廣弘明集 8.81

8.81

Question: The teachings established by the House of Ji and Confucius can pacify superiors, govern the people, change customs, and alter traditions. Laozi and Zhuangzi discussing the mystery can return people to simplicity, restore them to purity, and bring rest through esteeming non-action. These are sufficient for transformation; why rely on barbarian scriptures? Furthermore, plucking out hairpins, shaving the hair, defacing one's appearance, and altering one's surname can transform those fierce barbarians, but cannot be applied to the Central Realm. This is just like a cart that can travel on land but cannot float on water, or a boat that can sail on water but is unsuitable to carry loads on land. The Buddhist scriptures are absurd, vast, and without verification. Terrifying people with hell causes the timid to shiver; enticing people with heaven causes the foolish to nurture empty hopes. Spreading their vertical talk across dust-mote kalpas, they still say it is not long; extending their horizontal talk across sands-of-worlds, they still say it is not far. Or they say that poverty comes from stinginess and wealth relies on giving; nobility arises from reverence and baseness springs from arrogance; compassion without killing extends life, while excessive slaughter and hunting shorten one's years and bring early death. Examining these various claims, it is hard to find them substantiated. I personally see those who delight in giving and do no harm becoming poor and dying young, while the greedy and bloodthirsty become wealthy and live long; those who maintain dhyāna precepts and austere discipline are afflicted with pestilence and illness, while those whose slaughter and destruction are vast achieve high titles and abundant rewards. You truly believe that suffering arises from delusion and that rank and emolument are obtained through killing! This is just like planting horns and growing reeds—mother and child contradict each other—or planting ox hairs and sprouting cattails—cause and fruit are of different kinds. Though karmic retribution is spoken of, it cannot satisfy the mind; merely talking of the future, how is it different from tying a shadow? It is not as good as the molding [of all things] endowed by nature, the myriad forms balanced in self-transformation, suddenly existing of themselves, and vanishing into nothingness. Good and bad fortune follow destiny; union and separation are not up to me. When a person dies, the spirit is annihilated, just as when a lamp's oil is exhausted, the light also vanishes; who knows where it goes? Why labor to race along the edge of empty talk, or gallop amid what is without verification?