[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [續高僧傳](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060) › 27.27 # 續高僧傳 27.27 續高僧傳 27.27 - **Language:** Classical Chinese ### [27.27](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27.27) 論曰。竊聞。輕生徇節。自古為難。苟免無恥。當今為易。志人恒人之傳。列樹風猷。上達下達之言。照揚經典。皆所以箴規庸度開導精靈。惟道居尊。惟德生物。故能兼忘通塞。兩遣是非。體流縛之根源。曉想倒之條緒也。是以達人。知身城之假合。如塵無性。鑒命算之若流。惟心生滅。由斯以降同是幻居。安有智者而能常保。然則宅生附世纏取未捐。寄以弘因用清心惑。或挫拉以加惱辱。或抑制以事奴駘。或焚灼以拔貪源。或刳剔以窮癡本。纏身為炬且達迷途。然臂為明時陳報德。出燈入鐵之相。其蹤若林。肉山乳海之能。備聞前策。斯皆拔倒我之宏根。顯坏形之可厭。以將崩之朽宅。貿金剛之法身。經不云乎。誠至言矣。若夫厚生所寶極貴者形。就而揆之其實惟命。大聖成教豈虛構哉。故藥王上賢焚體。由其通願。下凡仰慕灼爛。寧不失心。然僧崖正身於猛焰。言聲不改。大志刳臂以熱鐵。神操逾新。玄覽致命於中流。雖出還沒。法安亡形於縲紲。放免來投。是知操不可奪。行不可掩。誠可嘉乎。難行事矣。復有引腸樹表條肉林中。舒顏而臨白刃。含笑而受輕辱。並如本紀。又可嘉哉。然則四果正士。灰身而避謗徒。八千受決。護法而逃忍界。彼何力而登危。此何情而脫苦。自非懷安曠濟行杜我人。觀色相為聚塵。達性命如風燭。故能追蹤前聖。誠宗像末之寄乎。或者問曰。夫厭生者當拔生因。豈斷苦果而推集本。未聞其旨。請為陳之。斯立言也。不無恒致。且集因綿亘。如山之相屬。我為集本。如煙之待搆。生重惟身。隨重而行對治。如世之病任形而設方術。故焚溺以識貪瞋。謙虛以攻癡慢。斯業可尚。同靜觀而緣色心。斯道可崇。等即有而為空也。必迷斯迹謂我能行。倒本更繁徒行苦聚。故持經一句。勝捨多身。世該所質惟斯人也。但患聞而不行。更增常結。何如薄捐支節。分遣著情。聖教包羅義含知量。自有力分虛劣。妄敢思齊。或呻嘷而就終。或激激而赴難。前傳所評何世無耶。又有未明教迹婬惱纏封。恐漏初篇割從閹隷。矜誕為德輕侮僧倫。聖教科治必有深旨。良以愛之所起者妄也。知妄則愛無從焉。不曉返檢內心。而迷削於外色。故根色雖削染愛逾增。深為道障現充戒難。尚須加之擯罪。寧敢依之起福。又有臨終遺訣露骸林下。或沈在溷流通資翔泳。或深瘞高墳豐碑紀德。或乘崖漏窟望遠知人。或全身化火不累同生之神或灰骨塗像以陳身奉之供。鑽膚劓刖謂遣塵勞。剜目支解言傾情慾。斯途眾矣。因而敘之。且夫陳屍林薄。少袪鄙悋之心。飛走以之充飢。幽明以於熏勃。得失相補尠能兼濟。遂有蟲蛆涌於肉外。烏隨啄吞狼籍。膏於原野傷於慈惻。然西域本葬。其流四焉。火葬焚以蒸新。水葬沈於深淀。土葬埋於岸旁。林葬棄之中野。法王輪王同依火祀。世重常習餘者希行。東夏所傳惟聞林土。水火兩設世罕其蹤。故瓦掩虞棺。廢林薪之始也。夏后聖周。行瓦棺之事也。殷人以木槥櫝。藤緘之也。中古文昌仁育成治。雖明窆葬行者猶希。故掩骼埋胔𭩀而瘞也。上古墓而不墳。未通庶類。赫胥盧陵之后。現即因山為陵。下古相沿同行土葬。紜紜難紀。故且削之。若乃裨行紀言。導後業之清緒。施輪樹塔。表前德之徽功。阿含之所開明。即世彌其昌矣。至於埋屍塔側。尚制遠撤邊坊。親用骨塗。寔乃虛通諂附。又有厭割人世生送深林。廣告四部望存九請。既失情投僶俛從事。道俗讚善。儐從相催。嚬蹙不已。放身巖壑。據律則罪當初聚。論情則隨興大捨。餘有削略贅疣。雖符極教而心含不淨多存世染。必能曠蕩無寄開化昏迷。故非此論所詳。自可仰歸清達。而世或多事妄行斷粒。練形以期羽化。服餌以却重尸。或呼吸沆瀣。或吐納陰陽。或假藥以導遐齡。或行氣以窮天地。或延生以守慈氏。或畏死以求邪術。斯蹤極眾。焉足聞乎。並先聖之所關鍵。後賢之所捐擲。方復周章求及追賞。時澆負钁陵峯。望五芝之休氣。擔鍬赴壑。趣八石之英光。以左道為吾賢。用淫祀為終志。畢從小朴未免生涯。徒寄釋門虛行一世。可為悲夫。是知生死大期自有恒數。初果分齊餘未詳論。而忽廁以凡心籌諸聖慮。通成愚結知何不為。然則寒林之動。庸識因悟無常。捨生而存大義。用開懷道。全身碎身之相。權行實行之方顯妙化之知機。通大聖之宏略也。水清有著。終果言於厚葬虛心不賓。則任物之行藏。斯道不窮固略言矣。 > The treatise says: I have heard that holding life lightly to follow a noble ideal has been difficult since antiquity, while shamelessly seeking improper escape has been easy in the present day. Biographies of resolute persons and ordinary people set up moral standards like rows of trees; sayings of those who reach high and those who reach low illuminate the classical scriptures. They all serve to admonish ordinary mediocrity and guide the spirit. Only the Dao occupies supremacy; only virtue brings living beings into life. Thus, one can forget both blockage and ease, dismiss both right and wrong, comprehend the source of the cyclic flow of bondage, and understand the manifold strands of inverted notions. Therefore, an accomplished person knows that the city of the body is a provisional compound, having no inherent nature, just like dust; and perceives that the tally of life is like a current, arising and ceasing solely in the mind. From this downward, all is an illusory dwelling; how could an intelligent person ever hope to preserve it permanently? However, as long as one dwells in life and clings to the world, entangling grasping is not yet cast off. One avails oneself of \[the body\] as a magnificent cause to purify mental confusions. Some break and torture it to inflict distress and humiliation; some subdue and suppress it to treat it as a slave or beast of burden; some burn and incinerate it to uproot the source of greed; some gouge and flay it to exhaust the basis of delusion. Wrapping one's body as a torch to illuminate the path for the lost; burning one's arm to make light to present gratitude for grace—signs of emerging as a lamp or walking into iron weapons have left traces like a forest; deeds equal to mountains of flesh and seas of milk are heard in full in earlier accounts. These all uproot the vast root of inverted selfhood and display the abhorrent nature of this earthen vessel, trading a decaying house on the verge of collapse for the adamantine Dharma-body. Does not the scripture say so? These are truly ultimate words! As for what people who preserve life treasure and hold as most precious, it is the physical form; yet if one approaches it and examines it, in truth it is only life itself. Could the Great Sage's establishment of the teachings have been a hollow fabrication? Thus, when the supreme worthy Bhaiṣajyarāja burned his body, it came from his pervasive vow. When low, ordinary mortals revere and emulate this by scorching their flesh, can they truly not lose their minds? Nevertheless, when Sengya set his body in fierce flames, his voice and words did not waver; when Dazhi sliced his arm with hot iron, his spiritual resolution became ever more fresh; when Xuanlan gave up his life midstream, though he emerged he submerged again; when Fa'an discarded his body in bonds and fetters, he was set free yet came back to give his life. Thus we know their resolution could not be usurped, and their deeds could not be eclipsed. They are truly praiseworthy for undertaking such difficult deeds! Furthermore, there are those who drew out their entrails upon a tree trunk or sliced their flesh in the forest, facing sharp blades with a relaxed countenance and accepting scorn and humiliation with a smile—all as recorded in their main biographies. Are they not also praiseworthy? Yet noble persons of the four fruits reduce their bodies to ash to avoid slanderers, and eight thousand who received predictions flee the Sahā world to protect the Dharma. By what power did the former mount such peril, and by what sentiment did the latter escape such suffering? Unless one embraces broad deliverance and acts to block notions of self and others, viewing visible forms as agglomerations of dust and comprehending life to be like a candle in the wind, how could one emulate the earlier sages and truly be relied upon in this age of the semblance and final Dharma? Someone might ask: 'Those who are weary of life should uproot the cause of life; how can one deduce the root of accumulation by merely severing the fruit of suffering? I have not heard this principle explained; please expound it.' Such an assertion is not without conventional logic. Moreover, accumulated causes extend continuously, like mountains joined to one another; the self is the root of accumulation, like smoke waiting to be kindled. For living beings, the heaviest attachment is only the body; one applies counter-measures according to what is heaviest, just as when treating illness in the world, one devises methods suited to the physical condition. Therefore, one burns or drowns the body to recognize greed and anger, and practices humility to attack delusion and arrogance. Such practice is admirable; it is identical to serene contemplation contemplating form and mind. Such a path is venerable; it equates approaching being with realizing emptiness. If one is deluded about these traces, thinking 'I am able to perform this,' the inverted roots become even more tangled, and one undergoes suffering in vain. Hence, upholding a single phrase of scripture is superior to giving up many bodies. In the world, those who fit such questioning are only this type of person. One only fears that they hear but do not practice, thus further increasing the constant fetters. How could that compare to lightly sacrificing a limb or joint, and partially dispelling feelings of attachment? The sacred teachings are comprehensive, and their meaning implies knowing one's capacity. If one's strength is frail and inferior, yet one rashly dares to emulate the lofty, some will groan and wail as they meet their end, or rashly rush into disaster. What generation has lacked those criticized in earlier biographies? Furthermore, there are those who do not understand the traces of the teachings, and are bound by lust and distress; fearing infractions against the first class of offenses, they castrate themselves to become eunuchs and slaves. Boasting of this as virtue, they despise the assembly of the Saṅgha. The disciplinary measures of the sacred teachings certainly have profound intent: it is precisely because love arises from delusion; if one knows delusion, love has nowhere to rely. Failing to understand that one must inwardly examine the mind, they are confused and cut away outer physical forms. Thus, although the physical faculties are cut away, tainted affection increases all the more; this is deeply an obstacle to the path and presently constitutes an impediment to the precepts. It still warrants the penalty of expulsion; how would one dare rely on it to generate merit? Furthermore, there are those who, when dying, leave instructions to expose their corpses under trees, or sink them in murky waters to nourish swimming and flying creatures; or bury them deeply under high mounds with abundant stelae commemorating their virtues; or climb cliffs into hollow caves, discernible from afar by passers-by; or transform the entire body into fire without burdening fellow living beings; or mix bone ashes to plaster images, presenting an offering of their physical form. Some pierce their skin and cut off their noses or feet, claiming to eliminate worldly dust; some gouge their eyes and dismember their limbs, claiming to overturn emotional desires. These approaches are many, and I have described them accordingly. Furthermore, laying out a corpse in thickets and forests slightly dispels a mean and stingy mind: flying and running beasts use it to satisfy their hunger, while unseen spirits and living beings are affected by its fumes. Advantages and disadvantages offset each other, and it rarely succeeds in benefiting both. Consequently, maggots gush forth outside the flesh, and crows and kites peck and swallow it in disarray; grease soils the wilderness, offending feelings of compassion and grief. However, as for the traditional burials of the Western Regions, there are four traditions: cremation by fire to reduce to vapor; water burial by sinking in deep pools; earth burial by interring beside the riverbank; and forest burial by abandoning in the wild plains. The King of the Dharma and the wheel-turning king both rely on the rites of fire; worldly custom values this continuous practice, while the others are rarely performed. What has been transmitted to the Eastern Lands only speaks of forest and earth; the institutions of water and fire are rarely seen in society. Thus, using earthenware to cover the Yu coffin was the beginning of abolishing forest brushwood. The rulers of Xia and the sage Zhou practiced the use of earthenware coffins. The Yin people used wooden inner and outer coffins, bound with rattan. In the middle antiquity, when culture flourished and benevolence nurtured, bringing about peace, although interment was made clear, those who practiced it were still few; hence bones were covered and rotting flesh was collected and buried. In high antiquity, there were graves without mounds, not open to commoners. The descendants of Hexu and Luling immediately used mountains as tombs. In lower antiquity, the continuous custom of earth burial was practiced by all. These are too multitudinous to record, so I omit them for now. But as for recording words and aiding conduct to guide the pure continuity of future deeds, or erecting wheel-bearing stupas to display the glorious accomplishments of former virtues—such was illuminated in the Āgamas, and in this world it has flourished all the more. As for burying corpses beside stupas, it is still enjoined that they be removed far to the outer precincts; personally applying bone to plaster an image is truly empty vanity and fawning attachment. Furthermore, there are those who, weary of the human world, have themselves carried alive into deep forests; they announce it broadly to the fourfold assembly, hoping for the nine entreaties. Having missed reciprocal feeling, they reluctantly proceed; clerics and laypeople praise their goodness, while attendants urge them on, and with persistent frowns and winces they cast their bodies into cliff and ravine. According to the Vinaya, the offense incurs the primary category; judged by sentiment, it follows the arising of a great renunciation. As for others who strip away trivialities—though matching the ultimate teaching, their minds harbor impurity and still retain worldly attachments. If they can be vast and unattached, converting the dim and deluded, their details are not for this treatise, and one may naturally take refuge in their pure transcendence. Yet in the world, many engage in unnecessary undertakings, rashly practicing the cessation of grain, refining the form in hopes of feathered ascension, or ingesting drugs to ward off the corpse-demons; or inhaling the morning mist, or exhaling and inhaling the yin and yang; or using medicine to prolong their years, or circulating qi to exhaust the limits of heaven and earth; or extending life to wait for Maitreya, or fearing death to seek heterodox arts. Such persons are extremely numerous; how are they worth hearing of? These are what the past sages locked away and what later worthies discarded. Yet people now panic-stricken seek to pursue and esteem them. In these degenerate times, shoulder-hoeing, they scale peaks seeking the auspicious vapors of the five fungi; carrying spades, they head into ravines running after the bright radiance of the eight minerals. They regard heterodox ways as worthy and take licentious sacrifices as their final aim. Following small simplisms to the end, they cannot escape mundane existence; vainly dwelling in the Śākya gate, they live their whole lives in emptiness. How lamentable! Thus we know that the great span of life and death has its constant measures. The limits of the first fruit and beyond I will not detail; yet suddenly intruding with an ordinary mind to calculate the sages' intentions completely turns into foolish fetters—what would such people not do? However, at the movement in the Śītavana charnel ground, mediocre understanding realizes impermanence; relinquishing life to preserve the great righteousness is used to inspire the mind toward the Path. The marks of a whole body or a shattered body, the methods of expedient conduct and real conduct, reveal the marvelous transformation's knowledge of the right moment and convey the vast strategy of the Great Sage. When the water is clear, attachments arise, and in the end they achieve the discourse on lavish burials; when the mind is empty without subjection, one leaves things to act or stay concealed. This Dao is inexhaustible, so I have touched on it in brief. > — English (machine translation) (machine translation) - [Previous: 27.26](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27.26) - [Next: 27.28](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27.28) - [Up: 27](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27) ## Translations (1) - [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060~en-mt.27.27) — English, machine translation --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27.27](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2060.27.27) · Pramāṇa