集古今佛道論衡 1.18

1.18

'The Dao is empty, yet in using it, it is not exhausted. Harmonize its light, make it identical with its dust.' Sheng considers that Lao Dan can be said to have known the Dao, but not to have embodied the Dao. Formerly, when Taotang presided over all under Heaven, 'not a day did he become remiss'; when he discerned and employed the multitude, and consulted and raised a common man, he swiftly abdicated and conferred the throne. Was this not being empty and using it, being identical with that light and dust? Boyang was not so: having held a corrupt position, he then fled far away to the Western Rong; in his conduct his traces were wild and reckless, and in writing his book his words were artful and deceptive. Was harmonizing the light and identifying with the dust truly like this? I firmly maintain that he knew the Dao, but as for embodying the Dao, he had not yet done so. The Daoist scripture says: 'These three cannot be examined to the utmost, hence they blend into one. Continuous and unnameable, it returns to non-thingness. The image of non-thingness, this is called the elusive and vague.' And the later chapter says: 'As a thing, the Dao is only vague and elusive. Elusive and vague, within it there is an image; vague and elusive, within it there is a thing.' These two chapters either speak of non-thingness or speak of things—a previous inconsistency.