弘明集 3.20

3.20

I reply: The city wall collapsing, frost falling, piercing the sun, and entering the Pleiades are not analogies that clarify future lives; they should not be cited in the present discourse. Furthermore, seeing the restraint of water and fire and marveling at the ability to be born in a realm of the seven treasures is like watching a great foundry melt metal and hoping it can cast itself—it can never be known. Furthermore, you say: 'The truth of existence and the truth of non-existence: this proclamation is distinctly at peace [with reason]. From antiquity, the existences of thousandfold transformations have, in an instant, all become void. At the time of their flourishing existence, did they not always contain the reality of inevitable voidness? The foolish do not understand this principle and only see existence.' I reply: As your discourse says, at the time of their flourishing existence, they already had the reality of inevitable voidness. In that case, things are constantly empty just as they are; the empty and things are one. Now, if emptiness and existence are not different, why should the worthy and the foolish be designated differently? What was called the Dao in the past was formless regarding form, and effortless regarding affairs; placid, vacant, harmonious, and pure, it nourished wisdom and gladdened the spirit. How could it be that only when love and desire are not yet removed, past karma is feared? How could merely seeing existence be an error? To sneer at the Marquis of Qi with this is just like retreating fifty paces and laughing at those who retreated a hundred paces. Furthermore, you say: 'The hidden departing of the boat in the ravine is what the Buddhist sūtras call "the present does not abide." If one can truly understand this, then things and self are constantly empty.'