宋高僧傳 23.59

23.59

或曰：「用斯聲教，化我中華，得非韓吏部所患非楊即墨，而況加其佛乎？攻乎異端，斯害孔熾。」對曰：「正談仁義，則道德相懸；正說苦空，則忠信可薄。還借韓之譬——況坐井窺天，非天之咎。孔門大旨：『未能知生，焉能知死？』莊子曰：『勞我以生，息我以死。』若觀鼓盆而歌，似知不死焉。二教曾不言人死神明不滅，隨其善惡業緣受報，故有好醜。若由業因也，是用將麁易細，以弱商強，售莧陸之脆形，博華鬘之珍服，既熏當種而起現行，生勝已生，報強前報。刳肉眼而招佛眼，割凡軀而貿金軀。尼拘之子至微，蔭車之形不少。是為真語，非謂食言。菩薩利他，適足以學。」

Someone might say: 'Using this teaching and culture to transform our China—is this not what Vice Minister Han [Yu] lamented as: "If it is not Yang [Zhu], then it is Mo [Di], and how much worse when the Buddha is added to them! Opposing strange doctrines, this harm blazes fiercely"?' I reply: If one speaks strictly of benevolence and righteousness, they fall far short of the Dao and its Virtue; if one speaks strictly of suffering and emptiness, then loyalty and trustworthiness may be neglected. Returning to borrow Han's metaphor: the analogy of sitting at the bottom of a well to gaze at the sky is no fault of the sky. The primary tenet of Confucius's school was: 'Before you can understand life, how can you understand death?' Zhuangzi said: 'Life toils me, and death rests me.' Yet if we observe his singing while drumming on an inverted tub, it seems he knew of non-death. Neither of these two teachings ever stated that upon human death the conscious spirit is not annihilated, or that one receives retributions according to the karmic conditions of good and evil, whence derive beauty and ugliness. If everything proceeds from karmic causes, this is using what is coarse to trade for what is fine, bargaining with weakness to gain strength, selling the fragile form of a wild amaranth to trade for the precious adornment of a garland. Once it perfumed the causal seed and aroused manifest activity, superior rebirth followed upon past birth, and powerful retribution followed prior retribution. Gouging out the fleshy eye summons the Buddha-eye; cutting away the mortal torso trades for a golden body. The seed of the nyagrodha is exceedingly minute, yet its shade covers many a chariot. These are true words, not empty promises. When bodhisattvas benefit others, it is fully worthy of emulation.