破邪論 1.14

1.14

Yi says: 'Within the seas, those who toil for the king are few, while those who delight in private gain are many. Outwardly they serve the barbarian Buddha, while inwardly conceiving wrong views. Shaving their hair and skin, they change their garments. Leaving the gates of ministers and sons, they enter the households of monks and nuns. Standing, they present themselves at the royal court; sitting, they look down upon knees. Disloyal and unfilial, they gather in adjoining quarters. Furthermore, the Buddha is in the Western Regions; his words are strange and the road is distant. Renouncing kin, they pursue wealth; fearing the strong, they slight the elderly. Valuing the rich and powerful, they disdain the poor and weak; loving the young and beautiful, they demean the aged. Employing illusions and deceptions as their skills, they take fraud and lies as their宗旨. Indeed, the Buddha is merely the household ghost of a single clan. A ghost cannot encompass other lineages; how can living men of Han be driven to provide for a dead barbarian? How could this reach such an extreme! It can truly be called demeaning this bright pearl and prizing those fish eyes, abandoning one's stern father to revere another man. Where has it ever been that kneeling before ten mud barbarians makes one a high minister, or offering a bowl of leftover rice enables one to become a sovereign? Relying on the Buddha's heterodox doctrines runs contrary to human nature. Furthermore, the Buddha's comical, boastful words do not equal Zhan and Meng; his extravagant fabrications involve sins deeper than those of Jie and Zhou. Entering a family, he ruins the family; entering a state, he ruins the state.' We reply: As for renouncing the household, inwardly one bids farewell to loved ones, and outwardly one renounces official glory. One's aspiration is to seek unexcelled bodhi; one's vow is to escape the bitter sea of birth and death. For this reason, one discards the robes of court attendance and dons the robes of the field of merit, practicing the Way to repay the four kindnesses and establishing virtue to aid the three realms of existence. This is the general purpose. If one says that the Buddha is a barbarian ghost and monks are bald rascals: examining the classics and books of Kong and Lao, and the internal and external historical records since the Han and Wei, we briefly cite passages evidencing Kong and Lao's veneration of the Buddha as master as set forth to the left, in order to answer the heterodox man, hoping he will confess his offense. The Daoist Falun jing (Scripture of the Dharma Wheel) states: 'If one sees a śramaṇa, one should give rise to immeasurable contemplation, wishing to soon leave the household and practice the Buddha's truth.' It also states: 'If one sees a Buddhist stūpa, one should give rise to immeasurable contemplation, and should vow that all beings universally enter the Dharma gate.'