廣弘明集 5.45

5.45

From the genesis of heaven and earth, when human life first began, it has been distant and vast, beyond what words can convey. Why is it beyond words? It is because [words] rely on expressive phenomena. As for the vast expanse of the Great Void and the obscure boundlessness of the beginningless, not only are they beyond perception through words and forms, but mental deliberation and worldly things are utterly cut off from them. When heaven and earth came into tiny being and settled within it, it was like the tip of a fine hair floating on a vast ocean—even this falls short as an analogy. Thus, the time since this heaven and earth came into being is merely a single thought-moment. The most ancient of our [rulers] do not surpass Xuan[yuan] and [Fu]xi; yet the presence of heaven and earth in that Great Void is just like the presence of Xuan[yuan] and [Fu]xi in this heaven and earth. Petty people merely consider Hexu to be ancient; how trivial and narrow is their conception! When Buddhas appear in the world, their beginning cannot be known. The former Buddhas and the later Buddhas do not differ in their Way. The Dharma-body is serene and still, each responding according to sympathetic resonance. Where resonance summons it, it crosses a great trichiliocosm as though it were but a foot away. If conditions have not yet responded, even though one treads the path, one does not see it. The southern realm of Sahā is called Jambudvīpa. The route west of the Congling Mountains is intimately close. But because the movement of conditions had not yet unfolded, [the East] was naturally separated from the Principle. Why do I say this? Before the Xia and Yin dynasties, written records were scarce. When the Zhou house received the mandate, the classics and canons were fully preserved. The Xiangji and Diwei took up their official posts according to their regions. Through multiple interpreters, tributes entered, encompassing all the distant frontiers. Yet among the Eight Man and Five Di, none were not ignorant and base; they knew no writing and were blind to moral instruction. They all presented their gifts to the royal storehouse, and their music was performed in the Pure Temple. The secluded path to the Western lands is not far. Although the palm-leaf books and horizontal script differ between barbarians and Chinese, profound meanings and subtle principles naturally emerge from them. It is impossible that they did not exist during the times of Tang, Yu, and the Three Dynasties. That the teachings were confined to the West alone and did not flow east—is it not because the resonance of conditions had not yet unfolded in this modest Middle Kingdom? When we trace their convergence and examine their essential purport, how could they ever be spoken of in the same breath as the music of the Four Barbarians? It was not that the Duke of Zhou omitted it; it was simply that this Dharma was meant to remain hidden. In the era of Yan[di] and [Tai]hao, there was as yet no fire and no grain; people ate raw flesh and wore hides. Compassion and pity had not sprouted in their hearts. Without flesh and hides, death arrived instantly. Even if the Great Sage earnestly wished to rescue and spare them, since physical life depended upon these, as a matter of principle it could not be abruptly stripped away. It was truly fitting to guide them gradually and gently open the source. Therefore, Suiren invented the transformation by fire, turning the raw into the cooked. The transformation from raw to cooked was indeed the sprouting sign of the Buddhist teachings. Why so? Turning the raw to the cooked was a gradual difficulty; by accumulating these gradual difficulties, manifest change could be achieved. Coming down to Shennong, guidance was further extended: fine grains were first sown, and the people fed upon grain. A hungry belly was filled; it did not require meat to be sated. Thus, preserving life and reducing slaughter became far more widespread. From this time on, tender care widened day by day. In the spring hunt, pregnant animals were spared; in the summer weeding, pests harming the grain were removed; though much was indeed killed during the autumn cull and winter hunt, the difficulty of eradicating it at once has already been explained. The two sages Zhou and Confucius somewhat expanded these ancestral regulations: seeing it alive, one cannot bear to see it die; hearing its cries, one cannot bear to eat its meat. Felling trees and cutting grass were done in due season; fawns and eggs were not to be recklessly harmed. One did not drain the pond to fish; one did not burn the plains to hunt. One fished with a hook but not a net; one shot at birds in flight but not those at roost. Eating meat and wearing silk were reserved for the elderly; oxen, sheep, dogs, and pigs were not killed without cause. This was opening up one branch among the five precepts. As for being intoxicated with wine, deluded by lust, deceitful to others, and taking what is not one's own, these were prohibited by the outer scriptures without waiting for the Śākya teachings. Four of them offend against human beings, who are the foremost of sentient beings; one harms beasts, who are the lowest order of living things. When the supreme sages opened their doctrines, they naturally proceeded in order; this is also why in the Buddhist precepts, taking human life constitutes the gravest transgression. The inner sage and the outer sages are equal in purpose and unified in principle. Yet those who are blind to this principle cling rigidly to the outer teachings, thinking that boiling sheep and rearing pigs are things that ought to be so by nature. Or others say: 'If it is as the Śākya books say, where all actions bring retributive karmic consequences, then Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu must all undergo disembowelment, and the Duke of Zhou and Confucius must together enter the boiling cauldrons.' How can their delusion regarding the vision of the Way be so severe? Let us examine these proofs, and one may come to realize.