北山錄 5.2.8

5.2.8

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.'