廣弘明集 8.43

8.43

The questioner asks: You, Sir, say that the teachings that save the physical body are called 'outer.' Respectfully examining your refined discourse, it is truly not acceptable. The Changes says: 'To know the subtle signs—is that not spiritual?' How could it be that, lumped together, all seven canonical classics are merely bodily teachings? Where then is the meaning of the Buddhist discernment of delivering the spirit? I reply: The Book of Documents speaks of knowing what is distant, reaching at its farthest to Yao and Shun. The Spring and Autumn Annals composes phrases, its words exhausting imperial enterprises. As for the reverence and goodness of ritual and music, and the warmth and purity of the Odes and the Changes, all clarify the single physical life; how do they speak of the three periods of existence? Thus we know their teachings reside within the physical domain and do not provide for vast, transcendent blessings; pointing to transcendence beyond life, they leave it aside without discussion. The Changes says: 'The subtle signs are the slightest beginnings of movement.' If one can illuminate their subtlety, what is it if not spiritual? This speaks of the spiritual, but does not discern the smelting of the spirit. Those who smelt the spirit close off passions and open illumination, expecting the spirit to remain imperishable throughout vast eons, its subtle consciousness not dying; accumulating practice, they attain sageliness, ascending the ten stages with ever-increasing clarity and striding high beyond the nine abodes. This is what the Buddhist teaching promotes. The sutra says: 'For delivering the spirit and pulling out suffering, nothing equals cultivating good.' Gathering sentient beings through the six perfections and purifying the mind is not an affair of external things.