廣弘明集 22.36

22.36

Master Yuzi sighed deeply and said: "All the myriad phenomena and myriad natures are principles of nature (spontaneity). Only because they are natural, they cannot be altered or exchanged. Therefore, although a good person knows that goodness cannot be relied upon, a good person ultimately cannot for a single moment become evil. An evil person, moreover, though knowing that evil is not to be warned against, likewise cannot for an instant become good. Furthermore, one who embodies benevolence is not self-conscious of their goodness, and one who embodies foolishness is not self-aware of their evil. Both are naturally so of themselves." A guest seated to his right, Grandee Jiashi, suddenly changed countenance and said to him: "How obstinate is the Master's doctrine! It runs counter to the Great Way and errs against the words of the sages." The Master said: "Who governs the Great Way, and what did the sages say?" The Grandee said: "The Great Way has no master, yet there is nothing it does not govern; the sages have no words, yet there is nothing they do not speak." The Master said: "Please speak of what they said. Did they speak of whence nature and destiny derive? Please explain what it governs: does it govern the retribution of good and evil?" The Grandee said: "Why should it not be so? Heaven and earth sustain the merits of the Great Way to nurture and rear [all things]; the sages accord with the virtue of heaven and earth to establish their teachings. They set forth the five virtues of benevolence and righteousness to regulate the mind, and expounded the Odes, the Documents, and the six arts to instruct people in their vocations. These are the words of the sages. 'A family that accumulates goodness will surely have a surplus of blessings; a family that accumulates evil will surely have a surplus of calamities.' Thus it is said: 'The sage has no favorites, but ever assists the good man.' The six extremities are set out to inflict punishment on misconduct; the five blessings are arrayed to encourage the mind toward goodness. Serving as a general for three generations brings the power of ruin and defeat; cultivating goodness for seven generations yields an inhering nature of flourishing prosperity. Chen Shang was favored yet could not become a marquis; Bing Chang was distant yet inherited the state. These are the efficacious proofs of the Way. Why does the Master say that all are principles of nature and cannot be altered or exchanged?" The Master smiled and replied: "Those whom the world calls 'men who follow the line', when the line comes to an end, do not know how to adapt; men like the Grandee are just so! Allow me reverently to set forth for you my meager and narrow views. When the two forms (heaven and earth) were manifested, the six children were deployed; when the common people were reared, the five materials were employed. To apply this line, it partitions the myriad phenomena yet is entirely so. Humans are the most spiritual among living beings, receiving the exquisite qi of nature, endowed with physical constitutions of beauty or ugliness, fullness or depletion, harboring the emotions of sorrow, joy, delight, and anger, possessing destinies of obscurity or prominence, longevity or brevity, and fixed in natures of folly or wisdom, goodness or evil. Sorrow, joy, delight, and anger are latent within emotion, moving when stimulated by things. Obscurity, prominence, longevity, and brevity are hidden within destiny, becoming clear only after events arrive. Beauty, ugliness, fullness, and depletion are manifested in physical form, displayed outwardly from birth. Folly, wisdom, goodness, and evil are sealed within nature, shining through when encountering circumstances. These eight phrases encompass human affairs to the full. All stem from the fate of nature; there is no creator among them. If there were a creator, he would surely toil; if things were to be entered or exited by him, there would surely be oversights; if he were to respond and interact, there would surely be errors. These three are not the working of the Maker of Things. Thus Mozi said: 'If the Creator of Changes took three years to make a single leaf, how few leaves there would be under heaven!' The sages established skillful means to accomplish their teachings, borrowing resemblances of events to encourage and deter. Seeing the fierce and valiant tyrannize over the few and cowardly, and fearing that punishments and executions would not stop it, they set forth the terrifying awe of calamities befalling licentiousness. Pained that earnest goodness was not encouraged, and knowing that nature and destiny could not be altered, they set forth blessings and goodness to reward them. Therefore, listening to their words, it seems as though there is no discrepancy, but examining the facts, not one in ten thousand is verified. You take the flourishing of branches to be brought about by treading the Way, and the absence of someone to host the seasonal ancestral sacrifices to be incurred by abandoned conduct; having one's person dwell in ease and joy to be the clear retribution of a good gentleman, and having one's person suffer distress and bitterness to be the overt punishment of an evil man. [Yet] if Sunshu [Ao] had not buried the snake when young, would he have lacked the noble rank of Chief Minister when grown? If Bing Ji had no prior hidden merit, would he ultimately have missed the honor of Chancellor? If it were truly so, then the Way of Heaven would have answered the utter foolishness of the Blind Old Man with Chonghua (Shun) and Wenming (Yu), and recompensed the utmost sagehood of Yao and Shun with Shangjun and Danzhu. For three generations Taibo had no fault of playing with arms, yet the succession was borrowed by Zhongyong. For seven generations the Han founder was never heard to have practiced earnest goodness, yet he accomplished an enterprise rivaling heaven. Jizi was said to enjoy the five blessings, yet in person endured the grief of extermination; Confucius stated that blessings center upon the accumulation of goodness, yet personally experienced the sorrow of an exiled wanderer. Yan Hui, crowning the seventy [disciples], met with the lament of failing to bloom; Ran Geng, foremost among the four categories, brought about the sigh of 'Alas, that such a man should have such a disease!' Meanwhile, Shangchen reigned for successive generations in Jingnan, and Modu dwelt for generations in the northern frontier. Mount Shou has no ghost that unbends its furrowed brow, while the Miluo River has a soul harboring unredressed grievance. Zheng Kangcheng changed the name of his village due to his surname, yet could not save [his son] from the calamity of the Small Sage; Wang Bao's grief changed the trees on the ridge, yet he merely suffered the disaster of unwarranted execution. The two brothers dwelt in Wei: who was to blame for the grief of boarding the boat? The three benevolent men were in Bo: of what crime was the cruelty of opening the heart guilty? As for those close to the capital and intimately adjacent generations, not recorded in the ancient texts but right before our eyes and ears: there are those who conceal the treachery of the Mengmen Pass in their bellies and harbor the venom of jackals and vipers in their minds. Exerting their thoughts, they care only to harm others; conducting themselves, they invariably put self-interest first. An awl or knife would acknowledge their sharp point; a valley or ravine would wonder at their being hard to fill. Yet externally a hundred carriages flourish, and internally a thousand zhong of grain fill their storehouses; at ease they recline amid damask and silk, sitting before ranks of rich and savory foods, sounding chimes and sporting jades, enjoying wealth and leisure all their lives. Again, there are those who embrace a hundred jade bi as their lapels and possess lustrous pearls as their nature; their minds cannot bear to kill a hibernating insect, and their hands cannot bear to snap a growing shoot. They harbor extraordinary talents, yet none select them; they cherish admirable ambitions, yet who looks upon them? Erroneously mixed among the redundant and disorderly, they sink to the bottom at the lower end of the villages; hugging hunger and cold, they suddenly die, buried alongside the deer. Their ancestral sacrifices are desolate, their widows and orphans have no one to rely upon, their names remain unheard, extinguished like a flash of lightning. That things should be regrettable like this—is it only one person? From this we know that the cruelty of Jie and Zhi harbored no fear of impending calamity arriving, and the earnest conduct of Min and Zeng should not anticipate the due arrival of future blessings. Thus the Heguanzi says: 'Fate is that which is natural. The worthy does not necessarily obtain it, nor does the unworthy necessarily lose it.' This is what it means."