廣弘明集 13.87

13.87

The Insiders' comparison says: Destroying the body out of dread for great calamity, cutting off knowledge to avoid prolonged toil, regarding living beings as suspended wens, and equating the loss of nature with royal joy—these are the sayings of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Furthermore, as for continuous, eternal abiding, the ancient sovereigns neither died nor ended; as for being endlessly nameless, Master Lao returned again to nothingness. Yet constant preservation is not a term for eternal cessation; how could nothingness be a transformation into long life? Let us further clarify their depth and shallowness. As for the passages on maintaining weakness and keeping to the female, or the discourses on emptying the mind and filling the belly, they recognize that floating life has a limit, and lament that the waters of wisdom have no bound. Speaking of their greatness, they are confined within the realm; their potter's wheel does not exceed one's natural allotment. Such is their aspiration! How could this compare to the Great Awakened One opening inexhaustible conditions and manifesting the radiance of the ultimate roundness? Investigating the subtle, he exhausts the gapless void; probing the principle, he commands the directionless realm. His fine breath harmonizes with the primordial vapor, and his divine body equals the firm endurance of the great void. Speaking of his measure, it is like Mount Song and Mount Hua being completely different in height from an ant-hill, or the vast ocean being different in depth from a puddle in a well. This is the second inferiority of your Dao.