弘明集 1.43

1.43

The questioner asked: Some practitioners of the Dao abstain from grains and do not eat, yet they drink wine and consume meat, also calling it the method of Master Lao. Yet the Buddha's Dao takes wine and meat as its highest prohibition, but on the contrary eats grains. Why are they so contradictory? Mouzi said: The miscellaneous paths are fragmented and broken, totaling ninety-six kinds; in tranquility and non-action, none surpasses the Buddha. I have examined the upper and lower chapters of Master Lao: I have heard his prohibitions against the five flavors, but I have not seen any words of his cutting off the five grains. The sages established the texts of the Seven Classics, and they have no method of stopping provisions; Laozi composed his five thousand words, and there is no mention of abstaining from grains. The sages said: 'Those who eat grains are wise; those who eat grasses are foolish; those who eat meat are fierce; those who eat qi are long-lived.' Worldly people do not understand these matters; seeing the six kinds of creatures hold their breath without respiring and not eat in autumn and winter, they wish to imitate them and do so, not knowing that each kind of thing has its own nature, just as a lodestone attracts iron but cannot move a fine hair.