集沙門不應拜俗等事 1.44

1.44

Your incoming challenge is written very fine in hand, exceedingly elegant, yet as an effort to resolve doubt it has utterly fallen short. Our mutual cross-examination shows no end in sight. Now I shall once again summarize the essentials, clarifying the principle of the 'Three Reverences' to weigh their relative importance; then the principle of whether to bow or not can be known. I imagine the effort of investigating subtleties must require increasingly rigorous analysis. On the eighth day, and up to today, I sent a letter to the Vice Director of the Right directing him to implement the duty of reverence and the way of honoring the sovereign, so that none under Heaven fails to show respect. Even with the Buddhist path, nothing can surpass the sovereign's veneration; is this not the utmost good? Although the matter is already being implemented, it does not impede our theoretical inquiry, which ought to be pursued thoroughly. I imagine others might offer even more refined analyses. You may show this to Zhongwen.