佛祖歷代通載 7.77

7.77

Question: The premise of your treatise considers the exhaustion of transformation to be the highest ultimate; therefore, those who attain the ultimate must go against transformation to seek the Ultimate. Since seeking the Ultimate does not proceed by following transformation, you cite the kings of past generations, aligning them with the Buddhist teaching, claiming that those who attain the utmost embodiment of the Ultimate provisionally govern the realm. This is what your elegant treatise relies on, and it assumes a great universality. But when examined against reality, the principle is not so. Why? Endowed qi is limited to a single lifetime; when life ends, it dissolves into nothingness. Although the spirit is subtle, it is certainly just the transformation of yin and yang. Having transformed into life, it transforms again into death; having gathered to become the beginning, it disperses to become the end. Reasoning from this, we surely know that spirit and form transform together and originally have no separate lineage. Subtle and coarse are of one single qi, residing in the same dwelling from beginning to end. When the dwelling is intact, qi gathers and consciousness exists; when the dwelling is destroyed, qi disperses and illumination is extinguished. When it disperses, it returns what it received to the root; when the root is extinguished, it returns to nonexistence. Arising and returning, beginning and ending, are all natural destiny; who could cause it? If returning to the root meant a different qi, then when the numbers aligned they would transform together; this means the spirit residing in the form is like fire in wood: their arising must be together, and its destruction must mean extinction. When the form departs, the spirit disperses with nowhere to dwell; when the wood rots, the fire goes out with nothing to support it. This is the natural order of principle. Even if the distinction between identity and difference is obscure and difficult to clarify, the doctrine of being and nonbeing must reside in gathering and dispersing. Gathering and dispersing are the general names for the transformation of qi, the arising and ceasing of myriad transformations. Hence Zhuangzi said: 'The life of human beings is a gathering of qi; when it gathers there is life, when it disperses there is death. If life and death are companions, what then should I worry about?' Those among the ancients who spoke well of the Dao certainly attained this. If it is indeed so, the ultimate principle is limited to a single lifetime; when life ends, there is no further transformation—its meaning can be readily ascertained.