廣弘明集 20.85

20.85

Ever since the six lines of the hexagrams arose and the eight trigrams were set in order, writing and tallies first came into being, shining forth in the instructional canons. There were phoenix seal-scripts, dragon charts, golden slips, and jade characters; the hundred schools took different paths, and the myriad volumes divided into distinct realms. Although their principles investigated the subtle and their words exhausted the models for things, their recording of passions and summarising of natures never went beyond the mundane world; their tracking of beginnings and grasping of ends never encompassed what lies outside the secular sphere. There were also the discourses of the archival historian [Laozi] and the talks of the garden official [Zhuangzi]; their precious scriptures were boastful and unfounded, their brocade records meandering and bizarre. They were like carving ice without achieving anything, or writing in the empty air without any reality. Compare them to the sublime purport strung like flowers or the profound words inscribed on palm leaves—the vast breadth of the Two Vehicles and the deep secrets of the Eight Treasuries! If one contends to compare their superiority and inferiority by depth and shallowness, it is like comparing the smallness of an ant-hill with the loftiness of Mounts Song and Hua, or the pettiness of water in an ox's footprint striving in length against the Yangtze and Han rivers! Indeed, their evident meanings and hidden norms, the gate of liberation and the garden of dhāraṇī, both the previous limit and the future limit equally tally with true suchness; the initial mind and the final mind all return to correct enlightenment. They guide confused beings in the ocean of desire, so that emotional defilements and mental impurities are dissolved together; they lead the impoverished son into the chamber of compassion, so that the jewel in the clothes and the pearl in the topknot arrive together. Their transformation overflows realms numerous as the sands of the Ganges; their merit covers kalpas numerous as dust motes. How grand! How supreme! They cannot be adequately praised! When the signs of rain manifested in the Zhou and the sun was held in the bosom under the Han, Cai Yin journeyed west and Zhu Moteng wandered east. The words from the golden mouth and the purports of the jewelled terrace filled silks and piled rolls, covering the central realm. Yet the scrolls are manifold and their streams run deep and vast; the true source of the true mark is ultimately difficult to peruse in detail. When our August Tang opened creation and the Sage Sovereign ruled the land, the mysterious teaching was forthrightly proclaimed and the dark-robed assembly was harmoniously united. Transmitting radiance and dripping dew, they illuminated and moistened the realm; Sanskrit sounds and chanting tones resonated through the capital and environs. The flourish of great propagation can scarcely be conveyed by analogy. At this time there was the Great Virtue of Ximing, Dharma Master Daoshi, whose style was Xuanyun; he was a leader of the Shakya clan. In his youth, as precocious as gathering sand into stupas, he cast off secular ornaments at the age of wearing colourful garments. His deep compassion spared the crawling ants; he completed the requirements at the altar for receiving full ordination. The rank of his precepts was fully luminous, guarded as strictly as swallowing the jewel; he was intimately versed in the vinaya meanings, joyfully matching them like gazing into a mirror. Loving and admiring the Mahāyāna, he thoroughly understood the true mark. Thereupon, due to his brilliance and vast learning, he was summoned to reside at Ximing. Thus, in his leisure from the five sections [of the vinaya], he perused the three baskets. Considering that through the continuous succession of ancient and modern ages authors have been numerous, although elegant purports and fine expressions abound, they are not sufficient for a comprehensive record. Therefore he plucked the finest flowers of the literary garden and inhaled the champaka blossoms of the great doctrines. Categorising and compiling them, he entitled it the Fayuan zhulin. It comprises one hundred chapters in all, bound into ten cases. Its meanings are rich and its text is concise; it ties together the breadth and essentials of Yu Shirong, and its traces broadcast the Mirror of the Way, aspiring to the Hongming of Master Sengyou. Its language is beautiful, its Way is thereby manifest; it raises the ultimate subtleties without omission and embraces the wondrous gates completely. Accordingly,