弘明集 9.14

9.14

Objection: Now, if you discuss corporeal form and spirit having a unified essence, there should be proof of their non-separation. Yet you merely state that the spirit is the corporeal form, the corporeal form is the spirit, and that corporeal form and spirit cannot differ from each other. This is debate without evidence, departing from reliable analogy. Relying on dreams, I will now demonstrate that corporeal form and spirit cannot share a single essence. When a person sleeps, their corporeal form is a non-sentient thing, yet experiences are perceived: this is what the wandering spirit encounters. The spirit does not stand alone; it must rely on the vessel of corporeal form, just as a person cannot dwell in the open and must have a house. But the vessel of corporeal form is an impure, dark substance, and the house is an enclosed, obstructive place. When the spirit turns back inside the corporeal form, its consciousness becomes faint and muddled; therefore it takes its perceptions to be dreams. When a person returns inside a house, their spirit is temporarily obstructed; therefore it takes brightness to be obscurity. Indeed, people sometimes dream of soaring into the void or traveling ten thousand li far away. If this is not the journey of the spirit, could it be that the corporeal form went? Since the corporeal form did not go, and if the spirit moreover did not depart, how could such things occur? If you say these are visions generated by thought: when someone is fast asleep, their body is like rigid wood and their breath like cold ash; calling them, they do not hear; stroking them, they do not feel. If you say that the spirit and the corporeal form are equal, then both inside and outside would be weary together. Since [the body] does not receive sounds and sights from without, how could thoughts arise from within? From this, it can be decisively known that the corporeal form is at rest while the spirit gallops. Furthermore, consider all manner of dreams: some contradict the norm with strange encounters (such as Zhao Jianzi dreaming of a boy singing naked, 'Ke Wu ru Zou', or the minor officer of Jin dreaming of carrying the duke up to heaven and carrying the duke out of the latrine); some are impossible according to reason (such as Lü Yi dreaming of shooting the moon and hitting it, or the Queen of Wu dreaming of her intestines coming out and wrapping around the Changmen gate); some foretell what has not yet manifested (such as Lü Jiang dreaming of heaven naming her son Yu, or the people of Cao dreaming of gentlemen scheming to appoint Cao); some borrow analogous figures (such as Cai Mao dreaming of losing grain, signifying 'rank' (zhi), or Wang Jun dreaming of three knives, signifying 'province' (zhou)); some are about things non-existent in reality (such as a northern barbarian dreaming of a boat, or a Yue native dreaming of riding a horse); some are sometimes verified and sometimes not (the Yin ancestor dreaming of obtaining Fu Yue, and Han Emperor Wen dreaming of acquiring Deng Tong were verified; unverified instances are manifold and not recorded in full). These are all subtle transformations of the spirit, unfathomable in the dark and the bright, easily communicated by intuitive grasp but hard to examine by discursive reasoning. If you do not grant that the spirit wanders, and insist on seeking it inside the corporeal form, I fear that while this lumpish [body] conceals the soul within, it is entirely cut off from sights and meetings without. Even if you assist your case with the six types of dreams and supplement it with conditions of mental thoughts, rationally it still cannot be so.