集神州三寶感通錄 3.63

3.63

The truth or falsity of a monk is known only to the Buddha; other ordinary and lesser beings cannot easily discern it. This is truly because the ways of guiding the worldly and converting beings adapt to conditions and are not uniform; expedient paths are difficult to fathom, and manifestations accord with worldly customs. One cannot judge them by deportment, nor can one easily seek them through phenomenal appearances. Opening the way is paramount, hence there is no constant standard. The sūtra says: "Displaying to the assembly the three poisons, and also manifesting the appearance of wrong views—such are my disciples' skillful means to deliver sentient beings." Thus, the twenty-four refuges propagate the Three Vehicles in the degenerate age, and the sixteen sages exhaust the sixty thousand [years] to broadly uphold it. Furthermore, there are nine billion nine hundred million realized persons of the three masteries, and seventy-four worthies and bright scholars of the five superknowledges, who secretly connect with the Buddha-nature and visibly benefit with divine power, causing the Three Realms of Existence and the great continents to be governed by the Śākya gate, and all within the four surrounding Cakravāḍa iron rims to partake alike in the benevolent wind. They cause the seven assemblies to take refuge, crush the four Māras in body and world, and have the eight classes broadly protect, clearing away the five obscurations in the present age. Truly, generations alternate between decadence and purity, and times encounter faith and slander: companions of pure faith respond to pure fruits and ascend high, while cohorts of decadent slander receive turbid retributions and sink low. These all arise from evil without justification, brazenly affronting spiritual beings. The Buddha harbors no enmity toward you; it is the ordinary who have obstructions regarding the Buddha. Vainly slandering, they ultimately cannot extinguish it. Thus, the two emperors Wu of Zhou and Wei awed and subdued the feudal lords yet slighted and deceived the Buddha's Dharma, hoping to eradicate it, only to bring grief upon themselves and disaster to their own persons. Their lives exhausted and their administrations altered, how endless were the laments! Soon after their demise came the revival, further manifesting its provenance. Thus, rising and falling depend on humanity, but the True Dharma does not perish, truly because the aforementioned holy ones uphold it with unseen power through existence and decline; since it comes from the Dao, it is everywhere present. How could one use a brief lifespan of a hundred years to resist a long duration of sixty thousand? How could one use the king of a confined country to obstruct the vast conversion across the three thousand [worlds]? How could one use the holy sagacity among humans to oppose the true uprightness beyond the heavens? How could one use a bodily form subject to birth and death to match the precious quality of vajra? Weighing these four grounds, it is utterly impossible. Those two rulers of Zhou and Wei were enlightened lords and monarchs, knowing that ten thousand years are not to be had and ascertaining that a hundred years are not guaranteed; when the precious throne was based on non-Way, and their spiritual consciousness was enveloped in ignorance, they had no leisure to save themselves, so how could they reach others? They all claimed to dwell permanently in the myriad states, disparaged the Three August Ones and Five Emperors, called their own power holy, extended it across the Four Seas, and disdained Yao and Shun for their singular shortcomings, thereby eradicating the Buddhist transformation: "If not I, who could?" Sitting and receiving celestial calamity, the wise and the foolish laughed alike. Therefore, I collect the supreme practitioners of the Way among monks to serve as ministerial witnesses of upholding [the Dharma]. According to the *Fu fazang zhuan* (Account of the Transmission of the Dharmapiṭaka), the Buddha entrusted the True Dharma to Mahākāśyapa, ordering him to protect and uphold it so that heavenly māras, nāgas, ghosts, and heretical kings and ministers would not slight or destroy it. Having received the entrustment, he compiled the Tripiṭaka to disseminate among humans and devas. Kāśyapa entrusted the Dharma to Ānanda, and thus it was passed down sequentially to Śāṇavāsin (Simha), totaling twenty-five persons, all holy ones endowed with the six superknowledges in Jambudvīpa. Mahākāśyapa is now seated in a cave on the western peak of Gṛdhrakūṭa Mountain, having entered the concentration of cessation; after fifty-six billion seven hundred million years, when Maitreya Buddha descends, he will pass on the great robe entrusted by the Buddha Śākyamuni (Nengren), and only then enter nirvāṇa. Furthermore, two thousand li south of Khotan, in the kingdom of Juqu, there are three non-learners (aśaikṣa) who entered samādhi in the mountains, extraordinarily appearing as if alive for countless years; on the fifteenth day, monks from outside enter the mountains to shave their beards and hair. According to various sūtras and vinayas, the Buddha ordered the great arhat Piṇḍola not to enter extinction, but to pass on the Buddha's Dharma in the three continents, bringing blessings and benefits to sentient beings and causing them to transcend birth and death. Also, the *Ru dacheng lun* (Introduction to the Mahāyāna) states that sixteen non-learners such as Piṇḍola and Rāhula, as well as nine billion nine hundred million arhats, all received counting-sticks before the Buddha to remain and preserve the Dharma. Further, according to another record, they dwell in the four great continents, the lesser continents, and the heavens; until human lifespans reach sixty thousand years, though they may conceal themselves slightly in between, they will later revive again. These holy persons secretly bring benefit; thus, the holy temples and divine monks within the mountains today, where the sound of bells and the fragrance of incense are encountered from time to time, are entirely not in vain. The prominent visible benefits are briefly recounted below: