弘明集 9.61

9.61

Objection: The treatise says that corporeal form and spirit are not different, and that the hands and other parts are all parts of the spirit. This implies that the spirit takes the corporeal form as its essence: if the essence is intact, the spirit is intact; if the essence is damaged, the spirit is deficient. What is the spirit? It is consciousness and deliberation. Now, some people have severed hands or feet or mutilated flesh, yet their wisdom and thoughts are not disordered, just as Sun Bin had his kneecaps amputated yet his military strategy grew even brighter, and Lu Fu had his wrists severed yet his Confucian learning only became more serene. This is sharp proof that spirit and corporeal form are separated, and that the corporeal form being harmed does not impair the spirit. The spirit merely employs wisdom to direct things and relies on organs to communicate illumination. Seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting each have what they rely upon, while thought and consciousness return to the organ of the heart. For example, a person has a house: the eastern pavilion welcomes the worthy, the southern veranda invites sunlight, the northern window summons wind, and the western lattice reflects the moon; the master sits upright under the roof's central eaves to gather the utility of these four things. If it were as your argument says, that mouth, nose, ears, and eyes each have a part of the spirit, then if one eye were diseased, the spirit of sight would be destroyed and both eyes should go blind; if one ear were afflicted, the spirit of hearing would be damaged and both ears should become deaf. But in reality this is not so. From this one knows that the spirit takes [the form] as an organ, not as its essence.