廣弘明集 14.12

14.12

"The mysteries of astronomical calculations and phenomena, the wonders of geography, mountains, and rivers, the diagnoses of meridians and acupoints, and the techniques of needles, herbs, talismans, and incantations were not recorded in the Odes and Documents, nor were they clearly spoken of by the Duke of Zhou and Confucius. Yet when tested against good and bad fortune, there is proof; when observed in practical use, they are largely effective. Furthermore, the things unspoken of by the Duke of Zhou and Confucius are endlessly teeming; the methods unrecorded in the Odes and Documents are boundlessly limitless. Truly, writings do not exhaust words, and words do not exhaust meaning. How can one be bound by the narrow teachings of the Six Classics and turn one's back on the universal purport of the Three Vehicles?

Great accomplishments were not established in high antiquity; the sages opened up undertakings in later ages. Thus buildings replaced dwellings in trees and nests, and writing replaced the system of knotted cords. Feasts of drinking blood and eating raw flesh were used earlier, but were not valued; the benefits of cooked food and grains, though created later, were not defective. The precedence in their adoption or abandonment does not determine whether a principle or teaching is universal or obstructed. How could it be that because the Odes and Documents spread early they should be especially exalted, while the sūtras, having arrived late, should be discarded? There are people who in youth ate coarse greens and in maturity dined on fine grains and meat, or who in youth wore plain clothes and in old age received the robes of a marquis. Could one say that because coarse greens were obtained first, their flavor surpasses that of fine grains and meat; or that because the marquis's robes were received later, they are not as noble as plain clothes?

All things undergo change, but the triratna is eternally abiding. Quiescent and unmoving, it responds to all when stimulated. The transformation body demonstrates traces of concealment and manifestation, while the Dharma-body transcends the numbers of rising and falling. He was not newly born in the royal palace, nor did he pass away forever under the twin trees. How can one discuss birth and extinction based on his responses to beings, or calculate length and brevity based on his coming and going?