弘明集 10.65

10.65

Your disciple Ji bows in reverence. You have condescended to show me the imperial decree replying to a subject regarding the treatise on the extinction of the spirit. Respectfully, I am profoundly joyful and leap for joy. Your disciple ventures to consider that the Dao does not propagate itself; its propagation truly depends on human beings. A human being requires insight; insight requires the appropriate position. What the *Book of Changes* calls "the great treasure of the sage is called position"—how could this not be its meaning? Yet sometimes there is the position without the right person, or the right person without the position. For these three to be complete is an exceedingly difficult matter in principle. Therefore Xuan-ni put down his brush at the capture of the lin, and Meng Ke examined himself regarding his heavenly nobility; in truth, they lacked the position. Alas! The true transformation was nearly submerged and lost! The present Son of Heaven, with benevolent sagehood and flourishing brilliance, occupies the most exalted position. Mount Zeng may be blown away by the breaths of many, yet his harmony cannot be moved; bells and drums may be disturbed by the noise of fowl and pigs, yet his music cannot be interrupted. He will cause the trembling black-haired people to be delivered from their long night. Were his virtue not joined with Heaven and Earth, who could accomplish this? Your disciple early on was bathed in the spiritual wind and had already heard of it. Yet the flocking sparrows still obscure one another, and the gates of flying tumbleweeds still weave contentions among themselves. When the sage's intention was handed down, the phrasing was exalted and the principle satisfying: urging the good deeds of humans and gods, and cautioning against the supreme body [of transmigration]. A single word served as an instruction, and both inner and outer rejoiced together. When a toddler is about to fall into a well, even common people feel sorrow; how much more so when the sagacious compassion governs all beings, must it take commiseration as its mind? Even being able to demonstrate that a white horse is not white was still subordinated to the Golden Mean. When it comes to the spirit enjoying itself beyond the workings [of form] and intending to propagate transformation, what need is there to speak of mountain demons wearing out their cheeks and tongues? The traces of the spirit and heavenly nobility are originally not for pryings and peerings; that it was condescendingly demonstrated makes me ashamed before mysterious virtue. Your disciple Shen Ji bows in reverence.