弘明集 8.9

8.9

Flourishing substance like crimson clouds speaks of the efficacy of the divine elixir; opening luminous and pure wisdom requires the vapor of the divine flower. Even if one preserves these as true, one cannot avoid the end. How much more so with Zhang Ling, who falsely claimed to be the Celestial Master! Having insulted and slighted humans and ghosts, he received retribution in his very body: near the end of the Xingping era of the Han, he was swallowed by a giant python. His son Heng rushed in search of him to no avail. Fearing the reproaches and ridicule of pure criticism, he then set up an expedient device to display traces of spiritual transformation. He tied the foot of a live snow goose and placed it atop a stone cliff; when the plot was prepared, he set a date to initiate it. Coming to the first year of the Jian'an era, he sent a messenger to announce: 'On the seventh day of the first month, the Celestial Master ascends to the Mysterious Capital.' The rice-people and mountain barbarians swarmed like ants outside the threshold. The people of the Cloud Terrace parish and others bowed their heads twice, saying: 'We humbly hear that the sage carriage has gone to the Mysterious Capital; we, your subjects, are forever separated from your protective presence, leaving behind corpse-dust to boil in the nine obscurities and dark nights.' Heng entered inside, and after a long while emerged, falsely claiming: 'I have turned my carriage from Chenhua. Return, each of you, to your governing parish; with pure minds maintain practice, keep the Master in mind, and contemplate the Dao.' Heng then secretly pulled the wandering snare, and the snow goose shot straight into the void. The foolish and ignorant populace and barbarians all declared he had ascended to transcendency. Peddling death to profit the living, this is deceiving heaven and earth.