止觀輔行傳弘決 3.61

3.61

Next, the contemplation of the essence of phenomena is explained. Practicing contemplation relying on the gates should also fully contain the three kinds of four gates; here it also follows the general, so it only speaks of four. From "this contemplation" onward, it directly evaluates it. Since it says that grasping arising in the various gates of both small and great is refuted entirely by means of illusion, we know it categorically belongs to the Mahāyāna. In the earlier small gate it was said that all graspings are contemplated as impermanent; here, since the Mahāyāna gate encompasses the three teachings, this means that the three teachings equally use illusion and transformation to refute attachments. If using the three contemplations to refute attachments differs, together with the preceding it forms four, fully identical in meaning to the tenth [method of] refuting views. From "if one attains" onward, is the reprimand and deprivation: attachment to the twelve gates of the three Mahāyāna teachings still requires the illusion-like identity with emptiness to refute it. From "it is never" onward, is the comparative refutation: Laozi and Zhuangzi do not even recognize the small vehicle's grasping agent and object grasped, nor its refuting agent and object refuted, let alone what is grasped or refuted in the Mahāyāna. Therefore it does not have the slightest similarity with the Buddha's Dharma. Yet worldly lecturers are deluded by names and marks, and reckless Chan practitioners are confused about the correct principle, wishing to equate the names "Dao and Virtue" (daode) and "Free and Easy Wandering" (xiaoyao) with the Buddhist teaching of liberation—how could that ever be possible? Wang Mu [or Muye] says: "Free and easy wandering means the sense of being harmonious, unimpeded, leisurely, and joyful. When the ultimate principle is internally sufficient, there is no time when one is not comfortable; letting go of conceptions to respond to things, wherever one goes, what is not unobstructed? Roaming the world by means of this is called free and easy wandering." He also says: "The principle has no obscurity, being freely appropriate; forms have neither great nor small, being distantly and equally accommodated; hence it is called free and easy wandering. Yet they do not know what constitutes the principle, what constitutes forms, what afflictions are forgotten, or what world is roamed." Therefore we know that since the teachings are not equal, the persons can also be distinguished. Setting aside the Dharma and reward bodies to compare only by the response body, superiority and inferiority differ as heaven and earth, and right and wrong are forever separated. How can renouncing the position of a gold-wheel-turning sage king be compared to grudgingly clinging to the petty office of an archivist? How can a sixteen-foot golden body with radiant marks and signs be compared to the ordinary appearance of a six-foot frame? The boundless extraordinary marks cannot be detailed fully, just as Li Zhongqing composed *Ten Differences and Nine Delusions* to denigrate the Buddha's Dharma, and Nanshan composed *Ten Analogies and Nine Admonitions* to manifest false teachings. Now five are briefly stated to discern the heterodox from the orthodox. First: Lord Lao went against the ordinary, emerging prematurely by relying on a shepherd girl; the World-Honoured One conformed to transformation, being born relying on a holy mother. Second: Laozi had birth and death, fearing the birth of mortal suffering and thus incurring a white head; Śākyamuni manifested traces showing birth and showing death, returning to the extinction of peaceful cessation, and thus radiated a golden body. Third: Chong'er (Laozi) took physical form and resided in the bitter district (Kuxian) of Chenzhou; the Capable and Benevolent One descended his traces and appeared in the divine continent of the Eastern Xia (India viewed relatively / the eastern lands). Fourth: Boyang occupied the post of a petty official, unworthily serving as an archive clerk, neither living during the days of King Wen nor serving as master to the thriving Zhou; the Sage (Muni) held the rank of crown prince, his person realizing extraordinary nobility, flourishing in the prime years of King Zhao and becoming the religious master of Jambudvīpa. Fifth: The Li clan hid three times and appeared three times, with no canonical teachings to rely upon; even if granting roughly five hundred years, he would still be ashamed before the lifespan of tortoises and cranes; the Dharma King had one life and one extinction, manifesting a form like atomic dust, and in eighty years expounded teachings to assemblies like the sands of the Ganges. All such comparisons are indeed numerous, as fully detailed in the *Zhenzheng lun* in distinguishing orthodoxy. The *Xiaodao lun*, the *Xinjing*, and the *Poxie lun* refute the two heterodox teachings, and treatises like *Mouzi* explain the extraordinary marks at length. Even now we still see degenerate fellows who still say that both are members of the renunciant order, so why should there be this and that to judge right and wrong? Regarding "differing vastly as a firefly and the sun": when attachment arises in the perfect gate, the attached mind does not even enter the ranks of small sages, and is still refuted by the existence gate of the Tripiṭaka; how much more so the vulgar and base viewpoints of Zhuangzi and Laozi, which wish to match the perfect principle of the Buddha's Dharma—like a firefly facing the sun, or a mountain compared to a fine hair. The *Dapin* says: "Voice-hearers are like fireflies; bodhisattvas are like the sunlight." Now borrowing this to compare with Laozi and Zhuangzi is already excessively generous. Regarding "the mountain and the hair are forever severed": the chapter "On the Equalization of Things" says: "Nothing is larger than the tip of an autumn hair, and Mount Tai is small." Now without adopting their manner of equalizing things, we borrow the phrase that large and small are forever severed, hence saying "mutually severed." Regarding "saying of himself that his way is true" and so forth: when Kāśyapa saw the Buddha display great spiritual transformations, he already knew internally that the Buddha's power was difficult to fathom, yet he still made false claims to arrogantly surpass him, saying: "Although Gautama has spiritual powers, he is not as true as my way." Can such perversions not be refuted? In the causal background of Kāśyapa, it is as fully detailed in the Vinaya texts and the *Ruiying jing*.