弘明集 6.7

6.7

"Furthermore, you say, 'They eat only vegetarian food.' Indeed, in the human world there is the scarcity of insufficiency, and mountains and marshes have no accumulated reserves. Just when they should obtain provisions, you burden them with the law; turning nine times in the path, how could they stand firm? If in a grand, sagely age there were the starvation on Mount Shouyang, or in a bright, harmonious era there were the drowning in the sea, how would that accord with your refined sentiments? However, having no fur or feathers on the body, one cannot be bared without clothing; having a stomach that is not an inedible gourd, one cannot hang without eating. Before having reached the ultimate, one must have that by which one is sustained. When the year is plentiful, they obtain sufficiency from the common people; when the season is lean, they exert effort to supply themselves. This is truly not what is ideal, but an inevitable necessity. Therefore, when a viper bites the hand, one cuts it off to preserve the whole. Weighed in their light and heavy aspects, what is preserved is greater. Although they manage their own persons, they do not seek without attaining; seeking need not take only a single path. Provided that relieving needs has principle, why resent multiple means as defiling their desires? Confining them so they cannot act at all—why must you be so obstinate? In antiquity, Bocheng plowed in person to reclaim land; Changju and Jieni worked yoked together to tend agriculture; Tao Zhu traded as a merchant to make a living; the scholar of Wuling watered vegetables to supply himself; Cui Wen sold medicine to stave off lack; Yan Junping performed divination to fill his needs; Zhang Heng won fame through arts and calculations; and Ma Jun displayed success with extraordinary contrivances. These were merely people who went against custom and escaped the world; they were not yet seen as having transcended the dust from afar, severed from the world like heaven, yet all people ceaselessly praised and recited them. However, among the śramaṇas, those whose traces surpass these figures and who are ashamed to associate with their ilk often number in the tens of thousands; as for those who embody the Dao, whose spirit transforms and transcends the human realm, they cannot be calculated, yet you have never spoken of them. How partial you are! We should together consider and compare the facts; you cannot hold differing views for the past and present, or use different words for the few and the many. Valuing the rare and simple while holding the numerous and vulgar in contempt—I fear this is not a discussion that seeks precision and verifies principle. You say, 'They could simply be abolished to unify customs'—what kind of talk is this? The sage does not deceive: in a hamlet of ten households, among three people there must be teachers and elders. When fragrant orchids flourish together, to wish to gather and burn them—is that not cruel? Among them, there are naturally those whose virtuous demeanor is profound and vast, whose capacity marks the aspiration of the times: some are preeminent and pristine, lodging their dwellings in the pure and remote; some have dhyāna contemplation that enters the subtle, purifying their spirit in the transcendent realm; some expound subtle words, dispelling obscurity and resolving blockages; some are diligent in the enterprise of merit, exhorting transformation and exalting good. In general, as for the origin of leaving household life, on the day they shave their hair and draw out their hairpins, all make solitary vows with heart and mouth, their feelings reaching utmost sincerity. Although life and death are vast and submerged, and the mysterious path is long and remote, they must urge themselves on and surely step onto the Dao. The glory of a wheel-turning king is suddenly regarded as dust and dirt; the gravity of Śakra is despised like chaff. At the beginning, all have refined sincerity and thus attain resonance. Unless one attains realization abruptly in a single leap and embodies complete perfection, how could there not be minor faults in between? One should simply record their genuine simplicity and broadly raise their dark and yellow shades; how can you lump everything together into one category with no further discrimination? One cannot, because of the transgression of Guan and Cai, execute the entire Ji clan; nor, because of the violence of the Four Calamities, banish the entire court. How is this different from a person who, suffering from head lice, wishes to burn the head along with them, or, troubled by a thorn in the foot, wishes to sever the entire thigh? Is that not excessive?"