北山錄 2.2.5

2.2.5

to reform past [habits] and practice anew) and to transform transgressions by following exhortations, bringing together the three teachings so that they brightly illuminate all under heaven. (Commentary: "Teachings" means instructions. "Bringing together" means assembling. It means assembling the three teachings to transform the world.) Therefore, if our Way is not yet to be promoted, though a thousand years pass, [the circumstances] will be as estranged as the constellations Shen and Chen. (Commentary: Our teaching is the root of transforming and guiding. If it does not harmonize with the world, even after a thousand years, it will surely not meet, like the stars Shen and Chen.) But when it is to be promoted, though separated by ten thousand leagues, even horses driven by the mating wind will find passage. (Commentary: When the teaching can be promoted, though the route spans ten thousand leagues, it can still reach through. "Horses driven by the mating wind" refers to mares and stallions pursuing each other. When Duke Huan of Qi attacked Chu, the Viscount of Chu said: "We are so far apart that horses and oxen driven by the mating wind would not reach each other.") Thus, the Han imperial decree was sent down to the edges of heaven, and the sun of the sage arose in the eastern quarter. (Commentary: "Edges" means borders. It refers to Qin Jing and others reaching the Yuezhi. "Sun of the sage" refers to Kāśyapa Mātaṅga coming to the east.) It illuminated living beings at the distant horizons and manifested the Great Awakened One in the luminous heavens. (Commentary: "Horizons" means borders. The Buddha-sun illuminated the multitudes of beings and made the heavens and earth radiant.) To set down a standard for ten thousand generations on the basis of a single night's dream—in Emperor Zhuang, all under heaven truly had a sovereign! (Commentary: Emperor Ming of the Han dreamt one night of a golden man, sought the teachings in the west, and first established a model. His voice and teaching ultimately became the rule for ten thousand generations.) To declare his heart in brilliant schemes and gloriously inaugurate the Han dynasty—in men like Wang Zun, Fu Yi, Qin Jing, and Cai Yin, the Han house truly had ministers! (Commentary: "Brilliant" means magnificent, and "scheme" means plan. To declare one's heart in magnificent plans and bring brightness to the Han line refers to Wang Zun, Fu Yi, Qin Jing, Cai Yin, and others.) To act as the surviving disciples of the Dharma King (Commentary: "Surviving" means descendants; "disciples" means followers.) and grandly inherit his virtuous sound—in men like Kāśyapa Mātaṅga and Dharmaratna, Tianzhu truly had monks! (Commentary: They were able to inherit the voice and teaching.) When we look back upon antiquity, those whose abundant virtue and profound benefit were truly laboured for the people had their gifts received by the people; their glorious renown was spread abroad and celebrated in the sacrificial registries. (Commentary: "Look back upon" means scrutinizing. Observing that past eras brought benefit to the people, [the people] were moved by their grace, were bound to proclaim their excellence, and broadly set out great offerings in the ancestral sacrifices.) Thus the *Book of Rites* says: "Those who gave laws to the people are sacrificed to after death. Those who by their labor established the state are sacrificed to. Those who could ward off great calamities are sacrificed to. Those who could defend against great disasters are sacrificed to." Now, the Flame Clan [dynasty] and its two or three ministers propagated the teaching of the Golden Immortal and reached customs that had never heard it, causing people with sincere devotion (Commentary: "Devotion" means earnestness.) to know whither sin and merit lead, to weary of the bounded bodily form, and to esteem the principle of extinguishing the mind. (Commentary: Emperor Ming of the Han and his two or three ministers first opened the Buddhist teachings, causing worldly people who were inverted and confused to comprehend sin and merit, weary of the perishable body, and attain realization of the principle of non-arising.) Grandly did their work of profound transformation crown the temples of benevolence; yet the world neither exalts their burial halls nor clarifies their sacrificial rites. Though antiquity called this a deficiency, the present day has also failed to remedy it. (Commentary: "Grandly" means expansively. Although their achievement expansively influenced transformation and should rank at the head of the sacrificial canons, the world does not revere their ancestral shrines nor clarify their sacrificial offerings. What antiquity called a deficiency has not been remedied today either.) Since the beginning of the Han restoration, it trickled forth like a spring overflowing a wine cup. (Commentary: "Overflowing" means spilling over. When the Han River first emerges, it can only fill a wine cup. From the beginning of the Later Han, the Buddhist Dharma was a trickling stream, like the Han River when it first emerges.) In the Wei, it flowed [so as to carry] bundles of firewood. (Commentary: By the Cao Wei period, it gradually became like a current that could float bundles of firewood.) Down to our Tang today, its influence has grown ever broader. (Commentary: From the first arrival of the Buddhist Dharma in the Han to our Great Tang today, its Dharma has gradually broadened.) Thoroughly searching the various divisions, (Commentary: "Thoroughly" means exhaustively.) there are over eight thousand fascicles, and even now the translation work of Indian monks has not ceased. In the meantime, during the Qi and Liang eras, the two Xiao clans (Commentary: Xiao Daocheng of the Southern Qi and Xiao Yan, Emperor Wu of the Liang. Both of the two Xiao clans in the two dynasties had their capitals at Jinling.) had abundant learning and refined phrasing, producing many compilations. For instance, Xiao Ziliang, Prince of Jingling, made anthologies from the various sutras, dividing them into seventy works in two hundred and fifty-nine fascicles. (Commentary: The Prince of Jingling of the Qi made anthologies classified by category.) Though at the time he did not intend for them to be circulated abroad, later generations copied them and entered them into the orthodox catalogues. Xiao Gang, Crown Prince of Liang (Commentary: namely Emperor Jianwen), compiled the *Liang bi of the Dharma Treasure* in two hundred fascicles. The śramaṇa Sengyou (Commentary: who compiled the *Hongming ji* in sixteen fascicles), Sengmin (Commentary: who resided on Mount Huqiu; Xiao Ang went to pay homage to him, and he remained lying comfortably without rising, so that people called him the Uncrowned King of the Liang dynasty), Baochang (Commentary: a monk of Zhuangyan Monastery in the capital of Yangdu, of broad knowledge and rich erudition, whom Emperor Wu of Liang ordered to compile the *Jinglü yixiang* in fifty fascicles), and Zhizang (Commentary: an eminent monk of the Liang, intelligent and well-read), all made compilations with numerous entries. In later generations, some abandoned the broad thoroughfare and followed branching byways. (Commentary: "Broad thoroughfare" refers to the grand road, meaning the orthodox scriptures; "branching byways" refers to small paths, meaning miscellaneous anthologies.) At that time, the daughter of the National Academy Scholar Jiang Mi (Commentary: a scholar of the Liang dynasty), who was only eight years old, from the first year of the Yongyuan era to the fourth year of the Tianjian era (Commentary: Yongyuan was a Southern Qi reign era; Tianjian was a reign era of Emperor Wu of the Liang; from the year *jimao* to *yiyou*, totaling seven years), sat quietly with her eyes closed and naturally recited thirty fascicles. (Commentary: In the canon today there are titles, but no scripture texts; since they were not the Buddha's words, they are now placed in the catalogue of apocrypha.) Commentators considered them heaven-bestowed. How, then, are we to distinguish the genuine from the spurious? The Great Vehicle takes a single principle, namely the True Mark. (Commentary: "True Mark" means suchness.) The Lesser Vehicle has three, namely: all conditioned factors are impermanent; all phenomena are without self; and nirvāṇa is quiescent. What contradicts these is not our teaching. Those that are cluttered, crude, and shallow—such as the *Dharani Sutra of the Seven Buddhas*, the *Samantabhadra's Verification*, the *Lotus Measures*, the *Eight Yang of Heaven and Earth*, and the *Prolonging Life Sutra*—contradict the various scriptures, forfeit the substance of holy speech, and are retained as suspect or apocryphal, not worthy of discussion. (Commentary: They are all preserved in the catalogue of suspect and apocryphal scriptures.) Those that are unadorned, crude, verbose, and minute (Commentary: such as the *Yin chi ru jing* and *Dao di jing*), or the lost-translator scriptures of the Han and Wei, as well as the *Bhaiṣajyaguru Sutra* and others (Commentary: translated by Śrīmitra and Huijian of Luye Monastery; they are now in the orthodox catalogue), although not elegant or profound, are nevertheless neither flawed nor erroneous; verified against retranslations, they must not be discarded. Indeed, although a bird is caught by a single mesh of the net, it depends on the myriad meshes to support that single mesh; although liberation from suffering is through the Dharma of a single gate, it combines myriad Dharmas to support that single gate. (Commentary: Although a bird is caught with a single mesh, one cannot open only a single mesh; although one accords with faculties through a single Dharma, one cannot expound only a single Dharma.) Thus they were expounded and extended into the eighty-four thousand Dharma stores. Mouzi says: (Commentary: Mouzi was the Governor of Cangwu; he wrote a book called *Mouzi*.) "The Buddhist sutras speak beforehand of matters a hundred million years in the past, and explain the essentials of ten thousand generations to come. Before the Great Simplicity had formed signs, before the Great Origin had arisen, when heaven and earth first began, its subtlety could not be grasped and its fineness could not be penetrated. The Buddha completely encompassed the exterior of their vastness and analyzed the interior of their profundity.