弘明集 12.26

12.26

Your servant states: Your Majesty has embodied and comprehended the Buddhist principle and is about to fathom its ultimate reaches. With a far-reaching mind and distant aspirations, you investigate its subtleties with precision. I only regret that 'the one who stirs me' is no longer of the past, and responding in audience is not easy. Since youth, your servant has had faith in the Great Dharma and cultivated good nature through habit; I have heard some of the remaining discourses and vaguely grasped the profound school. In the past, while attending Your Majesty's seat, I was excessively favored with your kind encouragement, but my thoughts were crude and my speech stammering, unable to achieve flowing expression. This has been a regret lasting my entire life. Recently, I challenged Huiyi on squatting to eat; it was merely my modest desire for harmony, not daring to seek superiority over others. Eating at your windward side, it has already reached the celestial hearing. Your servant submits that this matter is merely a partial regulation of a single state, not a permanent rule universally valid across the scriptures. Customs in foreign lands are not uniform, and spoken languages also differ. The sages did not change their language; why alone stubbornly change their practices? Words serve to express meaning, and once meaning is attained, words are forgotten; rituals serve to preserve reverence, and once reverence is established, bodily forms may be discarded. Therefore, sages instituted precepts according to circumstances and adapted rules according to customs. When one has attained the Way, there can even be no vinaya; considering how its safeguards proliferate, their adoption and abandonment depend on the time, and their openness or restriction relies solely on principle. Is it not obtuse to glue the bridges of a zither or wait by a tree stump? Monks today, though skillfully guided by teachers, have no single supreme standard in the Way. Each trusts his own view and few are able to receive others with an open mind, to the point of competing in differences within a single hall and failing to harmonize in an era of universal peace. Your servant privately feels ashamed of this; how much more so should those who differ from your servant? The Minister of Works, broad-minded and enlightened, recognizes what is reasonable and does not consider your servant's words wrong. The present prominent figures are not yet earnest in their faith in the Way and have no predetermined opinions; they regard pleasing both sides as fine and indecision as greatness. If we wait for this to be regulated, the Yellow River might first turn clear! Huiyan and Daosheng originally did not squat; Huiguan seems to regret his initial position. I humbly surmise that the imperial mind must already have formed a view. I do not now expect a bright edict to issue alone, but if Your Majesty's intention were roughly conveyed, the Chancellor would observe from below and be transformed—who then would say it is not proper? The imperial influence is about to extend far, and written culture and vehicular tracks are about to achieve great unity. Although minor differences are subtle, their gradual growth must not be fostered. If what is green and tender is not cut, one will soon need an axe. Therefore, one should proceed from the near to the far, making it so that none harbor disobedience. In the Eastern Jin resurgence, the High Seat [Śrīmitra] came to travel, loving the Central Land, and did not speak of this rule. Master Shi [Dao'an] was most earnest in believing the Way; he did not make its rules an ordeal, considering them and not adopting them; there must have been a purpose. Kumārajīva was preeminent and unrestrained; though not easily fathomable, when he shaved his hair he did not sit with one leg raised, which can also be verified. When the Dhyāna Master first arrived, he went to the palace seeking an audience, wishing to enter and squat in the old manner; the principle could not be permitted, so he was not allowed to advance. Later, when the assembly gathered at Dong'an, they indeed did not squat to eat. These are past events of the previous reign that your servant personally witnessed. Respectfully submitted.