佛祖統紀 39.46

39.46

鎧菴曰。傅奕以小人之資。一旦上書謗佛毀教。當時群臣皆所不取。獨高祖薄信迷其說。今觀傅奕之疏沙汰之詔。不過謂遊手竊食。苟避征徭而已。嘻學聖道以求出世間。敷慈化以贊理天下。明善惡之應以警昏俗。窮性命之旨以悟真修。斯學佛者之大效。其與儒家者流將並行而不悖。豈當以征夫徭卒之賤而望之者哉。或曰。學佛之士多自農出。反而止之。所以厚農俗也。不然今夫田家之子。致身科第者。豈得而止之耶。矧夫佛道多容不問愚智。若指其庸鄙以蔽諸賢俊。比子厚誚退之忿其外而違其中。是知石而不知韞玉也。今名為儒。而資小人者固多矣。未聞以為者不善而遽欲廢周孔之教。然則出家而庸鄙者。人材之未至。非佛道之咎也。

Kai'an states: Fu Yi was of the disposition of a petty person. When he suddenly submitted a memorial slandering the Buddha and defaming the teaching, all the court ministers at the time rejected it; only Gaozu, weak in faith, was misled by his words. Now looking at Fu Yi's memorial and the edict on purging [the clergy], they amounted to nothing more than claiming [monks] idle their hands, steal food, and illicitly evade corvée and labor. Alas! To study the holy path to seek transcendence from the world, to spread compassionate transformation to assist in ordering all under heaven, to illuminate the retribution of good and evil to warn the unenlightened masses, and to fathom the principles of nature and life to realize true cultivation—these are the great effects of those who study the Buddha. How could they conflict with the stream of Confucianism, when both advance together? How could one judge them with the lowliness of corvée laborers and conscripts! Someone might say, 'Most people who study the Buddha come from farming backgrounds; to turn them back and stop them is precisely to strengthen agrarian customs.' Not so. When the sons of farming households today achieve ranks in the civil service examinations, can they be stopped? Moreover, the Buddhist way is broadly accommodating, regardless of whether one is foolish or wise. If one points to the mediocre and vulgar among them to obscure all the virtuous and eminent, it is like Zihou reproaching Tuizhi for being angry at the exterior while violating the interior—this is knowing the stone while being unaware of the jade within it. Today, many are called Confucians yet have the disposition of petty people; we have not heard that because practitioners are unvirtuous one should immediately wish to abolish the teachings of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius. Thus, that there are mediocre and vulgar people among the clergy is due to the inadequacy of individual talent, not the fault of the Buddhist way.