集沙門不應拜俗等事 2.15

2.15

Question: In examining the intention of Laozi, Heaven and Earth are great because they attain Oneness; kings and lords are honored because they embody compliance. Attaining Oneness, they are the root of the ten thousand transformations; embodying compliance, they have the merit of smooth movement. If so, clarifying the Ultimate must lie in embodying the pinnacle; seeking the pinnacle must rely on complying with transformation. Therefore, the worthies of the past considered this a fine doctrine, which the manifold discourses could not dispute. If the manifold discourses find no flaw in this meaning, why do you say that one does not comply with transformation? Answer: All those within the realm together receive life from the Great Transformation. Although the myriad sorts are varied and the refined and coarse are differently ordered, speaking of them comprehensively, there are only the animate and the inanimate. Being animate, they have sentiment toward transformation; being inanimate, they lack sentiment toward transformation. If they lack sentiment toward transformation, then when transformation ends, life is exhausted; since their life does not stem from sentiment, when the physical form decays, transformation ceases. Being animate toward transformation, they are stirred by things and move; moving necessarily through sentiment, their life never ends. If their life never ends, then their transformation becomes ever broader and physical forms ever accumulate; their sentiments become ever more obstructed and their entanglements ever deeper. How can the suffering of this be fully spoken? Therefore, the scriptures state: 'Nirvāṇa is unchanging, taking the exhaustion of transformation as its dwelling; the three realms flow and turn, taking retributive suffering as their arena.' When transformation is exhausted, causes and conditions cease forever; when flowing and turning, one endures suffering without end. How do we know this is so? Life takes the physical form as its fetters, yet life arises from transformation. Transformation is stirred by sentiment; thus the spirit is blocked from its source, and wisdom is darkened in its illumination. Once rigidly confined, what one preserves is merely the self, and what one undergoes is merely movement. Thereupon the spiritual reins lose control, and the paths of rebirth open wider day by day. Following greedy craving into the long stream, how could it be endured only once? Therefore, those who return to the root and seek the Ultimate do not let life burden their spirit; those who transcend the worldly enclosure do not let sentiment burden their life. If one does not let sentiment burden one's life, life can be extinguished; if one does not let life burden one's spirit, the spirit can become quiescent. The spirit being quiescent and the realm of objects severed, it is called nirvāṇa. How could the name of nirvāṇa be an empty appellation? Let us investigate and verify it. Although Heaven and Earth are great in constantly giving life, they cannot cause the living not to transform; although kings and lords have the merit of preserving life, they cannot cause the preserved to be free from suffering. Therefore, the previous treatise said: 'They understand that suffering and burden stem from having a physical form; thus they do not preserve the physical form to quell suffering. They know that successive rebirths stem from receiving transformation; thus they do not comply with transformation to seek the Ultimate.' The meaning lies here; the meaning lies here. This is why śramaṇas match courtesy with [the ruler of] ten thousand chariots and hold their pursuit aloof, not accepting ranks from kings and lords yet receiving their benefits.