鐔津文集 1.10.3

1.10.3

I feel much shame before others. I once ventured to argue: If one wishes people to be sincerely convinced in mind and cultivate themselves, nothing compares to moving them from within. If one wishes people's words to be compliant and their outward demeanor to be obedient, nothing compares to regulating them from without. As for regulating them from without, if one does not establish teachings by means of the human way, one cannot effect it. As for moving them from within, if one does not establish teachings by means of the spiritual way, one cannot unfailingly transform them. Therefore, as for the Buddha's practice of the Way, he prioritized the spiritual and placed the human second; this was precisely what is meant by moving the within and regulating the without. By 'spiritual' (shen), I mean the human spirit (jingshen); it does not refer to the lewd and deluding affairs of ghosts and spirits. It means that when a person cultivates his spirit and makes his conduct good, in life blessings will respond, and in death his spirit will rise clear. If one's spirit is uncultivated and one's conduct deviant and false, in life there will be no auspiciousness, and in death one's spirit will suffer punishment. Therefore, when all under Heaven hear this, their minds are moved: the wicked are deterred and the good are encouraged. Through such silent transformation, in what era has this not been present? Yet when his teaching arose in China, it must have responded to the appropriate cosmic timing and arrived through the mutual resonance of human hearts. Otherwise, why would people cultivate themselves according to his Dharma, Heaven and Earth respond to it, and ghosts and spirits imitate it? If its fitting cosmic timing had not yet run out and the principle of mutual resonance had not been exhausted, how could one casually preserve it merely out of affection, or casually discard it out of hatred? Comparing it to human affairs, it is like kings or hegemons who act by following the times and responding to men; how could it be otherwise? How much more so when there are the marvelous Way and hidden expedients, which moreover extend into human affairs! The marvelous Way means purity and calm extinction. It means completely extinguishing all encumbrances and purifying one's inherent nature; it does not mean deadening one's life to take up empty devastation and annihilation. When one attains this to the utmost, one becomes a sage or a spirit, transcending this world. Hidden expedients mean using the Way to give rise to the application of non-application. It means rescuing all living beings and bringing them out of drowning in the passions. If we examine its transforming of things so that they transform themselves, the sovereign's way is close to it; if we examine its expedient use in responding to the world, there is nowhere it does not reach. Regarding its transformation, later generations indeed cannot attain it; regarding its expedients, if one silently embodies them, there is no age in which they cannot be realized. In antiquity, when the Sage was about to pass into extinction, he entrusted his Dharma to kings, ministers, elders, and men of power. This was not out of self-interest or a desire to artificially exalt himself among men; it was simply that he wished to enact the Way through their way, and to do good through their goodness. The Buddha's sūtras indeed have many methods. But the disciples of later ages have been unable to impart them appropriately to people, leading those who believe to believe excessively. This causes rulers with an infatuation with the good to readily wish to abandon the state and lower themselves to become slaves; and it causes worldly people of shallow awakening to abruptly wish to abandon their vocations and exclusively aspire to the loftiness of monks. This cannot be called using the Buddha's mind to practice the Way. Do not the sūtras say: 'All Buddhas preach the Dharma according to what is fitting; their intent is difficult to understand'? Therefore, practicing the Buddha's way does not merely consist in blackening one's robes and shaving one's hair! How could the Buddha's mind be so narrowly confined? Yet there are those who wish to criticize him as being like Yang Zhu and Mozi. Yang Zhu and Mozi were obstinate in one extreme and constrained by worldliness; to compare them to the Buddha—is that not going too far? People in the world do not probe into the Buddha's principles to scrutinize them in detail, but merely clamorously decry the Buddha as absurd, saying his words are uncanonical. The Buddha's vision surpassed ordinary people by far; how could one judge another's vision by what one cannot see oneself? Is it absurd to say that the Buddha speaks of many kalpas? In the world there is certainly the accumulation of months into years, and the accumulation of years into generations; how can one know that generations do not accumulate to become a kalpa? If one considers it untrue merely because the matter is distant and not in contact with one's ears and eyes, then as for the affairs of high antiquity spoken of in the Six Classics, without receiving their transmission today, who among us witnessed them firsthand? Can these be called absurd? Is it absurd to say that the Buddha's words are vast? In the world, there are indeed minds that wander soaring into the void; though the four corners, zenith, and nadir are boundless and dim, how could there be a boundary? When the Buddha says his worlds are limitless, why should it not be so? Is it absurd to say that the Buddha speaks of transformations? In the world, there are indeed dreams within dreams. When one is dreaming, the events one encounters and one's circumstances in the dream—some the same, some different—all resemble reality. Since there are dreams within a dream, how can one know there are no transformations within death? Since the Buddha's vision was far-reaching and his knowledge of things was extensive, the Sage broadened his teachings to instruct many kinds [of beings], wishing that there be nowhere they went where they were not transformed. Now it is said: 'The Buddha was a sage of the West; his Dharma is suited to barbarians and not to China.' This too is something earlier Confucians failed to reflect upon. 'Sage' is an appellation for one who possesses the great Way. How could there be someone possessing the great Way who may not be called a sage? And how could there be a sage's Way that cannot be practiced wherever it reaches? If one judges it solely on the grounds that the person came from barbarians: Shun was a man of the Eastern Yi, and King Wen was a man of the Western Yi, yet their Ways succeeded each other and were practiced in China; can one treat the persons as barbarians and therefore reject their Ways? What is more, the place from which the Buddha came was not barbarian! Someone might say: 'The Buddha only spoke of nature. As for nature, the Yijing and the Zhongyong have already discussed it; there is no use for the Buddha.' This is also not so. If our Buddha's discussion of nature is identical with the worldly books, then the sages shared the same nature. If they are the same, why reject it? And if they are different, how should we deal with it? When waters gather much of what is the same, they become deep rivers and seas; when soil gathers much of what is the same, it piles up into mountains and peaks; when great men gather much of what is the same, they broaden into virtue and the Way. Alas, how can I find many fellows of like mind, to make their minds equally sincere, to purify their bodies equally with fasts and precepts, and to extend virtue equally to others, so as to bring blessings to our parents and assist our sovereign in bringing peace to all under Heaven? Someone asked: 'Why are you so insatiable? Your kind fills all under Heaven in a disorderly swarm, not enrolled among the four classes of people. You merely boast of almsgiving and karmic retribution to feed and clothe yourselves off others. If you do not impoverish all under Heaven, that is already good fortune! How can you mend and govern the world, or bring blessings to sovereign and parents?' I replied: 'How unbending! Sit down, and I will tell you. Do you not know that within the gates of the ancient kings, they discussed virtue and righteousness rather than calculating manual labor? When the ancient kings regulated the people, they feared that the world would fall into decay and the people would mix in disorder, readily breeding chaos, and so they erected safeguards for them. Thus they divided the people into four classes, causing each to belong to its own category. How could this mean prohibiting people from using profit to confer kindness upon others? Take the Buddhists of today: in silence they are sincere; in speech they are good. Wherever they go, they use their Way to exhort people to abandon evil and turn toward the good. That their single robes and food rely on what others have in excess is not covetousness.