enlightenment of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddhahood of the specific teaching is not true Buddhahood but a goal achieved in a realm of dreams. Thus the path outlined in the specific teaching can never lead to true Buddhahood.
In the path to enlightenment set forth in the specific teaching, when one reaches the first of the ten stages of development, one for the first time to a certain degree cuts off ignorance and begins to gain understanding to a certain degree into the principle of the Middle Way. But when one does so, one realizes that the specific teaching presents the three truths as separate entities not fused together. One thereupon shifts to the perfect teaching, becoming a believer in the perfect teaching, and thus no longer remains in the category of those who embrace the specific teaching.
Those who pursue the bodhisattva path may be divided into superior, middling, and inferior in terms of capacity. But anyone who is in the first of the ten stages of development, the second stage, the third stage, and so on up to the stage of near-perfect enlightenment, is a person of the perfect teaching. Therefore, in the system outlined in the specific teaching there is in fact no real attainment of Buddhahood. Hence it is called a system in which the teaching regarding the goal exists but no example of anyone who has reached it.
Therefore An Essay on the Protection of the Nation states: “The Buddha of the reward body, which exists depending on causes and conditions, represents a provisional result obtained in a dream, while the Buddha eternally endowed with the three bodies represents the true Buddha from the time before enlightenment.” (The former represents the Buddha gained through practice of the first three of the four teachings, and the latter, the Buddha perceived through observation of the mind described in the last of the four teachings, the perfect teaching.)
And the same text states: “The three bodies as they are expounded in the provisional teachings are not free from impermanence. But the three bodies as expounded in the true teaching are endowed with both entity and function.” (The former represents the Buddha gained through practice of the first three of the four teachings, and the latter, the Buddha perceived through observation of the mind described in the last teaching, the perfect teaching.)
One should make certain that one clearly understands the meaning of these passages of commentary.
The provisional teachings represent a difficult and arduous method of practice in which one only occasionally attains Buddhahood. And that is a provisional Buddhahood in a realm of dreams; viewed from the standpoint of the waking state of original enlightenment, it is not true Buddhahood. And if such a path cannot lead one to the Buddhahood that represents the highest goal or reward, then it is a system in which the teaching exists but no example of anyone who has fulfilled it.
How can such a teaching be called true? To adopt and attempt to carry out such a teaching is to mistake the true nature of the sacred teachings of the Buddha.