3
Three
一
One
緣門問曰、凡夫有身、亦見聞覚知、聖人有身、亦見聞覚知。中有何異。
A question from the Gate of Conditions: Ordinary people have a body and can see, hear, sense, and know. The sages also have a body and can see, hear, sense, and know. What is the difference between them?
答曰、凡夫眼見耳聞、身覚意知。聖人即不爾。見非眼見、乃至知非意知。何以故、過根量故也。
They answered: Ordinary people see with their eyes, hear with their ears, feel with their bodies, and know with their minds. But enlightened beings are not like this. Their seeing is not seeing with the eyes, and even their knowing is not knowing with the mind. Why is this? Because they have gone beyond the limits of the senses.
二
Second.
問曰、何故経中復說聖人無見聞覚知者、何。
Question: Why do the scriptures also say that the sage has no seeing, hearing, sensing, or knowing? What does this mean?
答曰、聖人無凡夫見聞覚知、非無聖境界。非有無所攝、離分別故也。
They answered: The sage has no ordinary person's seeing, hearing, sensing, or knowing — yet it is not that they lack a sage's realm. It is beyond both existence and non-existence, because it is free from all discrimination.
三
Three
問曰、凡夫実有凡境界耶。
Question: Do ordinary people truly have an ordinary person's realm?
答曰、実無妄有、本來寂滅。但被虚妄計著、即生顛倒也。
They answered: Ultimately, there is no such thing as a false, illusory existence—it is originally still and quiescent, beyond all fabrication. It is only because of illusory attachments and fixations that distortion arises.
四
Four
問曰、我不解、若為聖見非眼見、聖知非意知。
Question: I don't understand. How can noble seeing be seeing without the eye, and noble knowing be knowing without the mind?
答曰、法体難見、譬況可知。如彼玄光鑒物、如照所照、非有能照之眼。又如陰陽候物、似知所知、非有能知之意也。
The nature of Dharma is hard to see, but it can be understood through analogy. It is like a subtle light that illuminates things — there is only the illuminated object, no seeing eye that does the illuminating. It is also like the forces of yin and yang observing things — there is only the known object, no knowing mind that does the knowing.