傳法正宗記 2.81

2.81

評曰。唐高僧神清。不喜禪者。自尊其宗。乃著書而抑之曰。其傳法賢聖。間以聲聞。如迦葉等。雖則迴心尚為小智。豈能傳佛心印乎。即引付法藏傳曰。昔商那和修告優波毱多曰。佛之三昧辟支不知。辟支三昧聲聞不知。諸大聲聞三昧餘聲聞不知。阿難三昧我今不知。我今三昧汝亦不知。如是三昧皆隨吾滅。又有七萬七千本生經。一萬阿毘曇。八萬清淨毘尼。亦隨我滅。固哉清也徒肆已所愛惡。而不知大屈先聖。吾始視清書。見其較論三教。雖文詞不嘉。蓋以其善記經書亦別事之重輕。不即非之。及考其譏禪者之說。問難凡數十端。輒採流俗所尚。及援書傳。復不得其詳。余初謂此非至論。固不足注意。徐思其所謂迦葉等豈能傳佛心印。尤為狂言。恐其熒惑世俗。以增後生未學之相訾不已。乃與正之。非好辯也。大凡萬事。理為其本。而迹為末也。通其本者故多得之。束其末者故多失之。若傳法者數十賢聖。雖示同聲聞。而豈宜以聲聞盡之哉。經曰。我今所有無上正法。悉已付囑摩訶迦葉。傳曰。我今所有大慈大悲四禪三昧無量功德而自莊嚴。而迦葉比丘亦復如是。又謂毱多為無相好佛。又謂僧伽難提者乃過去婆羅王如來。降迹為祖。如此之類甚眾。是豈非聖人欲扶其法互相尊敬而示為大小耶。楞伽所謂三種阿羅漢者。一曰。得決定寂滅聲聞羅漢。一曰。曾修行菩薩行羅漢。一曰。應化佛所化羅漢。此羅漢者以本願善根方便力故。現諸佛土生大眾中莊嚴諸佛大會眾故。若大迦葉傳法數十賢聖者。豈非應化佛所化之羅漢耶。佛所化者。宜其所有四禪三昧無量功德與如來不異也。不異乎如來而傳佛心印。孰謂其不然乎。若商那曰。阿難三昧而我不知。我今三昧而汝不知。云此恐其有所抑揚耳。未可謂其必然。經曰。入遠行地已得無量三昧。夫入遠行地者。蓋七地之菩薩也。七地菩薩尚能得無量三昧。而化佛豈盡不能得耶。然佛之所傳心印。與餘三昧宜異日而道哉。夫心印者。蓋大聖人種智之妙本也。餘三昧者。乃妙本所發之智慧也。皆以三昧而稱之耳。心印即經所謂三昧王之三昧者也。如來所傳乃此三昧也。清以謂餘三昧耶。其所謂七萬七千本生經。一萬阿毘曇。八萬清淨毘尼。亦隨我滅者。此余未始見於他書。獨付法藏傳云爾。尚或疑之。假令其書不謬。恐非為傳法賢聖不能任持而然也。是必以後世群生機緣福力益弱不勝其教。以故滅之。方正像末法三者之存滅。皆亦隨世而污隆。曷嘗為其弘法賢聖而致正末者耶。嗚呼學者不求經不窮理。動謬聖人之意為其說。雖能編連萬世事。亦何益乎。書曰。記誦之學不足為人師。清之謂歟。

Appraisal: The eminent monk Shenqing of the Tang dynasty disliked the Chan practitioners. Exalting his own school, he composed a work disparaging them, saying: 'Among those holy sages who transmitted the Dharma, śrāvakas were interspersed. For example, although Kāśyapa and others turned their minds [toward the Mahāyāna], they still possessed inferior wisdom. How could they transmit the Buddha's mind-seal?' He then cited the Account of the Transmission of the Dharma Pitaka, which says: 'In the past, Śāṇakavāsa told Upagupta: "The samādhis of the Buddha are unknown to pratyekabuddhas. The samādhis of pratyekabuddhas are unknown to śrāvakas. The samādhis of the great śrāvakas are unknown to the other śrāvakas. Ānanda's samādhi is unknown to me now. My present samādhi is likewise unknown to you. Such samādhis will all be extinguished following my extinction. Furthermore, seventy-seven thousand Jātaka sūtras, ten thousand Abhidharmas, and eighty thousand pure Vinayas will likewise be extinguished following my extinction."' How stubborn was Qing, giving free rein to his personal likes and dislikes, and failing to realise that he was grievously wronging the former sages! When I first examined Qing's book and saw his comparative discussions of the three teachings, although the writing was not fine, because he was good at memorising sūtras and treatises and distinguishing the importance of matters, I did not immediately reject him. But when I examined his remarks mocking the Chan practitioners, with his several dozen lines of interrogation, he merely picked up the popular fashions of the day and cited treatises and accounts without grasping their full details. At first I thought this was not a definitive discourse and firmly unworthy of notice. Slowly pondering his assertion that Kāśyapa and the others could not transmit the Buddha's mind-seal, it struck me as an especially wild statement. Fearing that it would bewilder worldly people and increase the endless reciprocal disparagement among younger, unlearned students, I have rectified it, not out of a fondness for disputation. Generally in all things, principle is the root and trace is the branch. Those who penetrate the root gain much; those who are bound to the branches lose much. As for the several dozen worthy sages who transmitted the Dharma, although they manifested as being identical with śrāvakas, how could it be fitting to define them exhaustively as śrāvakas? The sūtra says: 'All the unexcelled right Dharma that I now possess has been entrusted entirely to Mahākāśyapa.' The account says: 'I now adorn myself with all great benevolence, great compassion, the four dhyānas, the samādhis, and immeasurable merits; and the monk Kāśyapa is also like this.' Furthermore, it says that Upagupta was a Buddha without the physical marks, and that Saṅghanandi was in the past the Tathāgata King Suvarṇa, who descended in trace to be a patriarch. Such examples are very numerous. Is this not that the sages, wishing to uphold their Dharma, respected one another and manifested as great or small? The Laṅkāvatāra speaks of three kinds of arhats: the first are arhats who are śrāvakas attaining determined quiescence; the second are arhats who have practised the bodhisattva path; the third are arhats transformed by nirmāṇabuddhas. These [latter] arhats, by virtue of their original vows, good roots, and expedient powers, appear in the Buddha lands, are born among the great assemblies, and adorn the assemblies of the Buddhas. As for Mahākāśyapa and the several dozen worthy sages who transmitted the Dharma, were they not arhats transformed by nirmāṇabuddhas? Being transformed by the Buddha, it is fitting that their four dhyānas, samādhis, and immeasurable merits were not different from those of the Tathāgata. Since they were not different from the Tathāgata and transmitted the Buddha's mind-seal, who can say this is not so? As for Śāṇavāsa saying, 'Ānanda's samādhi is unknown to me, and my present samādhi is unknown to you'—to say this was likely only an expedient praise and blame; it cannot be called an absolute certainty. The sūtra says: 'Having entered the Far-Reaching Stage, one attains immeasurable samādhis.' Now, those who enter the Far-Reaching Stage are bodhisattvas of the seventh stage. If even a bodhisattva of the seventh stage can attain immeasurable samādhis, could transformation Buddhas be entirely incapable of attaining them? However, the mind-seal transmitted by the Buddha and other samādhis ought to be spoken of in different terms. The mind-seal is the wondrous root of the great sage's all-inclusive knowledge; the other samādhis are the wisdom arising from that wondrous root. Both are simply called samādhi. The mind-seal is precisely what the sūtra calls the samādhi of the King of Samādhis. What the Tathāgata transmitted was this very samādhi. Did Qing consider it to be [just one of the] other samādhis? As for what he called 'the seventy-seven thousand Jātaka sūtras, ten thousand Abhidharmas, and eighty thousand pure Vinayas being extinguished following my extinction,' I have never seen this in other texts, but only in the Account of the Transmission of the Dharma Pitaka, which remains suspect. Even supposing that book is not in error, it was likely not because the worthy sages who transmitted the Dharma could not uphold them that it was so. It must be that the capacities and karmic merit of living beings in later generations would become increasingly weak and unable to bear those teachings, and for that reason they were extinguished. Just as the existence and extinction of the three periods of the True Dharma, Semblance Dharma, and Final Dharma wax and wane with the world, how could it ever be that the worthy sages who propagated the Dharma brought about the Final [Dharma]? Alas, when scholars do not study the scriptures or fathom principle, but rashly distort the intentions of the sages in formulating their theories, even if they could compile records spanning ten thousand generations, what benefit would it bring? The Book of Rites says: 'Learning by rote and recitation is insufficient to make one a teacher.' Does this not apply to Qing?