弘明集 4.11

4.11

I have slightly followed the affairs of the seasons, personally harvesting the mountain fields. In the lulls of the farming household, elderly peasants are my companions. My speech stops at grain and crops, and my efforts are spent entirely on plowing and herding. Discussing the year's yield and counting the plow-pairs, I hear nothing of lofty principles. Having received your subtle argumentation once again, it has brought me clarity and solace. Your instructive letter is exquisitely thorough, making me feel ever more ashamed of my obstinacy. Now, having once again forgotten my former intention to lay down the brush, I set forth what remains unsaid.
Examining principles by relying on one's own ideas is not as good as analyzing them through the sacred texts. The discourse on the Three Powers must indeed be based on the three lines [of the hexagram]. Once the three lines are laid out, the middle line represents the virtue of the ruler. This is why its spirit reaches to the Supreme and exalts the One Sovereign. Therefore, I previously stated that unless one embodies harmony with Heaven and Earth, one cannot properly respond [to this position]. You have profoundly investigated this with pure thought, yet you are unwilling to agree, still fearing that an inclusive embrace would discard nothing and broad containment would leave nothing out. While your intent to treat all things with earnestness is truly generous and abundant, I fear the proper order of principle and status will become confused and disordered, and those mimicking real virtue will only multiply.
If the arising of compassion exhausts the measure of universal love, and the practice of shame at evil carries to the utmost the rectitude of helping the upright, then that is supreme benevolence and supreme righteousness, and I would find no fault in it. But those who practice it out of true feeling are few, while those who exploit it for profit are many. Those who merely partake in their share of it without reaching its culmination cannot be matched with the Two Modes (Heaven and Earth). Now, we should make those who have reached the culmination our teachers, and take those who have not reached it as our raw material, fostering their respect and yielding, removing their malice and contention, causing axes to be melted into blades and self-interest to be put to rest, thus guiding the people of a hundred generations onto the path of trust and honesty. Then what sprout would not flourish, and what good would not be aided? To falsely accuse me of ‘not counting them’ does not grasp my meaning.
The Three Powers stand on an equal footing; one must not take those of one-sided talent as their vessels. 'Sentient beings' is a general designation; one must not blur it with those who have realized the Unborn. Therefore, here we exclude the commoners and slaves, and there we single out the sagely and wise. The simultaneous adduction of both sets of texts was intended precisely for this. If Zichan and Ji Zha could not yet unify the Dao, how could they ascend to attach themselves to the august sovereigns and kings? Since Yi Yin and Yan Hui still shared in reliance on pneumatic transformation, it is fitting that they adhere to the lower category. The distinction between the two paths is easier to grasp than the profound purport.
You also understand that although human life universally receives the Great Virtue, humans cannot be called 'sentient beings'—just as although the sages equally partake of the Five Constants, they cannot be called 'ordinary men'. That they cannot be called 'ordinary men' is because what makes a person eminent is their spiritual intelligence. Now, if they have already universally received life and are identical with the multitude, why taboo the designation of 'common multitude'? Therefore, one should distinguish their extraordinary spirit, but should not differentiate their attainment of life. Merely dreading the name of 'multitude' does not diminish the reality of the multitude. Does this not resemble the people of Shu and Liang fleeing their fears, ultimately unable to escape them?
As for what was called 'humans employing things for nourishment, and things being employed to nourish humans'—this meant that the foolish and the wise undermine each other, and the deluded and the calculating constrain one another. These matters arise from human cleverness, not from heavenly principle. For this reason, in the beginning one pities the rising of sprouts, and in the end one laments their gloomy destruction. How could this share the same purport with your domestic beasts of a hundred kinds?
In general, being stirred to action and having the good flow forth is the nature of the common people; transforming and regulating them is the achievement of the supreme sages. Even when carefully erecting fences and dikes, one still worries about overflows; how much more so when nothing is left unprovided to satisfy extravagant desires! If you are just opening the way for excess, how can you discuss eliminating extremes? Therefore, one knows that discussions of cruelty to living things cannot share joys and sorrows with petty men. The intention to kill is partial; the sentiment that loves life is broad. When it is said, 'acting with the Dao as one's mind,' it means that through broad sentiments for life, one causes emptiness to be dispelled and reality to be pursued, so that no living thing is cut short prematurely and beneficial favors reach to Heaven without being considered mere favors. How could benevolence stop at fawns and eggs, taking the habits of wolves and otters as its model?
Extrapolating this forward: not only will one personally no longer lay the blame on the markets or kitchens, but outside of markets and kitchens, there is no lack of proper nourishment. What was written by Shennong, what was described by Xi Kang (Zhongsan), what Gongli praised, and what Zhongyan perfected—these are also recorded in antiquity. Now that we have heard of such persons, why must cutting and gutting be taken as the nature that receives harmony, and scalding and boiling be the means to assist the good?
If, because the registered households are difficult to unify, you worry that my humble thesis cannot be established—this is like seeing the disobedience of the Two Uncles and fearing that the virtue of Zhou would perish prematurely. If you can extend your vision with far-reaching plans and hold to them for generations, then the daily calculations can be fulfilled and yearly achievements can be expected.
Spirit and plants are indeed already distinguished. The response concerning the 'wandering soul' is also an explanation of the spirit. If, although non-corporeal, it exists, could there ever be a non-corporeal existence under Heaven? In consideration of this, there is only doubt, which ought to be corrected and settled. Zhongni (Confucius) did not answer because existence and non-existence were not yet distinguished. Since you have distinguished its existence, how could you agree with an answer that left it undistinguished? Although you are fond of learning, I fear you have not found the proper ground to rely on. Perhaps dawn and dusk are separated by a gulf, and the hidden and the manifest are far apart, causing the bright moon to cease its illumination and worldly wisdom to delimit the mind's knowledge, believing it must match reality. When it comes to the culmination of the essence, you do not examine it, and your thoughts turn as if things were utterly inexistent. Or perhaps like worldly people holding on to uncut jade who are rebuked in the jade market, an interpreter dragged by vulgar custom returns to recount the state's conditions. If it has not yet been fully illuminated, please allow me to fully state the recent explanation once more.
In speaking of retributive giving, when one first mentions cosmic allotment, it is because things do not happen in vain; rather, each resonates according to its category. Among categoric resonances, the human mind is the greatest. The movements of the mind's arts are beyond what records and calendars can capture; by the time their accumulation reaches what can scarcely be traced to its source, how could one arbitrarily seize upon worldly opinions and rely on them as supreme evidence? Zhuang Zhou said: 'If one acts recklessly and sloppily, the retribution will be likewise.' Sun Qing (Xunzi) said: 'The dynamics of retribution arrive each according to its kind.' When future lives are clearly set forth as warnings, can one fail to revere them? A person of compassionate protection sees deeply into these numbers; thus they speak correctly of their root, rather than courting their branches. They foster beauty, check evil, bring the people back to great accord, deliver the kinds of living beings into the realm of the deathless, and cause blessings to encompass myriad things, their reverence surpassing that of the hundred spirits. How could it be fitting that their fortunes should merely culminate in offspring and their blessings be limited to ministers and chancellors? When one constantly uses goodness to rescue, goodness also follows; its dynamic is like a shadow and a gnomon, arriving of itself without premeditation—what need is there to speak of it? To demand favors, delight in rewards, doubt transgressions, and strive in giving—this seems to stem from immediate experiences, selfish sentiments, and distant suspicions of moral teaching. Thus, just as one punishes those who boast of their merit, yet blindly faults those who forget the worthy, retaining and discarding have different meanings, and public and private matters have distinct intents; this was already fully explained before, so I will not repeat it. I suppose that those who dwell in the solid and despise the superficial will once again see how to dwell in the thick and avoid the thin. If giving is not to relieve urgency, and favors are done with the expectation of praise, such a person is truly a pest to the Dao. What you feel ashamed of, I, Qiu, also feel ashamed of.