廣弘明集 5.52

5.52

Answer: When the common people depended on meat for sustenance and fire-cooked grains had not yet been introduced, how could a teaching forbidding meat have been put into practice? This has already been discussed in detail in the preceding treatise and will not be explained again here. The conditions and fruits encountered by sentient beings each have their appointed time. When the Buddhist teaching had not yet spread in antiquity, that was the time when their bad karma was flourishing; when they subsequently heard the Dharma, that was the time when their good karma sprouted. Good and bad each have their season; what has this to do with being genuine and simple or frivolous and corrupt? The five precepts each have degrees of gravity and lightness; it is not that the precept against killing is exclusively heavy while the other four are entirely light. Moreover, although the five karmas differ, they stimulate one another. Regarding the precepts against harming humans: because humans are of great consequence, these were set forth first; regarding the precept against harming animals: because animals are of lesser consequence, it was applied later. The order of instruction and transmission is appropriately like this. The Duke of Zhou and Confucius gradually propagated benevolence and compassion, as the preceding treatise detailed; please let this repetitive dispute cease. If one insists that the Śākya teaching runs contrary to the principles of a specific region, that falls outside [our concern], as the doctrine of a single school, of which one dares not speak.