廣弘明集 4.6

4.6

Emperor Wu, the High Ancestor of the Liang, ascended the throne at the age of thirty-four and governed for forty-nine years. Although the myriad affairs of the realm were pressing, the scroll was never out of his hand; of the inner scriptures and outer classics, there were none he did not keep in mind, and he composed commentaries and explanations running into several thousands of fascicles. He was frugal and restrained: he did not trim his robes with silks or brocades; his sleeping quarters were empty and plain; day and night he never slackened. He went so far as to have a cloth quilt, rushes for a mat, straw sandals, and a kudzu headscarf; upon first ascending the throne he was already fully endowed with these practices. He ate only one meal a day and permanently severed pungencies and meat; among emperors and kings, rare were those who could equal this. Formerly he had served Laozi and venerated talismans and diagrams, but when he traced their roots to the bottom, he found them identical to fabricated falsehoods. The Emperor thereupon personally wielded the divine brush and issued an edict renouncing Daoism. Its text said: 'On the eighth day of the fourth month in the third year of the Tianjian reign era, Xiao Yan, Emperor of the State of Liang from Lanling, bows his head in reverent homage to the Buddhas of the ten directions, the honored Dharma of the ten directions, and the noble Sangha of the ten directions. Humbly observing what the sūtras say: producing the bodhicitta is none other than the Buddha-mind, and the rest of the various goods cannot serve as an analogy for it. It can cause sentient beings to emerge from the painful gates of the three realms and enter the supreme path of the unconditioned (asaṃskṛta). Thus, the outflows of the Tathāgata being exhausted, wisdom congealed and he achieved awakening; the ultimate Way penetrated all capacities, and, virtue perfected, he attained sainthood. He ignited the torch of wisdom to illumine the deluded, and mirrored the stream of Dharma to clarify defilements. He displayed auspicious traces in the center of the heavens, and shone forth his spiritual demeanor beyond ordinary forms. He delivers all the deluded in the ocean of desire, and guides conscious beings toward nirvāṇa. Ascending the high mountain of eternal bliss, he brings them out from the deep confines of the river of attachment. His words depart from the four propositions; his expressions are free from the hundred negations. Manifesting his traces in the Sahā world, he showed the sign of birth in the royal palace; taking steps across the three realms, he was supreme, shedding radiance everywhere across the great trichiliocosm. Yet because their minds of capacity were shallow and thin, easily giving rise to disgust and weariness, he thereupon clearly expounded the perfect and eternal, and likewise concealed his splendor beneath the cranes' trees. King Ajātaśatru had his sins extinguished, and Vasu had his calamities removed; had they not encountered the Great Sage, the Dharma King, who could have rescued and received them? Though his traces are concealed, his Way suffers no defect. This disciple has for a long time been deluded and wild, obsessively serving Laozi; through successive generations this has been passed down, tainted by this false teaching. Now that the habit-cause of goodness has sprung forth, I discard delusion and know to return. I now renounce the old physician and take refuge in true awakening. I vow that in future lifetimes I may become a celibate monk, widely propagate the scriptures and teachings, convert and liberate conscious beings, and together achieve Buddhahood. I would rather sink forever in evil paths within the true Dharma than delight in temporarily gaining birth in heaven by relying on Laozi's teachings. Embracing the mind of the Great Vehicle, I depart from the thoughts of the Two Vehicles. I righteously pray that all Buddhas bear witness, and that the bodhisattvas accept me. Disciple Xiao Yan pays reverent homage.' At that time, the Emperor, together with twenty thousand monastics and laypeople, at the double-tiered pavilion of the Chongyun Hall, hand-wrote this text and gave rise to bodhicitta. On the eleventh day of the fourth month, he again decreed to the Chancellery: 'In the great sūtras it is said that there are ninety-six kinds of paths; only the one path of the Buddha is the true path, while the remaining ninety-five kinds are named false paths. We renounce the false, heterodox path to serve the true, inner [Way] of the Buddhas and Tathāgatas. If among the dukes and ministers there are any who can enter this vow, they may each give rise to bodhicitta. Though Laozi, the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, and the like were disciples of the Tathāgata, their transformative traces were already heterodox; they are merely worldly goods and cannot transform the ordinary into the holy. Dukes, ministers, all officials, marquises, kings, and clansmen ought to turn away from the counterfeit to approach the real, renounce the false, and enter the true. Hence the scriptural teaching Tattvasiddhi-śāstra states: "If one's mind serving heterodox paths is heavy and one's mind toward the Buddha's Dharma is light, that is wrong view. If one's mind treats both equally, it is of indeterminate nature, neither good nor bad. If one's mind serving the Buddha is strong and the mind toward Laozi is weak, that is a pure believer." To speak of a "pure believer": "pure" means pure both inside and out, with defilements, delusions, and entanglements completely exhausted; "believer" means believing in the true and not believing in the false. Therefore one is called a pure believing disciple of the Buddha. All other forms of belief are wrong views and cannot be called pure belief.' Let the Chancellery quickly put this into practice.