廣弘明集 12.22

12.22

I have heard that by receiving the harmonious combination of breaths, this false and illusory body is formed. What external life requires relies on food and clothing for nourishment; what internal retribution depends upon relies on physical form and spirit to be established. Form and spirit cannot stand alone, but rely on food and clothing to sustain them; food and clothing must not be excessively wasted, but regulated through a sense of integrity and shame. Therefore, the Sutra of the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching says: 'A monk receives food merely to support the body.' It also says: 'Wear dyed robes of ruined colors in order to abandon adornment and finery.' These are luminous instructions; who would not comply with them? However, the Tathāgata established precepts according to different capacities. People have higher and lower faculties, and regulations have strictness and leniency. For the superior, he regulated with strictness, causing them to cultivate suddenly; for the inferior, he conferred with leniency, allowing them to advance gradually. For those with strict regulations for the superior, they take only one meal a day, the meal is limited to vegetables, the body is limited to three robes, and the robes are made only of discarded rags. For those with lenient regulations for the lower, food is permitted at two times, flavors may include ghee and milk, robes may be of ten extra lengths, and silk and cotton are allowed to be worn. Or there are old and sick monks whose bodies endure both freezing and starvation, or men with chronic illnesses whose physiques are distressed by hunger and cold; they must be provided with clothing and furs, and sustained with medicines and stone broths. Thus those of superior capacity do not rely on manifold requisites and naturally realize the truth; those of lower rank must depend on material conditions before they can awaken to the Way. To wish to impose a single standard—how could that be possible? If one restricts the monks and nuns to wearing coarse cloth and reduces vegetarian feasts to relieve the poor and keep them alive, one should calculate that for a single vegetarian feast, a monk or nun consumes merely a single bowl, and for one outfit, wears merely a few bolts of silk. Yet Fu Yi claims this harms ten members of a farming household and slaughters one hundred thousand silkworms. Consider that for a single Daoist jiao offering, there are a hundred trays of wine and dried meat, and each year a thousand bolts of patterned damask are commissioned; this must consume the food of a thousand soldiers and kill tens of billions of silkworms! Yet Yi knows that Daoists cause great damage and feigns ignorance without calculating it, while monks and nuns incur little expense, yet he analyzes them in fine detail with partiality. This is entirely partisan talk, which an exemplary person does not heed. In my humble view, one should ban Daoist jiao sacrifices and their commissioned damask; this will benefit the state without harming the people and creatures. If one is indulgent and does not prohibit them, it harms the state and injures the people.