弘明集 5.6

5.6

Investigating the old treatises, they also say: 'Ten thousand portents are hangingly fixed; all living beings alternate and succeed one another.' When the Sage created the Book of Changes, he fully exhausted its ultimate: 'Exhausting the spirit to know transformations, exhausting principle to fulfill nature.' If the spirit can indeed be exhausted, then that which has corporeal form cannot lack a determined number. This being so, human beings and things have their fixed numbers; you and I have our established shares. What exists cannot be extinguished into non-existence, and another cannot be transformed into me. Gathering and dispersing, concealing and manifesting, they revolve on an endless course. The worthy and the foolish, the long-lived and the prematurely dead, each returns to its own kind; they naturally follow one another in succession without the slightest error. Merging with fortune, their recurrence is achieved without conscious knowing. How distant! How vast! Its Dao is profound. Although Heaven and Earth are great, they are integrated without confusion; although the myriad things are numerous, their divisions are already distinct. Each proceeds from its own root, with ancestors and descendants in proper order; the root and branches endure for a hundred generations without losing their former pattern. Furthermore, the spirit and material substance are a natural pair. In pairs, there are the changes of separation and union, death and rebirth; in material substance, there is the tendency of gathering and dispersing, going and returning. The transformations of humans and things each possess their own nature. Nature has its original share, and therefore things recurrently have constancy. Although their dispersal may seem jumbled, their gathering cannot be disordered. The further their going, the nearer their return. Moreover, the spirit and material substance have a profound agreement, fitting together naturally like tallies. The world laments that what unites must separate, yet none finds solace that what separates must unite. All know that what gathers must disperse, yet none recognizes that what disperses must gather. They simply have not reflected on this. Could it really be so far away? The actions of this present life are just those of the past life; the events of life are just those past events. In their essence, there is nowhere to place them; their intentions merge with the self, each without self-awareness. Who can claim to be aware of it? Current debaters merely know that the former 'I' is not the present 'I', but do not know that the present 'I' is just the past 'I'. This is how the clear-sighted equalize life and death, and also say that life and death are like waking and dreaming. How true are these words!