北山錄 5.2.8

5.2.8

其由賞兇酗之子以不繼父為德（不紹父凶酗為德）胠篋之盜。 以能行仁義為賢（鬼谷子曰。 胠篋探囊胠旁也。 從傍開取物為胠也）非是昭犬典之流訓也。 賓曰。 梁武盡志弘宣。 名冠宇宙。 宜天勳遐統降天永命何分崩離析骨肉相殘。 非畢世而有裕乎（梁武帝蕭衍受齊禪。 志崇佛教。 宗廟素食。 身披法服。 捨身入寺。 臣下具錢贖歸。 至侯景作逆。 石頭城陷憤悶而崩。 簡文孝元並皆遇害也）主人曰。 曆數在天。 知微在聖。 而賢者猶其昧之。 況謏才之所宜言乎（謏寡薄也）大統蕭氏。 膺大寶之位。 行聖人之教。 或不見聖人之心遠矣。 夫服文彩帶利劍。 負扆以臨群后。 何必損已為臺隷乎（臺隸賤者。 又作皂隸通）必若厭黃屋齊卑宮（齊好也）胡不歷有德而高讓。 履金繩而不返（胡何也。 祇園以金繩界地）豈俟君臣之請歟（梁武居萬乘之尊。 三度捨身沒常住以供賤隸。 朝臣以錢一萬意贖之遂還）楊朱云。 唐堯偽讓以享福。 夷齊真讓而致餒。 況梁氏兼亡於真偽乎。 雖四十五年江表無事。 而政刑襄缺。 禮樂崩弛。 征傜不減。 鰥寡無告。 君倡臣和。 父倡子和。 自謂無為致理。 高談治國。 遂使侯景伺隙。 憑天作威。 既喪其身。 亦棄其族。 上九在元。 安得無悔（易乾卦上九辭六。 亢龍有悔。 處上位之極。 為言知進不知退。 知存不知亡。 知得而不知喪也。 太清元年侯景反於壽春。 遂濟江圍臺城。 陳帝之十失援軍莫有鬪志。 遂陷臺城。 景自為丞相。 帝憂憤成病。 口苦索蜜不得荷荷而卒。 年八十六）宋文帝謂求那跋摩曰。 弟子常欲齊戒。 不殺迫以身徇於物不獲從志。 法師何以教之。 跋摩曰。 帝王與匹夫。 所修各異。 匹夫身賤名劣。 言令不威。 若不克己苦躬將何為用。 帝王以四海為家。 萬民為子。 出一嘉言士女以悅。 布一善政人神以和。 固當刑不夭命役無勞力。 則使風雨順時。 寒暖應節。 百穀滋繁。 桑麻欝茂。 如此持齊。 齊亦大矣。 如此不殺。 德亦眾矣（清潔為齊。 防非為戒）寧在闕半日之餐。 全一禽之命。 然後方為弘濟耶。 帝撫几曰。 法師所言真謂開悟人心。 明達物理。 可謂談於人天之際矣。 懿哉若人。 非獨誘進於真門抑亦俾興於王化。 而齊之與戒。 雖天子至庶人達其至理。 猶五孝不同其經也（天子以愽愛廣敬為孝。 諸侯以不驕謹法為孝。 卿大夫以遵法約禮為孝。 士以愛父同君為孝。 庶人以謹身養親為孝）聞一以知二者。 其在宋文乎（文帝名義隆。 宋高祖第三子。 即位改元元嘉。 有文武之才。 蘊寬明之德。 勤苦節儉在位三十年）向使梁武納大麓難庶官順考古慎厥終（麓錄也。 謂親萬機。 選任眾官惟難得人。 順稽古帝道而行之敬慎其終也。 所謂安必思危。 治不忘亂之道也）省乎前言。 而或不及於此難也（若梁武常省前言。 恐不及侯氏之難）其太子綱（簡文也。 帝第三子）綸（卲陵王也）紀（益州刺史武陵王也）宗室諸王亟弄文墨。 請帝自講。 勅答曰。 汝等未達稼穡之艱難。 安知天下之負重。 庸主少君所以繼踵顛覆。 皆由安不思危。 況復未安者耶。 殷鑒不遠在於前世。 吾今所行雖異曩日。 但知講說不憂國事。 則與彼人異術同亡耳（術道路也）而前後累請。 帝亦累拒。 但年高氣昏。 精華已竭。 家有佞父之子。 朝無匪躬之士。 前否後允卒如所言（如異術同亡之言。 暨侯景作亂帝崩之後。 景立簡文。 尋幽之於永福省以絕人望。 景尋弑之。 及王僧辯破侯景立孝元帝。 後魏兵至城陷被擒。 仍賦詩為土囊殞之。 前梁四主國歸陳。 後梁三主國入隋）賓曰。 一人失馭已塞天譴。 百工周行何咎預難。 致使死者股荷首倚而日繼之乎。 主人曰。 是何言歟。 夫君辱臣死。

This is like rewarding the son of a violent drunkard for not following his father, taking that as a virtue (not inheriting his father's violence and drunkenness being considered a virtue), or regarding a trunk-opening burglar as worthy because he can practice humaneness and righteousness (the Guiguzi says: "To pry open a trunk or grope inside a bag; qu means 'from the side.' Opening it from the side to take goods is qu"). This is not the standard model taught by the luminous canons. The guest said: "Emperor Wu of the Liang exerted his will to propagate widely; his renown capped the universe. By rights his heavenly merits should have brought an enduring line and heaven should have conferred an eternal mandate upon him. Why then did it fall apart and fragment, with kin slaughtering one another? Was it not a lifetime lacking in abundance? (Emperor Wu of the Liang, Xiao Yan, received the abdication from the Qi. His ambition was to exalt Buddhism. He took vegetarian meals for the ancestral temple, wore Dharma robes himself, and gave up his body to enter a monastery, while his ministers gathered funds to redeem him. When Hou Jing rebelled, Shitoucheng fell, and he died in distress and indignation. Both Jianwen and Xiaoyuan were likewise murdered.)" The host said: "The celestial calculations lie with Heaven, and knowing subtle signs lies with the sage; even the worthy are still benighted regarding this, so how could small talents be fit to speak of it? (Xiu means 'scant and thin.') The Xiao family of the Great Succession occupied the seat of the Great Treasure and carried out the teachings of the sage, yet perhaps they failed to perceive the mind of the sage by far! Now, wearing patterned finery, girding a sharp sword, and sitting before the screen to oversee the princes—why should one debase oneself to become a station menial? (Taili means a low servant; also written as zaoli.) If he truly despised the yellow carriage-roof and aligned himself with humble dwellings (qi means 'good'), why did he not search out the virtuous and yield with high loftiness, walking the golden cords and never returning? (Hu means 'why.' Jetavana was bordered with golden cords.) How could he wait for the petitions of his ministers? (Emperor Wu of the Liang held the majesty of ten thousand chariots; three times he gave up his body to be forfeit to the Saṅgha to serve as a base menial, and his court officials redeemed him with one hundred million coins, whereupon he returned.) Yang Zhu said: 'Tang Yao made a false abdication and thereby enjoyed blessings; Boyi and Shuqi made a true abdication and thereby starved.' How much more did the Liang lose both the true and the false! Although for forty-five years there was no unrest south of the Yangtze, governance and penal laws became deficient, ritual and music collapsed, corvée labor was not reduced, and widows and widowers had no one to appeal to. The lord sang and the ministers harmonized; the father sang and the sons harmonized. They claimed to govern by wuwei and discoursed loftily on ruling the state. This led Hou Jing to spy an opening and arrogate the majesty of Heaven. He not only lost his own life, but also abandoned his lineage. When the top nine is in the first place, how can there not be regret? (In the Yijing, Qian hexagram, the top nine line states: 'The arrogant dragon has regret.' Occupying the peak of the high position, this speaks of knowing how to advance but not to retreat, knowing how to preserve but not how to perish, and knowing how to gain but not how to lose. In the first year of Taiqing, Hou Jing rebelled in Shouchun and then crossed the Yangtze to besiege the Palace City. Chen laid out ten faults of the emperor; the relief troops had no will to fight, and the Palace City fell. Jing made himself Prime Minister. The emperor fell ill from distress and grief; his mouth was bitter and he sought honey, but could not get it, dying with sighs at the age of eighty-six.) Emperor Wen of the Song said to Guṇavarman: 'I, your disciple, have always wished to observe the fast and refrain from killing, but constrained by having to dedicate my person to worldly affairs, I have been unable to follow my wish. How do you instruct me, Dharma Master?' Varman said: 'Emperors and ordinary men cultivate differently. The ordinary man has a humble station and inferior fame; his words and orders carry no authority. If he does not restrain himself and subject his body to hardship, what can he use? An emperor takes the four seas as his home and the myriad people as his children. If he utters a single good word, men and women rejoice; if he spreads a single good policy, humans and spirits harmonize. If he ensures that punishments do not cut lives short and levies do not exhaust their strength, then the wind and rain will arrive in season, cold and heat will accord with the periods, the hundred grains will flourish, and the mulberry and hemp will grow lush. Upholding the fast in this way makes the fast immense indeed; refraining from killing in this way makes the virtue manifold indeed. (Cleanliness is the fast; guarding against wrongdoing is the precept.) Why must one miss half a day's meal and spare the life of a single bird before it counts as broad salvation?' The emperor touched his armrest and said: 'What the Dharma Master has spoken truly awakens human minds and illuminates the principles of things; it may be called discourse at the nexus of humans and Heaven!' Splendid was that man! Not only did he entice people forward into the True Gate, he also caused royal transformation to flourish. As for the fast and the precepts, although they extend from the Son of Heaven down to the commoners in attaining their ultimate principle, they are like the five kinds of filial piety having different classic texts (the Son of Heaven takes broad love and wide reverence as filial piety; feudal lords take not being arrogant and carefully guarding the laws as filial piety; ministers and grand masters take following the law and restraining ritual as filial piety; shi take loving their fathers as they do their rulers as filial piety; commoners take disciplining themselves and caring for their parents as filial piety). He who heard one and knew two—was it not Emperor Wen of the Song? (Emperor Wen, named Yilong, was the third son of Song Gaozu. Ascending the throne, he changed the reign era to Yuanjia. He possessed literary and martial talents and harbored the virtue of broad intelligence; diligent, hardworking, and frugal, he reigned for thirty years.) If only Emperor Wu of the Liang had undertaken the Great Foothills, found the myriad officials difficult, complied with antiquity, and been cautious to the end (lu means to manage, referring to personally attending to the myriad affairs; selecting and appointing the various officials is difficult in finding the right men; complying and examining antiquity means carrying out the Way of the emperors and reverently being cautious to the end; this is the so-called way of thinking of danger when safe and not forgetting chaos in times of order), examining these former words, he might not have met with this calamity (if Emperor Wu of the Liang had constantly examined these former words, I fear he would not have met with the Hou clan's disaster). His Crown Prince Gang (Jianwen, the third son of the emperor), Lun (the Prince of Shaoling), and Ji (the Prince of Wuling, Inspector of Yizhou), along with various princes of the imperial clan, frequently wielded brush and ink to request that the emperor himself lecture. The imperial reply stated: 'You have not yet understood the hardships of sowing and reaping; how could you know the heavy burdens of the world? Mediocre rulers and young lords fall one after another because they do not think of danger in times of safety—how much less so when it is not yet safe! The mirror of Yin is not distant; it lies in the preceding generation. Although what I practice now differs from former days, if I only know lecturing and discourse without worrying about state affairs, I will simply be taking a different path to the same destruction as those men.' (Shu means road.) Though they repeatedly pleaded before and after, the emperor repeatedly refused them. But his years were advanced and his vitality clouded; his quintessence was already exhausted. The household had sons who flattered their father, while the court lacked officials who sacrificed themselves for the state. First refusing and later assenting, it ended precisely as he had spoken (just like his words about taking a different path to the same destruction. After Hou Jing made rebellion and the emperor died, Jing enthroned Jianwen; soon after, he secluded him in the Yongfu Department to cut off the people's hopes, and Jing soon murdered him. When Wang Sengbian crushed Hou Jing and enthroned Emperor Xiaoyuan, Later Wei troops arrived, the city fell, and he was captured; he was then composed a poem and suffocated with an earth bag. Four rulers of the Former Liang saw the state pass to the Chen; three rulers of the Later Liang saw the state enter the Sui). The guest said: 'A single man's loss of control was already enough to answer Heaven's reproach; what fault did the ranks of the hundred officials have that they should share in the calamity, causing the dead to pile leg upon leg and head upon head day after day?' The host said: 'What kind of talk is that? When the lord is disgraced, the ministers die.'