廣弘明集 7.10

7.10

Ji also said: 'Nowadays monks and nuns do not plow and do not marry, all severing reproduction, showing haughtiness to the sovereign and slighting their parents, violating propriety and damaging transformation. This is the first unprincipled thing.'

[Daoxuan's rebuttal:] Examining Ji's intention here, he aimed it exclusively at the Emperor's own person. He knew deeply that when monks and nuns sever desire, through this practice they transcend rebirth; this principle is acceptable and certainly not to be opposed. Yet he denounced the Emperor's practice under the guise of not marrying and severing reproduction, and since he could not discuss it openly, he used the monks to revile the superior.

[Ji] also said: 'All living beings have husbands and wives uniting to produce sons and daughters; the Hu teaching reverses this. They extensively construct mud and wood [images] and exclusively seek alms—how is this not perverse to a subject? This is the second unprincipled thing.'

[Daoxuan's rebuttal:] The unprincipled nature of Ji's argument is manifest here. If the Hu teaching does not engage in lewdness, whence could the Hu have come? Mud, wood, and alms-seeking are brought up to mock them. However, the Buddha was not a Hu, but of heavenly lineage; the Hu are of the Rong kind, originally distinct from the Brahman realm. It is just like calling the Divine Land the land of Han: if we examine the Han today, it could only match Liang. Although the Han had its initial enfeoffment, its imperial capital lay in Jing and Luo; the rest, Wu and Chu, were not yet called China. When the Luhun Rong were reviewed, the Rong again transformed into the Xia. Only the single teaching of the Buddha brings about an end to form and mind; whereas both the Hu and the Brahmans constantly practice rebirth upon rebirth.