弘明集 3.25

3.25

Now, although they are called skillful means, manifestation and obscurity in spiritual response each depend on faults and blessings. Formerly, when the Buddha emitted bright light for the assembly, it was because they had long accumulated marvelous sincerity that they attained this spiritual wandering. If timely words have become an already manifest snare, the arrogant can behold them; but bright light arises from contemplative illumination, and those with deviant views have no cause to gaze upon its radiant sprinkling. Now, if they behold the scriptures without repenting their arrogance, what benefit would there be in sprinkling it beforehand? If sincere and faithful worthies alone are illuminated by this spiritual radiance, how would you, sir, know of it? If one speaks of it, you will just call it false talk again. When the constant stars were invisible, the night became bright; calculating the year and month, it was precisely the night when the Buddha was born and emitted light. When Guan You'an sailed the sea on a stormy night, his companions all drowned; You'an saw a light in the dark, hastened toward the light to reach an island, and his entire household alone was saved. The Buddha has neither partiality nor indifference; he responds solely to goodness. Responses brought about by cases like Wang Xiang and Guo Ju are beyond reckoning; these too are tallies of seeing the light. How could it be that just because you have not seen it, there is no Buddha? You also recounted the flourishing of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius, asserting that only when compared to the Buddha can they be considered grand. Yet that was merely the flourishing of rulers governing the world in this land. The spirit, however, is not extinguished, but moves mysteriously on; within the fleeting moment of a single life, the eight sufferings are fully present. Though one may accomplish the Confucian enterprise to regulate a brief moment, before long it was extinguished: the revolt of the Three Overseers, fathers and sons suspecting each other, and brothers cutting each other down. Although seventy-two disciples ascended the hall and entered the chamber, scarcely a few reached the age of fifty. Yan [Hui]'s early death, Ran [Geng]'s affliction, [Zhong] You made into mincemeat, [Zai] Yu's clan exterminated, [Duanmu] Ci having his beard shaved, and the hardships in Kuang and Chen—how can they be fully recounted? Enduring hunger to propagate the Dao while the various states fell into turmoil, what was ultimately saved? Viewing it through the Buddha's Dharma, one sees only sorrow; is this not the convergence of past karma of worldly beings? If measured by the real principle conveyed, this cannot yet be considered profound and grand. If one externally conforms to rites and music while internally cultivating non-arising, clarifying the spirit in the realm of Nirvāṇa and regarding a hundred million kalpas as a single season, would that not truly be grand? These matters were not transmitted to posterity, and their principle cannot yet be known; I hope you will not rely on coarse traces to say that the Duke of Zhou and Confucius were not like this. People all claim that the Buddha spoke falsely; yet the Shanhai jing speaks of many who died and were reborn. In the Kunlun Mountains and the wilderness of Guangdu, the lands traversed by Xuanyuan, the air is neither cold nor hot; people eat phoenix eggs, drink sweet dew, rest under the shade of jade trees, and sip the waters of the vermilion spring, living for several thousand years without dying. As for turning into a yellow bear and entering the Yu Abyss, or the likes of Shen Sheng and Boyou, what Zuo Qiuming recounted is likewise not scarce. One can use the coarseness of these accounts to believe in the refinement of those [in Buddhism]. I have heard that in the past, those who possessed the Dao and heard the Buddha's Dharma and restrained themselves surely went beyond being dead men of Pucheng. This was likely because what they heard was not yet elevated, was it not? What you have heard is elevated; even now, you can undergo a leopard-like transformation. Man is a spiritual being; if you merely take refuge with faith in the spiritual ultimate and roughly receive the teachings and precepts, even if slight and feeble, it will suffice to bring about a response. When there is a response, one will ascend ever higher; is this not a fine plan in case one is not extinguished? If the reality of non-extinction in the past was as the Buddha said, and the spirit turned away while the mind slandered, going against the unseen authorities, how do you know that the bitter poisons of this life are not the result of past lives? If, relying lightly on your own partial views, you treat the teachings of the revered spirit with arrogance, I fear you may bring obstacles upon yourself.