弘明集 6.40

6.40

Zhou's question says: Your treatise says, 'because their times were different, their customs were not the same'—this is how Buddhism differs from the Dao. 'Because their ages were diverse, their significance was not identical'—this is how the words of the Dao diverge from the Buddha. Since the Dao and the Buddha are two different things, if not a duck, then a swallow; only the root revered by you, sir, is a single creature, being the wild goose. Yet running between the Buddha and the Dao cannot avoid both errors. I do not know by what reason your elevated perception recognized the root so lightly and came to revere it; does it have a special purport? If you still take the two teachings to establish that root, I fear that while the battle and trials are just raging, the litigation cannot yet be settled. If, though relying on the two teachings, you equally fathom the source of the teachings, then the source of these teachings should always be seen by following the teachings themselves. You ought naturally to wear a deer cap and hold a ringed staff, serenely seeing it at a glance while Confucians and Mohists dispute garrulously—why has there ever been any contention? If by joining their source both are right, while dividing their traces makes both wrong, then the application of the two traces ought to be equal in accepting and rejecting. Why is it that in the direction of your soaring and settling, your diligent effort is devoted solely to the Buddha, concentrating your qi and embracing the One without giving careful attention to the Dao? Your words are refined and their purport is far-reaching; I eagerly await hearing your essential response.