弘明集 12.74

12.74

Reading your letter, my doubts are still not resolved; taking occasion from your reply, I again raise rough objections. Can the principle of feeling and reverence admit of duality? Both proceed from the interior to the exterior. Once one enters the realm of sentient beings, it cannot be absent. If, as you say, the ruler is identical to Creation, and no one has ever thanked the benevolence of what they received or lodged gratitude in the root of principle, then this merit is mysterious and this principle is profound—nothing is greater than this! If so, how could the transformation of the Buddha surpass it? Yet your essay says: 'Because the paths are different, by principle there is no humbling or bending; their宗旨 and purport being the same, elder and younger are completely ordered; their reliance on awakening being linked, practice and mind correspond.' If principle resides in one's own root and virtue deeply abides in the utmost, how can one speak of a difference in paths and speak of humbling and bending? What is this宗旨 and purport? If you take study and practice as the宗旨 and purport, then what is studied by learning merely brings forth one's spontaneous nature. If the spontaneous resides in that from which it was received, then the root of the spontaneous can easily be known! The awakening gained through reliance and guidance merely develops and polishes its branches. If practice and mind correspond, how could it be present here and not present there?