弘明集 13.18

13.18

The Xianzhe de jing says: 'What makes one's own heart uneasy is never inflicted upon other beings.' Speaking in proximate terms, this is the way of loyalty and reciprocity; extending it to the utmost, it is the principle of the four immeasurables. What are the four immeasurables? Loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and protective equanimity. What is meant by loving-kindness? Feeling pity for sentient beings, equalizing self and others, extending oneself to forgive others, wishing to make all universally secure, and letting love reach even insects without distinction in feeling. What is meant by compassion? Universally loving and rescuing all, shedding tears with a grieving heart, requiring that real efficacy be secretly manifested and not merely possessing a benevolent intention. What is meant by sympathetic joy? Being delighted, gentle, and giving without regret. What is meant by loving protection? Skillfully rescuing according to expedients in response to every category, serving as a bridge and ford to connect all, and striving to preserve broad salvation. Being able to practice the four immeasurables makes one most venerated in the three realms. However, if one has not yet merged the mind into the signless, then wherever there are conditioned measures, they must eventually end. Therefore the Benqi jing says: 'Although the devas are joyful, when their merit is exhausted they also perish. At the height of nobility in the heavenly realm, the gateway stands opposite hell.' The Chengju jing also says: 'Blessings contain suffering; they have exhaustion, toil, and transmigration.' The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: 'The five destinies have no security; only non-action is joyful.' A sūtra states that those who practice the Dao should first abandon the eight worldly conditions: gain, loss, defamation, fame, praise, blame, suffering, and pleasure. Hearing good, they do not rejoice; hearing evil, they do not fear. Their faithful mind is as firm as heaven; discouragement and encouragement cannot move their will. Burying their roots within, external things cannot disturb their thoughts. Furthermore, what one encounters in the present life must be due to past karma. The profound workings of past karma are as trustworthy as the four seasons; their arrival cannot be warded off, and their departure cannot be stopped. One should certainly comply with them and find peace in them, joyfully completing them, diligently increasing one's practice of the Dao and aspiring toward forgetting the mind. Only when the retribution of corporeal form has been cast aside will one obtain great peace. Principle is rooted in the mind, while retribution is manifest in events, just as when a form is upright the shadow is straight, and when a sound is harmonious the echo is smooth. This is the natural, profound response; who could be intentionally manufacturing it? Thus, to harmonize the mind with the spiritual Dao, one should properly expect it through penetrating principle, striving to abide in the distant and vast void, rectifying oneself without hoping for external aid; one must not approach it with base profanity or seek it out of emotional desire. This is the key to settling the mind, which practitioners ought to reflect upon. Some might say that mental thoughts will surely receive retribution, in principle identical to shadow and echo, so one need only seek within oneself, and certainly have no concern with the unseen realm. Yet, in tracing the establishment of the sūtra teachings, they were precisely the means to awaken those seeking within themselves. However, as for the method of seeking within oneself, without the teaching one could not awaken to it. Awakening relies on the teaching, so its merit originates from the spiritual Dao. When joy and gratitude arise within, they must manifest in deeds, just as when singing is not enough, it is accompanied by dancing with the hands. If so, venerating and honoring it is something that in principle may not be strictly necessary, but which human feelings cannot dispense with. One should give free rein to deeply experiencing the tenets of the teaching, forgetting self-conscious thoughts in joyful contemplation, using oneself to guide other beings and aligning oneself with the multitude, thereby consolidating the aspirations of beginners and providing their feelings with something to rely upon.