弘明集 2.16

2.16

Allow me to review and expand upon this again. When the sages created the Changes, Heaven suspended its images; auspicious and inauspicious omens, good order and chaos—these could be known through divination. Yet as for investigating the underlying cause of why this is so, where the sages did not make it clear, no one is able to know it. Now, if one were to abolish what can be known because of what cannot be known, acting against divination and in defiance of Heaven, could anything avoid falling into ruin? It is just the same with rejecting the Buddhist Dharma simply because its original beginnings are not fully clear. Furthermore, to argue that the spirit does not inherently exist merely because one has no recollection of past lives [is mistaken]: while a person is in the womb up until their childhood teeth are shed, it cannot be said that they lack a spirit. Within one and the same life, when we think back upon it now, it is still shrouded in darkness and unremembered; how much more so when passing through death and rebirth and undergoing different bodies—how could former memories fail to cease? Although what was remembered is gone, this does not harm the everlasting existence of the spirit; so if one does not comprehend its primordial beginnings, what impediment does that pose to its principle being perpetually manifest? When Zilu asked about death, the Master said, 'Before you know life, how can you know death?' When he asked about serving ghosts and spirits, the Master said, 'Before you know how to serve people, how can you serve ghosts?' Was this not because You [Zilu] was completely given to love of valor and earnest in serving his lord, so it was indeed fitting to answer him within the scope of a single life? As for the roots of birth and death, ghosts and spirits, although he posed questions, he did not possess the resonance for their true principle. Therefore, nature and the Heavenly Way could not be heard from him. In the teachings of the Buddhist house, among the fourteen questions regarding whether sentient beings are finite or infinite and the like, the All-Knowing One set them all aside and did not answer; this was truly because answering them would bring no benefit and would only cause one to fall into evil heterodoxies. Therefore, in receiving the sages and honoring the Buddhist path, it is indeed fitting to leave aside what has been cut off and partake of what is answered. It is like a thirsty person drinking from a river: they draw from the great stream to fill themselves; what need is there to trace the source all the way to Mount Kunlun? If anything in the Buddhist Dharma were to obstruct Heaven, so that its principle could not hold, then it would indeed be right to doubt it. But now there is no obstacle preventing it from holding true, whereas it possesses the reality of according with Heaven and purifying the spirit—is it not truly so? A person's life is born together with sorrows: calamities and disasters arise from temporal affairs, while baneful scourges erupt from the unseen dark. Even if one's noble status connects with the clouds and one commands millions of followers, initially one must still sit alone with form and spirit awaiting impermanence. The household is merry and joyful, wife and children play and laugh, yet in an instant one sinks again into indistinct void. How could human affairs ever be relied upon? If one takes the fleeting passage through a crevice as reason to scramble for indulgence, slandering unseen transformation and letting loose desires in ostentatious destructiveness, then since the spirit is never extinguished and seeking extinction is impossible, one will surely take on a new body propelled by one's transgressions. The present wretched swarms of creatures, the myriad grades of insects and worms, are all clear mirrors of warning. For one who plans for this, the only way is to entrust one's sincerity in faith to the Buddha, deposit one's mind in practicing the precepts, and thereby rescue the spirit. In life one receives divine aid; at death one ascends in purity. Ascending in purity without end, one will proceed directly to becoming a Buddha. The Buddha indeed spoke thus, yet people mock it; how can one judge that humans surpass the Buddha? If they do not surpass him, will they not inevitably plunge down into those evils and endure their extremity forever? Alas! Those who are born in the bitter poisons of the six extremities are the reason why the mundane world never ceases. Among those I have heard and seen who died while making vigorous progress, when their end approached, most of them had a spirit and mind settled and calm; when there were those in pressing peril, if they single-mindedly invoked Avalokiteśvara, practically none failed to receive deliverance. These are all tokens of what was previously called receiving divine aid in life and ascending in purity at death. The master of ten thousand chariots and the lord of a thousand chariots do not have leisure to eat until the sun declines; the myriad commoners rely on them within just a single transformation. How are they to enhance their spirits and reign as kings over myriad transformations? If now they rely on the Duke of Zhou and Confucius to nurture the people and relish the Buddhist Dharma to nurture the spirit, then in life they will be enlightened sovereigns, and upon death they will be enlightened spirits, perpetually reigning as kings. How could the Tathāgata deceive us? I do not mean that one should revere pagodas, lavishly decorate statues, and harbor hypocritical monks who merely feign talent, thereby wasting wealth and harming the people. When creatures do not peer into the distant reality but only look at proximate defects, they will wrongly revile the Dharma. Honoring its Dao, having faith in its teachings, awakening to the impermanence of emptiness and form, possessing a compassionate mind, and regulating transformation; not lightly taking the lives of creatures on account of noble status, and not allowing the unworthy to wrongfully usurp clerical robes—is this not guiding them with virtue, regulating them with propriety, so that the whole world returns to benevolence in full flourish? When one is in an idle position or lives as an ordinary person in fields and marshes, what is there to begrudge, that one should fail to deliver one's own spirit? Formerly, Upādhyāya [Hui]yuan purified his practice on Mount Lu, and I went to rest there for fifty days. He was lofty, pure, upright, and rigorous; his study of principles was subtle and profound—he was truly a distant stream. His master, Dharma Master Daoan, possessed extraordinary divine virtue; the monks I met, however lowly, all harbored pure truth. They were all originally in harmony with the Dao, and only then stood solitary upon the mountain. Therefore, the transformation wrought by their divine brilliance ran deep in the craggy forests. Often when he spoke with me amid cliffside trees and ravine torrents, it was serene and purposeful; his words were solemn and inspiring. Discussions such as this are merely what the Upādhyāya drew from the purports of the scriptures. He who is good at grasping opportunities invented written characters based on bird tracks; he who pursued the spirit took the palanquin-bearers' praise, and Ti Ying's single word allowed hegemonic achievements to succeed and bodily mutilation to be permanently abolished. Matters indeed have instances where a fleeting, subtle stimulus ultimately reaches the heavens. Now, by using these crude and vulgar words to awaken your sensitivity, even if my body should suddenly perish, who knows if you might not transcendently ascend thereby?