..续本文上一页his own mind, he is said to have attained Buddha-knowledge. I am afraid, Sir, that with the exception of those gifted with superior mental dispositions, others may doubt your remark. Further, the Sutra mentions three kinds of carts: goat carts (the vehicle of disciples); deer carts (for Arahats); and bullock

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　　carts (for Bodhisattvas). How are these to be distinguished from the White Bullock carts of the Buddhas

　　 Will you please tell me)"

　　The Patriarch replied: "The Sutra is quite plain on this point; it is you who fail to understand it. The reason why disciples, Arahats and Bodhisattvas fail to comprehend Buddha-knowledge is because they speculate about it (with their thinking mind which is limited and polluted); they may combine their efforts, but the more they speculate the farther they are from Truth. (Buddha-knowledge is to be realised within, not thought about as though it was something external.) It was not to Buddhas but to ordinary men that Buddha Gautama preached this Sutra. You do not seem to appreciate that since we are already riding in the White Bullock cart of the Buddhas, that there is no necessity for us to look for other vehicles. Moreover, the Sutra plainly teaches that there is only the one Buddha vehicle; that there are no others, no second, no third. It is because there is only one vehicle that Buddha had to preach to us with innumerable skillful means such as various reasons and argument, various parables and illustrations, etc. Do you not understand that the other three vehicles are makeshifts, useful for the past only; while the sole vehicle, the Buddha vehicle, is for the present because it is ultimate

　　"The Sutra teaches to dispense with the makeshifts and depend on the ultimate. Having resorted to the ultimate, you will find that even the very name ”ultimate” disappears. You should appreciate that you are the sole owner of these treasures and that they are entirely subject to your disposal. (This is in allusion to

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　　another Parable, the Buddhist Prodigal Son, in the Sutra.) But moreover, it is not until you are able to free yourself from the arbitrary conceptions that there are any treasures belonging to the Father or to the son, or subject to so and so”s disposal, that you really know the right way to recite the Sutra. When you so understand it, the Sutra will be in your hand from eternity to eternity, and from morning to midnight you will be reciting the Sutra all the time."

　　* * *

　　Being thus awakened, Fat-tat praised the Patriarch in a transport of joy with the following stanza:--

　　"The delusion that I had attained great merit by reciting the Sutra three thousand times

　　Is all dispelled by a single utterance of the Master of Tso-kai.

　　He who has not yet under-stood the object of the Buddha”s incarnation

　　Is unable to suppress the wild passions accumulated in many lives.

　　The three vehicles are makeshifts only;

　　And the three stages in which the scholars expound the Dharma are ingeniously spoken, indeed;

　　But how few appreciate that it is within the burning house itself

　　That the Truth of Dharma is to be found."

　　The Patriarch then told him that before he had rebuked him for being a "sutra-reciting monk," but that hereafter he would praise him for the same reason. After that interview, Fat-tat was able to grasp the profound meaning of Buddhism, and yet he continued to recite the Sutra as before.

　　p. 285

　　THE MONK, SHI-TONG, a native of Shau-chow of An-fung, had read over the Lankavatara Sutra nearly a thousand times, but could not understand the meaning of the Trikaya nor the four Prajnas. One day he called upon the Patriarch for an explanation of them.

　　"As to the ”Three Bodies,”" explained the Patriarch, "The Pure Dharmakaya is your nature, The Perfect Sambhogakaya is your wi…

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