廣弘明集 25.49

25.49

I venture to think that the two gates of Buddhism and Daoism share the same emptiness and stillness. Even if they cannot train their minds beyond the world and cast off their shadows from human society, they must still separate their traces from the secular and set their affairs apart from the times. Yet today those who leave the household mostly mix with the ranks of the dust: outwardly taking non-bending to make themselves lofty, inwardly pursuing private audiences. They have in vain the name of entering the Way, yet completely lack the reality of departing from the mundane. (Refutation: Not distinguishing or forcibly bending them is because they uphold the Dharma. Private audiences indeed violate the teaching's principles. One should only crack down on those disobedient types; how could one set fire to Mount Kunlun and desire to burn both jade and stone together?) As for the positions of ruler and parents, their rites encompass both subject and child; where filial piety and respect are rooted, the meaning runs deep in family and state. Without regulations, how can there be ordering? We request that for monks, nuns, Daoist priests, and Daoist nuns, when their path is required by the times and the matter is due to a Dharma assembly, even before the ruler and empress they be permitted to follow the old rules; outside of this, let them all be ordered to proclaim and perform obeisance. If returning to visit parents, the path of a child should be fulfilled; if inside cloisters and temples, let them follow the Śākya scriptures at will. (Refutation: If monks and nuns ought to pay obeisance, there is no reason they should not; if they ought not, how could one differentiate time and place? How can it be that shaving the hair belongs to the same person, yet depending on the place different rituals are opened, while their Dharma robes remain one and the same from first to last? Enacting regulations based on arbitrary affairs contradicts the scriptures; this is wavering between two ends and falsely establishing rules to suit the occasion.) May they thus take humble bowing as a shame and gradually discard frivolous rivalry, esteeming themselves through Dao and virtue, and gradually propagating the teaching and Dharma. I venture to present my foolish views, and am overwhelmed with trepidation. Respectfully submitted.