弘明集 5.64

5.64

The sūtras teach that karma has three retributions: the first is retribution in the present life; the second is retribution in the next life; and the third is retribution in subsequent lives. Retribution in the present life means that good and evil begin with this body and are received in this very body. Retribution in the next life means that they are received directly in the coming rebirth. Retribution in subsequent lives means that they are received only after passing through two lives, three lives, a hundred lives, or a thousand lives. In receiving them there is no sovereign master; it necessarily stems from the mind. The mind has no fixed charge; it responds when stimulated by circumstances. In responding, there are slowness and quickness, and therefore retributions have priority and delay. Though priority and delay differ, they all correspond to what is encountered and form an encounter. Encounters have strength and weakness, and therefore their lightness and heaviness are not uniform. These are natural rewards and punishments, the broad outline of the three retributions. Unless one possesses versatile talent, profound insight, and the illumination of entering the essentials, one can rarely gain entry through its gate. Below such a person, if there are those who begin to tread the Great Way, taking the ancients as their divining stalks and tortoise shells, extensively synthesizing inner scriptures, turning to infer three corners from what has not yet been heard, and taking as masters and friends benevolent artisans whose habits have transformed their natures, then they can roughly manage to speak of it. I beg to attempt a discussion of it. Now, the arising of good and evil has its gradual stages; when this gradual process reaches its extremity, there is the doctrine of the nine grades. All that is within the nine grades is not subsumed under retribution in the present life. That being so, retribution in the present life can be known to surpass the ordinary categories. If its category is not among the nine grades, then it is not subsumed under the three retributions [in that sense]. Why is this? If advantage and harm cross before one's eyes and suddenly vie with each other, the spiritual mechanism moves of itself and issues forth without awaiting deliberation. When issuing forth does not await deliberation, the retribution responds without turning on one's heel. This is one aspect of retribution in the present life, which surpasses the nine grades. Furthermore, though the three karmas differ in essence, they naturally share determinacy. When retribution is determined, then once its time arrives, it must be received; it cannot be shifted by prayers, nor escaped by intellectual power. If one were to pursue this to the utmost, its principles are profound and its enumerations vast, beyond thorough investigation; hence I state it in brief, trusting that those who harbor the Buddhist teachings may already grasp it. In the world, there are instances where accumulating good invites calamity, or where wickedness and depravity bring good fortune. These are all cases where present karma is not yet complete while previous deeds have just begun to respond. Therefore it is said: "The pure and auspicious meet with misfortune, while ominous monsters encounter blessings." Doubts and suspicions arise precisely from this. Why is this said to be so? Some wish to assist the ruler and save the age, practicing the Dao to rescue the people, emulating high footsteps with aspirations to establish merit, yet their great undertaking collapses midway and heaven-sent calamities suddenly amass. Some dwell in retirement by simple brushwood gates, unbothered by the world, regarding a leisurely walk as a carriage, living in relaxed ease to the end of their years, yet when their time comes they encounter unmerited misfortune through no fault of their own, and both Dao and world sink together despite their leisurely cultivation. Some have names ranking foremost among the Four Subjects, their Dao reaching the inner chamber; fully loving, embodying benevolence, and admiring supreme goodness so as to advance virtue—such people embrace harmonious balance yet contract sickness; they tread upon trustworthiness and obedience yet die young. These are all deeds of establishing merit and establishing virtue, yet they are the very reason transformative doubts and suspicions arise. Once the great principle is clarified, one ought to trace the corresponding retributions. Each response has its origin, waiting for stimulation to burst forth. Though adverse and favorable differ, their principle is one. Why? The momentum of misfortune leaning on good fortune is fixed in the past; their dark tallies and decreed mandates secretly exchange with one another. Thus the vital energies of misfortune and good fortune alternate across the six realms, and the retributions of good and evil run concurrently in tangled confusion. This causes both the foolish and the wise to share in confusion when matters correspond, saying that accumulating good yields no celebration, and accumulating evil yields no calamity. Grieved by the spirits, they lament their own foolishness; sighing over heaven's destruction of good people, they all claim that the Teachings of Names are exhausted and have no overarching principle above. They thereby cause the Great Way to be obscured by minor successes, taking correct words to be mere skillful inducements, believing that if one examines reality in accordance with the mind, the ultimate principle definitely lacks such things. Tracing back where this originates: it is because the world's secular scriptures take a single life as their limit, failing to clarify what lies beyond it. Because what lies beyond is not yet clarified, those who pursue the principle naturally exhaust themselves within what can be seen and heard. This was the former kings acting according to the people's minds to penetrate their allotted capacities, using the ears and eyes as the pivotal hinge. If one were to join the inner and outer ways so as to seek the spirit of the broad teachings, then one would know that the accord of principles must be identical, not being perplexed by the myriad paths or startled by their differences. If one is able to survey the three retributions to observe the divisions between adversity and success, then why Confucius did not answer Zhongyou, and why Yan Hui and Ran Geng appeared as fools before the sacred artisan, can all be understood. There are also those who arise through conditions and are born through conditions; although they have already entered into the brightness of the truths, they have not yet forgotten what is left to receive, still taking the three retributions as a flower garden, leaping like a dragon yet not having departed from the deep. Inferring from this, one then knows that there are guests from beyond the realm: they embrace the wondrous Dharma in their hearts and wash their minds in the profound gate; by the stimulus of a single attainment, they transcend and ascend to the highest rank. For such peers, though past calamities have accumulated, their merit is not within worldly governance, and their nature is naturally dissolved in peace, beyond what the three retributions can reach. Speaking on this basis, is the reason the Buddhist scriptures transcend the Teachings of Names and surpass the Nine Schools not because they disencumber the spirit to reach the essentials, mold the spiritual palace, exhaust the origin, consummate transformation, and mirror the myriad images in that which is formless?