禪林寶訓 4.41

4.41

Zide said, "Chan Master Dazhi specially created the pure regulations to assist and rescue the bhikṣus of the final age from their abuses of unrighteousness. From this, former worthies complied with and respectfully upheld them; there was instruction and transformation, orderliness, and a beginning and end. At the end of the Shaoxing era, in the monastic groves there were still mature elders who could maintain the standards and models, not daring to leave them aside for an instant. In recent years, because of seeking, they have lost their ancestral thread: the main rope is not a rope, and the regulating cords are not regulating cords; even if there are regulating cords, how can they be set right? Therefore it is said: 'Lift one main rope, and the myriad meshes open; slacken one mechanism, and myriad affairs fall.' When the regulating cords are not invigorated, the monastic grove does not flourish. The ancients only embodied the root to correct the branches; they only worried that the rules and measures were not strict, not that students would lose their place. What made them correct lay in impartiality. Now the masters of the various quarters mix the private with the public, and use the branches to correct the root; those above carelessly pursue profit not through the Way, and those below plunder profit not through righteousness. Superiors and inferiors are in error and chaos, host and guest are confused. How can patch-robed monks tend toward correctness and the monastic grove flourish?" (Letter to Vice Minister You)