弘明集 13.22

13.22

The six perfections: first, giving; second, morality; third, forbearance; fourth, vigour; fifth, single-mindedness; sixth, wisdom. To accumulate and be able to disperse, nourishing and saving sentient beings—this is giving. To guard the ten wholesome actions carefully, warding off depravity with sincerity—this is morality. To be wronged without retaliating, always excelling at humbling oneself—this is forbearance. To diligently practise what one has studied, tireless day and night—this is vigour. To concentrate the mind and guard intent, restraining the multitude [of thoughts] with brevity—this is single-mindedness. Practising these five matters with an intentional mind is called the worldly perfections; directing them with dual forgetting is called the wisdom of the Dao. The Benqi jing says: 'The ninety-six kinds of Daoist arts each believe in what they serve and all delight in a peaceful life; who knows their delusion?' Delighting in gain and hating loss, rejoicing in survival and grieving at demise—these are the constant stagnations of being lost in youth, shared by all that is born. Yet the subtle power quietly ebbs away, not to be retained by earnest longing; when the retribution arrives, it responds—how could the functions of intellect restrain it? Therefore, the learner must dedicate his mind to the source of transformation and fathom the profound tenets. Savoring them and treasuring them, the host of thoughts will naturally fall away. Falling away, there is forgetting; forgetting, conditions are severed. Once karmic conditions are severed, one thereafter enters non-arising. No longer receiving birth, one can therefore never die. Hence the Puyao jing says: 'Arising from nowhere, there is nowhere it does not arise; among all that arises, nothing arises.' The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: 'When the mind and consciousness are serene and at rest, there is neither dying nor being born.' The mind is the root-seed; conduct is its soil; retribution is its fruition. Just like planting crops, each follows its kind, and when the season arrives it sprouts, impossible to check. If one plants the ten evils or the precepts and good deeds, the retribution of receiving rebirth is fully detailed in the preceding chapter. If, in addition, one plants dhyāna and the four formless attainments, one's nobility reaches the pinnacle of the heavenly path; the four formless attainments and dhyānas are fully set forth in numerous scriptures. From the first heaven to the twenty-eighth heaven, according to one's practices, one's blessings double and redouble. If one plants the non-ordinary dhyānas, all the truths turn away from existence and attach to non-existence, then one attains the nirvāṇa of an arhat. Not shunning the conditioned, not bound to the contemplation of emptiness, meeting principle and merging with it, without grasping and without reliance—this is to have no planting. Having nothing planted, one receives no retribution; vast and mysteriously unconditioned, this is the Buddha's nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is called 'non-action' in Chinese, and also called 'extinction and crossing over'. Vimalakīrti said: 'Those six masters teach reliance as the path. Those who follow these masters abide in views, fall into extremes, and enter the eight difficulties, unable to escape the path of birth and death.' Even if one repeatedly cultivates the profound mind, a tiny stirring of hesitation is still equal to those six masters, stagnating together in a single existence. How much more so for those who cling to life and lean on ideations, taking the retribution as a self to resist transformation! Though their blessings surpass mountains and rivers and their nobility reaches the pinnacle of the three realms, revolving in alternation of fortune and misfortune, they will ultimately fall into sin and suffering. How could they obtain the serene spirit of the Great Creator, placid and mysteriously leveled?