唐護法沙門法琳別傳 3.23

3.23

陛下。巨細不疑示迴天睠。等齊桓禮鄙人之術。同燕昭師郭隗之才。敢不罄。言陳其淑忒。琳聞。妙覺常身本無色像。為眾生故跡有形儀。感等洪鐘隨撞擊之大小。應同明鏡。逐庶物以妍嗤。然由道冠二篇理踰百氏。典謨在目可略言焉。故後漢太傅張衍謂南岳道士褚善信曰。夫西域教者。法王說也。濟於六道普潤含靈。卿可棄妄歸真。勵心遵學。若不奉敬。可謂虛度百年。無功而逝。卿若慢而不敬。亦可專心黃老。黃老者雖無法王之量。亦是前世聖人撰集。雖同諸子言行甚奧。託性無為道德之府也。昔孝景皇帝常修行不惓。道學從此興焉。處百家之長。得擬佛經為次。至於茅成子列子莊子惠子等。並皆悉學自然逍遙塵外。亦是黃老之次。卿可慕焉。又吳尚書令闞澤。對吳主孫權曰。臣審知佛是無上法王。眾聖所歸。教加一切哀含萬類。深同巨海不簡細流。明並日月不嫌星燭。會觸即化遇物斯乘。天上人中自在尊貴。縱使天有普覆之功。地有普載之力。皆是諸佛建立使之然也。臣又竊尋。魯孔丘者。英才挺秀聖德不群。世號素王製作經典。訓獎周末教加季葉。師儒之風澤潤今古。亦有逸民。如許成子廣成子原陽子涓子惠子莊子等。百家子書皆修仙自翫放暢山谷。縱太其心學歸淡泊。事乖人倫長幼之節。亦非安世化人之風。是以古人將為陷滯。蓋此之謂歟。至漢景帝時。考諸百家。以黃子老子義體宏深內外明達。故改子為經。始立道學。

Your Majesty, without doubting whether great or small, has turned your heavenly gaze upon me, equaling Duke Huan of Qi's respect for the arts of rustic men, matching King Zhao of Yan's treating Guo Wei's talent as a master. How would I dare not exhaust my words to lay out the good and the bad? Lin has heard that the wondrously awakened eternal body is fundamentally without forms or marks; for the sake of sentient beings, his traces take on physical forms and deportment. His resonance is like a great bell, depending on the magnitude of the strike; his response is like a bright mirror, following the myriad things in their beauty or ugliness. Yet because the Way surpasses the two sections and its principles exceed the hundred schools, the canonical records are before our eyes, and one may speak of them in brief. Thus Zhang Yan, Grand Tutor of the Later Han, said to Chu Shanxin, a Daoist of the Southern Marchmount: 'The teaching of the Western Regions was spoken by the Dharma King; it delivers across the six realms and universally nourishes sentient beings. You should discard the false and return to the real, exerting your mind to follow and study it. If you do not revere it, you may be said to spend a hundred years in vain, passing away without merit. If you are negligent and do not revere it, you may also focus your mind on Huang-Lao. Although Huang-Lao does not have the measure of the Dharma King, it is still the compilation of ancient sages; although similar to the various philosophers, its words and deeds are very profound, entrusting one's nature to non-action, being the storehouse of Dao and virtue. Formerly, Emperor Xiaojing practiced it constantly without fatigue, and Daoist learning flourished from this. Possessing the greatest merits among the hundred schools, it may be compared as next to the Buddhist scriptures. As for Mao Chengzi, Liezi, Zhuangzi, Huizi, and others, they all studied natural spontaneity and roamed free beyond the dust; they are also next after Huang-Lao. You may admire them.' Furthermore, Kan Ze, Minister of the Secretariat of Wu, answered Sun Quan, the Lord of Wu, saying: 'Your subject knows with certainty that the Buddha is the unsurpassed Dharma King, the refuge of all sages. His teaching encompasses all, pitying and embracing the myriad kinds; deep like a vast sea, it does not reject fine streams; bright as the sun and moon, it does not disdain stars or candles. Meeting what it touches, it transforms; encountering things, it carries them across; in heaven and among humans, he is sovereign and venerable. Even if heaven has the merit of universally covering, and earth has the power of universally sustaining, these were all established by the Buddhas, causing them to be so. Your subject has also privately observed that Confucius of Lu was of outstanding talent and sagely virtue that stood apart from the crowd; the world called him the Uncrowned King, who crafted the classics, instructing and encouraging the end of the Zhou, extending his teachings to the final ages; the style of the master of Ruists has nourished the ancient and modern. There were also recluses, such as Xu Chengzi, Guangchengzi, Yuanyangzi, Juanzi, Huizi, and Zhuangzi. The texts of the masters of the hundred schools all cultivated immortality for their own amusement, giving free rein to themselves in mountains and valleys; giving license to their minds, their learning returned to indifference, their conduct running contrary to the norms of human relations and the hierarchy of elder and younger, nor was it the style of bringing peace to the world and transforming people. Therefore, ancients regarded them as falling into stagnation—surely this is what it means! When it came to Emperor Jing of the Han, examining the hundred schools, because the substance of meaning in the Huangzi and Laozi was vast and deep, clear and penetrative within and without, he changed their designation from "masters" to "classics," and first established Daoist studies,