廣弘明集 18.39

18.39

I have respectfully read your lofty discourse; its words are trenchant and its proofs are clear. As is said, that superior person is difficult to answer. Yet the Tathāgata, having plumbed the principles and fully realized nature, established teachings in response to spiritual capacity. Thus, when the five goods are intended to be opened, the ranks of precepts are established for them; when the six hindrances await dispersal, prajñā illuminates them. Perfuming with the ten goods and purifying with the undefiled (anāsrava), one attains ultimate liberation and reaches bodhi—nothing more. Is this not how the branches are clear and the root is not obscure? Confucius made the fulfillment of filial piety his business, and his benevolence covered the four seas; Śākya placed great compassion first, and his transformation encompassed the five destinies. Are not the traces of their guiding beings unseen? It is merely that in their responses there are coarse and fine, which in the end are naturally different. Whenever one peruses the various prajñā sūtras, one does not doubt them because Confucius is absent from them; why do you alone, reciting the books of Qiu, speak of [Buddhism] being rejected? Even base creatures like dragons and ghosts were moved by the sage, so that he drew them along and gained their trust; how could it be only the vulgar of later ages? You rely on the teachings of the present to question the discourses on the three times; the strangeness of 'extravagant and far-fetched' certainly goes without saying. If you grant that cause and effect are unerring, like form and its shadow, then the effect of verification matches like two halves of a tally. The motions of the sun and the moon, the trust in the unseen and visible, the descending of water and fire, the arising of wind and clouds—all put cause first and effect second; none falls outside the way of stimulus and response. Thus, through dependent origination, the mirror can summon water; when conditions perish, the tinder-lens does not invite fire. All phenomena merely arise and perish through conditions. When the goose meets its death, its flavor ascends to the platter and cauldron; when the swallow escapes, it requires no salt and plum. Hence the goose being killed by humans is just like the insect dying to the swallow: the goose and insect receive it in the present life, while the human and swallow receive retribution in the future. Retribution arises from the three karmas, and karma has the slow and the swift. If a person enters to be filial and goes out to be fraternal, and is praised in the royal court; or if one intends harm against lord or parent, intending it he must be executed—these are the swift retributions of the present, conspicuous to sight and hearing. If loyalty is an admirable virtue yet one's heart is cut open and one is drowned in the deep; or if one plunders and slaughters at will, yet by good fortune escapes—these are the slow retributions of the future, loose-meshed yet not losing anything. As for deeds of good and evil, no karma goes without retribution; but the past and the future cannot be grasped by ears and eyes, which is why those who believe it are few, and those who condemn it are many. The pure regulations wash away defilement and open wisdom; that the Central Kingdom does not reflect on this and calls them pitfall traps is not because we lacked counsel, but because Qin did not employ it. 'To encourage people to do good'—truly, how right are these words! But the expedient is called true, not a provisional fiction. Thus King Wen setting aside Bo Yikao and establishing King Wu was an expedient. The Zhou succession did not belong to the King, but Fa had the Mandate of Heaven; the rites are an external regulation, while the principle naturally follows reality. Bo being set aside and Fa being established was the reality. Each follows its reality, and virtue and function jointly return to it; who other than the greatly wise could take part in this? The sūtra says: 'Skillful expedients (upāya) are also just like this.' Now, humans being born with the desire to kill is a desire of their nature. Drinking blood and bedding on fur existed in the age of the sovereign emperors. The sages eliminated killing; they did not teach killing. It is only because human killing had not ended that the transforming teaching should gradually diminish it. Although they offered the three grades of game and honorably presented them to esteemed guests, Tang opened his nets, Confucius angled but did not use a net-cord, the Odes praised [the hunter who spared] five sows, and the rites forbade trampling them personally. Looking from this perspective, the mind of the author can be seen. Now, not bearing to eat meat perfects one's own mind of compassion; if one extends 'not bearing' beyond sight and hearing, and equates 'not eating' within what is seen and heard, would that not be the ultimate? Would that not be the ultimate? Relying merely on your fine critique, I have set forth my tube-hole view. The true nature of reality is beyond words; to speak of it becomes frivolous discourse. Since I do not consider myself right, I imagine you will also share in the fault. As for your lofty analogies, I request to leave them to all gentlemen to judge.