集沙門不應拜俗等事 6.21

6.21

Your servants say: Your servants have heard that that which the Buddha's transformation assists is noble among all beings, truly because it pulls those sunken in darkness out of the six realms and delivers ignorant consciousness onto the three vehicles. His virtue is immense and His merit is also great. Therefore the Buddha is the Lord of the Dharma, upon whom the unseen and manifest rely; the Dharma is the good medicine, through which afflictions and delusions are cleansed and swept away; the Saṃgha is the seed of the Buddha, whose propagation and expansion covers future ages. Thus have heroic rulers of successive dynasties respected the Way and its virtue and protected them; pure-minded, worthy and wise people have given ordination to their sons and daughters to continue the succession. Thus it came to pass that monks and nuns pervaded the whole realm, leaving the models of the Way for unending ages. We humbly submit that Your Majesty compassionately delivers the nine realms of existence and broadly clarifies the One Vehicle; the way of love and reverence is truly exalted, and the road of completing duties reaches ever further. Recently we received Your luminous edict ordering monks to kneel and prostrate before their parents; this exalts the beginning of filial piety and disseminates the model for the source of reverence. However, the Buddha has an established teaching that renunciants do not bow to their parents, wishing that the Way and the secular have distinct paths, so that refuge and precepts may be embraced. Renunciation and dwelling at home are twofold and different; the true and the secular thus become contrary. All of them in mind receive the Buddha's precepts and in body possess the Buddha's deportment. The net of the Dharma is completely distinct, and forms of reverence are entirely separated. Furthermore, regarding the style of holding oneself aloft, even the ruler of men still retains the courtesy of equals; how could subjects conversely receive the ritual of kneeling and prostrating? In looking up and looking down, in comforting and yielding, there would be no ground for peaceful repose. We wish that the state have no two ways of showing reverence, broadly opening the traces of that beyond the realm; that monks observe the inner teaching, so that they may establish themselves and practice the Way. Unable to bear our utmost personal concerns, we respectfully present this memorial to report, polluting