What do you mean by four stages?

Four phases are also called four elephants. In the traditional culture of China, the four elephants refer to the blue dragon, white tiger, suzaku and Xuanwu, which represent left, right, left and right, or east, west, north and south respectively.

All promising methods have the four stages mentioned above, and the four stages themselves are promising methods, so there must be other ways to make them live, live, be different and be destroyed, that is, four aspects of life, live, be different and be destroyed, which is called being small with the phase. In contrast, being, being alive, being different and being extinct are called true nature and great nature. There must be nine methods for the formation of Gai Youwei's law, namely, the self-nature, four basic stages and four accompanying stages of law, all of which are indispensable at the same time.

Among them, the role of the four basic stages involves eight laws except itself; However, the role of the four followers is only related to the essence of each one, which is the so-called Bayi ability and Bayi function. This effect is persistent and can never go wrong.

Some people argue that birth, aging, illness and death are in an instant, so all four phases are in an instant, that is, six causes and four causes are combined into one, and they are not even gone when they are born. However, in the 38th volume of The Great Bodhisattva, the four stages recorded above are called instantaneous hope stage, detailed hope stage and victory over justice stage. On the other hand, the first stage continues to be a promising stage, which is called a promising stage, a rough stage and a secular stage, that is, a person's birth stage, a young person's life stage, a root's old age stage and his death stage when he dies.

Kitamoto's Nirvana Sutra 12 has four stages: life, old age, illness and death, which are called the first stage of four stages and four rough stages. 【 Hokkekyo Volume I, Shunzheng Theory Volume XIII, Abidharma Xianzong Record Volume VII 】