弘明集 12.6

12.6

On the fifth day of the fourth month of the third year of Xingning, Zuochi bows his head and makes prostration. I have heard that you respond to the true and tread in the correct, your brilliant understanding harmonizing within; your compassionate teachings shine comprehensively, sheltering both the religious and the secular alike. Those who take emptiness as fundamental awaken to the import of impermanence; those who preserve being realize the expedient of treating the body as external. Your pure breeze washes across the Central Lands; your luan-call resonates throughout the eight directions of obscurity. In profound taste and far-reaching planning, what toil could compare to yours? Your disciple has heard that that which rains upon the six directions before the morning ends is the cloud that fills the sky; that which broadens its deep source to moisten the eight limits is the flow of the four great [rivers]. The true and non-active descends, and the myriad things rely on its beneficence; the fundamentally mindless moves, and high and low receive its moisture. How much more so when, pitying the world, you descend to walk among us, and taking compassion on the era, you are born, your origins tied to delivering beings and your illumination of the Dao consisting in training the secular. You mount the carriage that does not rush so as to traverse the path that has no distance; you command the conveyance of treating the body as external so as to respond to the quests of the ten directions. How then could jade merely bestow moisture upon a single mountain, or ice freeze in but one valley, gazing toward Langfeng without turning your carriage, withholding yourself from this world without teaching and delivering? Furthermore, since the Great Teaching flowed eastward, more than four hundred years have passed. Although regional princes and laymen have occasionally practiced it, the ancient teachings of Zhendan were enacted in earlier ages; the fortune of the Dao shifts with time, and the secular world has not entirely awakened, merely causing lower scholars to delight in ripples and waves. Only Emperor Ming, the Ancestor Su, was truly endowed with virtue sent from Heaven and began to revere this Dao. With his own hand he painted the Tathāgata's countenance; in his mouth he tasted the purport of samādhi. His strict precepts surpassed those of recluse hermits; his profound ancestors were celebrated in non-arising. Once the Great Clod made its song, the myriad cavities roared. Among worthy and wise gentlemen, none did not turn to this lineage. Although the sun and moon are distant, their light shines ever brighter; the flourishing of the endeavors of the Dao was never more splendid than today. Is this not what is meant by the Moon Radiance Youth passing into quiescence and about to be born in the true land, and the wondrous bowl moving eastward suddenly verified in our time? Furthermore, I have heard that three thousand who attained the Dao have all been seen in Nanyang; brilliant scholars and bodhisattvas have refined and expounded the true words, examining above the instructions of sages and masters, and testing below the efficacy of practicing the Dao. If the profound sūtras go forth together, who could it be but you? Cherishing the Dao and surpassing in instructions, whom else could descend? For this reason, the monks of this region all cherish eager longing, their eyes yearning to rejoice in the golden-colored auspicious sign, their ears awaiting the supreme treasury; old and young share the same vow, religious and secular harbor the same aspiration, and their feelings of deep longing cannot be described in ordinary words. If the auspicious clouds move eastward and the jewel turns its radiance, if you step once upon the seven-jeweled seat and look for a moment upon the lamp of the bright vow, raining sweet dew upon the abundant grass and planting sandalwood on the riverbanks, then the Tathāgata's teaching will once more be exalted in this present day, and the profound waves and extraordinary resonances will again cleanse our whole generation. Unable to bear my longing, I draft this letter to express the accumulation within my heart; how could I fully convey it? Disciple Xi Zuochi of Xiangyang bows his head and makes prostration. (The preface to Yu Chan's Eulogy on the Hall of Delighting in the Worthy also states: 'Emperor Ming, the Ancestor Su, deeply loved the Buddha-Dao and personally traced the wondrous image.')