國清百錄 3.5

3.5

Your disciple Zongchi pays homage. Regarding the two monasteries in Jingzhou, Yuquan and Shizhu, as you recently granted an order to inspect and administer them, letters must now be sent to the Area Commander-in-Chief of Jiangling so as to instruct the relevant officials to ultimately heed the monk emissaries, whether with leniency or urgency. Your disciple respectfully received the pure precepts; through conditions from past lives, I have slightly aspired toward doctrinal principles, and through your wisdom-pāramitā, you condescended to grant your permission. You have just begun composing the Commentary on the Meaning, and I am relying on your enlightening guidance as I enter the gate of wisdom. In years past, I respectfully asked you to go occasionally to Qixia; looking at the government's administration, it is intimately close, and departing in the morning and arriving in the evening, decisions could be consulted upon without being different from dwelling in the city. The practice of the Way fundamentally values pacifying the mind; why labor to go too far? Regarding the road to Tiantai, I fortunately hope you will set aside that wish. Bending oneself for the sake of others is what a bodhisattva grants; I dare not contravene our exclusive accord. Previously, I did not know at all that the pure persons' good intentions had already placed them among the sangha; deliverance knows no barriers, and I can only rejoice in it. Respectfully paying homage. Twenty-seventh day of the seventh month.