弘明集 10.47

10.47

Graced by your notice and favored by your bestowal of the Supreme One's imperial response answering the ministers' Treatise on the Extinction of the Spirit, before I finished perusing it, the mist and clouds were cleared once more. I reflect that creeping creatures possess sentience, while grass and trees have no consciousness. The blind treatise on the extinction of the spirit sought to equate what has sentience with this lack of consciousness, even claiming that the knowledge of all aspects also comes to an end along with the physical frame. This is truly lamentable in principle! Were it not that virtue accords with Heaven and Earth, equally great within the realm, encountering this day of turning back the current and meeting the moment of imbibing transformation, the words of the two truths could not have been spread, and talk of the three times would have nearly ceased. The Holy Emperor pities these four kinds of born beings who are sinking into the six destinies; examining and comparing Confucius and the Buddha, they mutually attest to one another. He causes the furthest land to know the sea, and the Nether Regions to see the sun. His supreme words are as bright as the autumn sun; the manifold doubts dissolve like spring ice. Although he put forth the treatise to magnify the Dao, his virtuous influence moving pure breasts, I, participating in hearing this instruction, look down and rejoice in my past karma. The Dharma Master, cherishing the Dharma gate, deeply shares in this celebration. I shall reverently praise, relish, chant, and recite it from beginning to end without tire. Your disciple Yu Yong pays homage.