弘明集 5.11

5.11

I received your letter. Its text is succinct, its meaning fine, and its reasoning also encompasses genuine feeling. Although I rejoiced at your pure response, you have not yet understood, which leaves me with lingering concern. Please examine the original premise. The original premise never maintained that things do not transform at all; it merely held that those that transform each obtain that into which they transform, and those that decay also do not lose their former essence. Who oversees the potting of this, now mixing, now dividing? I say that its ultimate shares are so, and cannot be disordered. If so, how could this be merely a single rebirth? It will undergo endless rebirth alongside the infinite. Ending and beginning again, its numbers are clear. If one cannot understand the present, how can one understand rebirth? This was just an accumulation of sorrow leading to reckless words, inquiring after what could resolve it. How could I say it was merely for solace? It was just to dispel my thoughts.