集沙門不應拜俗等事 2.20

2.20

Question: The treatise's main purport holds that the exhaustion of transformation is the ultimate extremity, and therefore one who reaches the extremity must go against transformation to seek the origin; seeking the origin does not come from following transformation. On this basis, it adduces the monarchs of successive generations, making them identical with the teachings of Buddhism, and having those who embody the utmost extremity occupy rule by expedient means. This is what your elegant treatise relies on, being convinced of the Great Pervasion. Yet seeking its actuality, in terms of principle it is not so. Why is this? The endowment of qi reaches its limit within a single lifetime; when life is exhausted, it dissolves into nothingness. Although the spirit is a subtle thing, it is still merely the transformation of yin and yang. Having transformed to become life, it transforms again to become death; having gathered to become the beginning, it disperses again to become the end. Inferring from this, we firmly know that spirit and form transform together, originally having no different lineage. Fine and coarse are of a single qi, and from start to finish share the same dwelling. When the dwelling is intact, the qi gathers and there is sentience; when the dwelling is destroyed, the qi disperses and consciousness is extinguished. When it disperses, it returns what it received to the Great Origin; when it is extinguished, it reverts again to no-thing. Coming and going, beginning and end, all are exhausted in the natural order of fate. Who could make it otherwise? If the root is wholly identical, how could the qi be different? When destiny concurs, they transform together. Thus, the spirit dwelling in the form is like fire being in wood: their arising must be together, and its destruction must be extinction. When the form separates, the spirit disperses and has nothing to lodge in; when the wood rots, the fire is silenced and has nothing to rely upon. This is indeed the principle of things. Even if the distinction between sameness and difference is dim and difficult to clarify, the doctrine of being and non-being must reside in gathering and dispersing. Gathering and dispersing are general names for the transformation of qi, the arising and ceasing of myriad transformations. Therefore Zhuangzi said: 'The life of man is a gathering of qi; when it gathers there is life, and when it disperses there is death. Since life is [viewed by] them as mere suffering, what do I have to worry about?' Those of antiquity who spoke well of the Way must have grasped this. How could it be otherwise? The ultimate principle reaches its limit within a single lifetime; once life is exhausted, there is no further transformation—its meaning can be investigated.