佛祖統紀 42.36

42.36

In the fifth year, an imperial decree ordered that during national days of mourning when offering incense throughout the prefectures and commanderies of the realm, alcohol and meat must not be carried into monasteries. Hongbian of Jianfu Monastery in the capital was summoned to an audience. The Emperor asked, 'What is sudden seeing? What is called gradual cultivation?' He answered, 'Suddenly understanding one's own nature makes one a peer of the Buddha. Yet because there are beginningless defiling habits, one relies on gradual cultivation as an antidote to cause one to initiate functioning in accord with one's nature. It is like a person eating: one does not become full from a single mouthful.' The Emperor was pleased, and bestowed on him the title Chan Master Yuanzhi. In the sixth month, the capital scholar Sun Qiao submitted a memorial, saying, 'The common men plow and the women weave, yet cannot keep themselves warm and fed, whereas the hordes of monks sit peacefully in ornate halls with an abundance of fine food. On average, ten households cannot support one monk. Emperor Wuzong was indignant at this and returned 270,000 monks to lay life; only then could the 2.7 million people of the empire obtain relief. Even if Your Majesty cannot eliminate accumulated abuses as Wuzong did, how can you revive them after they have already been abandoned? I request that an edict be issued: those monks who have not yet been restored should not be restored, and those monasteries that have not yet been repaired should not be repaired.' The Emperor was angered and did not accept it. In the ninth month, a woman of Wuzhou named Zeng Zhiyuan opened the stūpa of the Great Being of Shuanglin, finding that the joints from the skull to the feet were linked like a chain, and his teeth were intact. She welcomed [the relics] out of the stūpa, made offerings for forty-nine days, and placed them back inside the stūpa.