弘明集 5.9

5.9

I have examined your Treatise on Rebirth. It encompasses transformations and exhausts the investigation of gathering and dispersing. Its conceptual reasoning is fine, and its expressive flavor and style are delightful; it is indeed a good treatise. However, my opinion still holds differences. Regarding the myriad things transforming into different corporeal forms, they are countless; responding to principle, they do not err, yet their concealment and manifestation span years and ages. Now, among the myriad transformations, there should still be more or less some. Are there none who regain their corporeal forms? When conditions are exhausted, they must become dark and distant, their ears and eyes no longer opening or pursuing; only then do they return to their root. I maintain that when the corporeal form turns to dust and disperses, sentience does likewise, chaotically mingling and transforming into different things. Other things each lose their former state and are no longer as in past days. This is why sentient beings lament. If this is so, then you cannot yet take solace in this alone.