弘明集 5.38

5.38

The questioner asks: "If we examine Laozi's thought, heaven and earth are great because they attain the One, and kings and princes are noble because they embody compliance. By attaining the One, they are the root of the myriad transformations; by embodying compliance, they have the efficacy of revolving and circulating. If so, illuminating the fundamental principle must lie in embodying the ultimate, and seeking the ultimate must come from complying with transformation. Therefore, past sages took this as a fine discourse, and the various arguments could not dissent from it. For one who dissents from the various arguments, his doctrine has nothing to recommend it. Why, then, do you say that one does not comply with transformation?"

I answer: "All that exists within the spatial realm equally receives life from the Great Transformation. Although the myriad kinds are immensely diverse and their fine and coarse aspects have different threads, to speak of them in terms of their overarching principle, there are simply those with sentience and those without sentience. Those with sentience have feelings toward transformation; those without sentience have no feelings toward transformation. With those who have no feelings toward transformation, when transformation ends, life is exhausted; because life does not arise from feelings, when the corporeal form decays, transformation ceases. With those who have feelings toward transformation, they are moved by responding to external things; being moved necessarily involves feelings, and therefore their life does not cease. When life does not cease, their transformations become ever more extensive and their corporeal forms ever more accumulated, their feelings become ever more stagnant and their burdens ever deeper. How could the troubles this causes ever be fully described!

"Therefore, the sūtras state that Nirvāṇa is unchanging, taking the exhaustion of transformation as its dwelling, while the three realms are in flux, taking suffering and affliction as their arena. When transformation is exhausted, causes and conditions cease forever; when there is flux, one endures suffering without end. How do we know this to be so? Life takes the corporeal form as its fetters, yet life arises from transformation. When transformation is stirred by feelings, the spirit stagnates in its root and wisdom is blinded in its illumination. When there is obstinate attachment, what is preserved is only the self, and what is encountered is only movement. Thereupon, the reins of the spirit lose control and the paths of rebirth open daily. One simply follows craving into the long current—how could it be limited to just a single lifetime?

"Therefore, one who returns to the root and seeks the ultimate does not burden his spirit with life; one who transcends the dust of worldly bounds does not burden his life with feelings. When one does not burden his life with feelings, life can be extinguished; when one does not burden his spirit with life, the spirit can merge [into the dark principle]. When the spirit is merged and objects of perception are cut off, this is called Nirvāṇa. How could the name of Nirvāṇa be an empty fabrication?

"Please let us examine this through reality: Heaven and earth, though taking the generation of life as great, cannot make the living not transform. Kings and princes, though taking the preservation of life as their merit, cannot make the preserved free from distress. Therefore, the preceding treatise said: 'Understanding that distress and burden stem from having a body, he does not preserve the body to extinguish distress; knowing that the generation of life arises from receiving transformation, he does not comply with transformation to seek the ultimate.' The meaning lies precisely in this; the meaning lies precisely in this. This is why the śramaṇa treats the lord of ten thousand chariots as an equal, holds his enterprise high, does not accept enfeoffment from kings and princes, yet extends his blessings to them."