廣弘明集 8.82

8.82

I reply: How extraordinary are your assertions, and how vulgar! Indeed, they stem merely from being confined in a pit and clinging to a single corner. Mencius said, 'What human beings know is not equal to what they do not know'—how true this is! Let me tell you: when the ancients illuminated the Great Dao, only after five transformations could names and forms be instituted, and after nine transformations could rewards and punishments be spoken of. Thus, within the realm [of society], progress was gradual and could not be immediate. As for angling and shooting according to the seasons to restrain violence among the four classes of people, and the rites of the three drives [in hunting] to demonstrate the benevolence of a ruler's ways, they may be called fine, but they are not the ultimate good. Looking into the institutions of the former kings, their scope was confined to this earthly realm: the heavens were divided into twelve stations, reaching at most to the shifting sands; the earth was arranged into the Nine Provinces, ending in the west at the Black Waters. Their discussions omitted the past and their arguments neglected the future; their concerns were exhausted in a single lifetime, never discussing the three times. Was it that the sages and adepts did not know this? Truly, it was because the auspicious conditions had not yet matured. Śākyamuni uttered the true teaching that exhausts the source and expounded the boundless benevolence of Great Compassion. From the highest sage down to insects and ants, he practiced non-killing equally toward all—this is the pinnacle of the humane person! His Dao encompasses the ultimate and the conventional; its meaning crowns all spiritual beings. He shifted benevolence and longevity into bodhi, and transposed doctrinal meanings into the provisional and the real. He caused those who take vacuity as fundamental to awaken to the purport of emptiness-of-emptiness, and led those clinging to existence to advance toward the expedients of precepts and meditation. Thereupon the light of wisdom shone afar: King Zhuang [of Zhou] witnessed the nocturnal illumination because of it, and the spiritual dew began to moisten, whereupon Emperor Ming dreamed a divine dream. (The Zuozhuan of the Spring and Autumn Annals says: In the seventh year of Duke Zhuang of Lu, the year being jiawu, in the fourth month on the xinmao day, at night the constant stars were not seen, and stars fell like rain. This was the tenth year of King Zhuang of Zhou. The Biezhuan of King Zhuang says: The king then consulted the Changes by divination, which said that a bronze-coloured man was born into the world in the Western Regions. Therefore, the night illumination was not a disaster for the Central Realm. Examining the Buddhist scriptures, the Tathāgata entered the womb on the eighth day of the fourth month, was born on the eighth day of the second month, and also attained the Way on the eighth day of the second month. Both at his birth and when he became a Buddha, he emitted light; the saying that he 'appeared in the world' refers to the year he attained Buddhahood. The Zhou used the eleventh month as the start of the year; the fourth month of the Spring and Autumn Annals is thus the second month of the Xia calendar. According to India, the start of the year corresponds to that of the Xia. Du Yu used the Jin calendar calculation, making xinmao the fifth day of the second month. Dao'an and Dong Fengzhong used the Lu calendar calculation, making it the seventh day of the second month. Using the earlier Zhou calendar calculation, it was the eighth day of the second month. Furthermore, according to the chronology of Master Kumārajīva and the stone pillar inscriptions, all tally with the Spring and Autumn Annals: the Tathāgata was born in the fifth year of King Huan of Zhou, the year yichou; left home in the twenty-third year of King Huan, the year guiwei; attained Buddhahood in the tenth year of King Zhuang, the year being jiawu; and entered parinirvāṇa in the fifteenth year of King Xiang, the year being jiashen. Down to the present, it is 1,205 years.) It is truly said that penetration depends on spiritual resonance, and realization relies on conditions; encountering an opportune era within a single lifetime equates to ten thousand kalpas. Thereupon Qin Jing was dispatched as an envoy to the west, and Kāśyapa Mātaṅga journeyed to the east. The Dao flourished in the court of the August Han; the instruction was spread in the reign era of Yongping. All beings became like gnats extinguished, and people yielded like grass before the wind. Only then was it known that the radiance of Yao was still twilight, and the teachings of the Culture-Propagating King [Confucius] were not yet the dawn. Sir, at first you asserted their identity, yet you did not recognize their difference. Thus one knows that what initially appeared the same was not the same, and what ultimately seemed different was not different. Why is this? Those who cultivate the pristine Dao must take turning away from worldly conventions as their task. Once conventions can be turned away from, the Dao can become pristine. Among the methods of turning away from conventions, none comes before shaving the head. Shaving the hair and altering one's appearance serves to maintain exalted purity; parting from kin and severing affection is the way to approach holiness. One dispels craving at the very outset of the mind and forgets the physical body at the final fruition. Why cling affectionately to the three realms? Why linger in the six paths? Taibo tattooed his body and cut his hair, yet he was not a western barbarian; Fan Li changed his surname and altered his personal name, yet was he not of the Eastern Xia? The former yielded a thousand chariots, and the Analects praise his supreme virtue; the latter departed far from his nine dwellings—was he entangled in the constraints of clan and family? Hence the Āgamas say, 'When the four castes go forth, they become of one Śākya clan.' As for Zhuangzi's metaphor of the boat and chariot, it was an analogy for past and present, just as rites have additions and subtractions and music follows continuity. Why, sir, did you improperly apply it to countries and lands? The sacred teaching has no fixed direction; it does not differ in response between humans and devas. The marvelous transformation has no exterior; how could it be blocked in feeling by Hua or Yi? Therefore, with a single voice he proclaims the Dharma, and the myriad kinds [of beings] awaken simultaneously; how could there be separation between barbarians and the Chinese? The Vimalakīrti Sūtra states: 'The Buddha expounds the Dharma with a single voice, and sentient beings understand each according to their kind.' Now, even the slightest evil is not destroyed through kalpas; the minutest good serves oneself forever. Yet misfortune and fortune chase each other, not without depending on and concealing one another; gain and loss succeed each other, their gravity transmitted in the unseen realm. When blessings are completed, the heavenly realms naturally arrive; when sins accumulate, hells are directly reached. This is an inevitable law; it admits of no doubt. If one does good in secret and receives retribution in the open, the world calls it 'hidden virtue', and everyone believes in it. If one does evil in the open and receives retribution in secret, this principle is entirely the same; why should one not believe it? The Changes says, 'A family that accumulates good will surely have a surplus of blessings; a family that accumulates evil will surely have a surplus of calamities.' Yet Shangchen gave free rein to evil and obtained longevity, while Yan Hui approached perfection yet met an early end. Boniu harboured harmony yet contracted disease; Robber Zhi embraced wickedness and rebellion yet remained robust and strong. All these seem to show that good and evil have no verification, producing this entangling doubt. If not for the teachings of Śākya, this path would remain permanently blocked.