弘明集 8.29

8.29

Indeed, keeping the mind and mouth in profound silence is the true virtue of the myriad practices. Yet sentient beings in the dusty realm generally lack compassion and love. Fierce, cruel, heterodox, and flattering, they vie to manufacture talismans and petitions, hanging them on gates and pasting them on doors to deceive the foolish vulgar; the noble and discerning find no peace in this. They fabricate the 'Yellow Spirit Seal of the Cross' to kill ghosts, and also create the 'Red Seal' to kill people. Courting worldly favor, they take no account of sins and retribution. Harboring jealousy in dark plots is already established by former standards in the scriptures: in death they enter the great hell of iron pincers; reborn, they become shrikes, deaf and mute, their subtle skeletons muddled and decayed, sunken in exile for eternal kalpas. Who knows this? You old demon people and Daoists are not like this; matters ought to be tested against reality. Although remonstrance and criticism are bitter, the wise find them sweet to hear; hence I have stated this briefly. Pray test your thoughts thrice: if you can brush away old traces and reform your designs, you will share the same wind as the Great Transformation! If you truly do not reform, we shall await the illustrious and virtuous, who fully illuminate voices and melodies, to awaken the long night—how could it be fully expressed by today's weak words?