廣弘明集 14.15

14.15

down to our Great Tang, generation after generation prohibited demonic speeches and place after place eliminated licentious sacrifices. How could they allow squandering their wealth and labor and releasing their gentry and commoners to erect halls and pagodas for mountain demons and join the followers of apparitions? Furthermore, ministers and chancellors, caps and canopies of state, exemplars of human relations—the likes of Wang Dao and Yu Liang, the peers of Dai Kui and Xu Xun—cast their sentiments in the borderlands between gods and men, and set their traces beyond the mist and clouds. All received the teachings and took refuge; all focused their minds to honor and believe. How could they allow themselves to stoop to revering specters and serving demons? This was truly because they perceived the wondrous and recognized the true that it was so. Moreover, the ancestor of Fu [Yi], Fu Yi, whose courtesy name was Wuzhong, possessed high talent and immense erudition, and was hailed by his generation as a man of universal understanding. He interpreted the auspicious dream of Emperor Xianzong and gave proof for the dark response of the golden man; in the eastward transmission of Śākya's Way, Wuzhong indeed rendered great service. I privately estimate that Magistrate Fu's talent and discernment cannot yet equal Wuzhong. Why then does he defame the Buddha and slander the Dharma, directly contradicting his own ancestor? Kan Ze, Director of the Secretariat in Wu, said to Sun Quan, the Lord of Wu: 'When the two houses of Confucius and Laozi are compared to the Buddhadharma, the difference in superiority and inferiority is vast indeed. Why is this said? Confucius and Laozi established teachings modeling themselves on Heaven to institute regulations, not daring to transgress Heaven; the Buddhas preach the Dharma, and Heaven reverently implements it, not daring to transgress the Buddha. Speaking from this, they are truly beyond comparison.' In my foolish view, Kan Ze's discourse understood one corner of their superiority and inferiority. Can the gentlemen of all the hundred schools fail to reflect on his words? Indeed, the great masters and eminent monks looked deeply into principle; the enlightened rulers and worthy ministers planned loyally for the state. Why did successive dynasties treasure it as a supreme instruction? It is because they knew that in fathoming principle and fulfilling nature, no Way surpasses it. Fu Yi's contemplation is not deeper than that of famous monks, and his reflection is not more refined than that of former sages. Solely following his own conceit and turning his back on the Dharma, he lightly cut himself off from blessings and gave rise to guilt. How could he plan for the state without loyalty, and consider his own person without far-sightedness? The Great Awakened One fathomed the divine and knew transformations; he profoundly exhorted consideration of perils and prior defense. One should contemplate that a hundred years of life are easily exhausted, and lament that the five blessings are difficult to preserve. Life flows away like a river and passes like lightning; karmic retribution endures as long as heaven and earth. The three paths are exceedingly calamitous and obscure; the four floods are boundless and vast. Relying on the ship of Dharma makes for a beneficial crossing; leaning on the wings of faith enables high flight. One ought to turn calamity into blessing; why should one abandon mindfulness and fall into madness?