鐔津文集 2.29

2.29

古之有聖人焉。曰佛。曰儒。曰百家。心則一。其迹則異。夫一焉者其皆欲人為善者也。異焉者分家而各為其教者也。聖人各為其教。故其教人為善之方。有淺有奧有近有遠。及乎絕惡而人不相擾。則其德同焉。中古之後。其世大漓。佛者其教相望而出。相資以廣。天下之為善其天意乎。其聖人之為乎。不測也。方天下不可無儒。無百家者。不可無佛。虧一教則損天下之一善道。損一善道則天下之惡加多矣。夫教也者聖人之迹也。為之者（本或無之）聖人之心也。見其心則天下無有不是。循其迹則天下無有不非。是故賢者貴知夫聖人之心。文中子曰。觀皇極讜議。知佛教可以一矣。王氏殆見聖人之心也。

Anciently there were sages: namely the Buddha, the Confucians, and the Hundred Schools. Their minds were one, while their traces differed. That they were one means they all wished people to do good; that they differed means they divided into distinct schools, each establishing its own teaching. Because the sages each established their own teachings, their methods for instructing people to do good possessed the shallow and the profound, the near and the far. When it comes to severing evil so that people do not harm one another, their virtue is identical. After the middle antiquity, the world fell into great moral decay, and the teachings of the Buddha appeared in continuous succession, mutually reinforcing each other to spread widely. That the realm practices goodness—is it by the will of Heaven, or is it by the doing of the sages? It cannot be fathomed. Just as the realm cannot do without Confucians and the Hundred Schools, so it cannot do without the Buddha. If one teaching is deficient, one way of goodness in the world is diminished; if one way of goodness is diminished, the evils in the realm multiply. A teaching is the trace of a sage; that which produces it is the mind of the sage. If one perceives his mind, nothing in the realm is not right; if one merely follows his traces, nothing in the realm is not wrong. Therefore, the worthy value knowing the mind of the sage. Wenzhongzi said: 'Observing the forthright discourses on the Sovereign Ultimate, I know that the Buddhist teachings can be unified with it.' Master Wang almost certainly perceived the mind of the sages!