鐔津文集 16.16

16.16

In his preface seeing off Gao Xian, Master Han said: 'Now Master Xian follows the Buddhists; he unifies death and life and dissolves outer absurdities. In what he makes of his mind, it must be tranquil and without arousal; toward the world, he must be detached and without craving.' In making this statement, Master Han seems to have understood that the Buddha's teachings are truly profound and beneficial to the nature and life of human beings. Unifying death and life means that death is like life and life is like death; according to principle, it is as if there were no birth or death. Once one perceives this principle of no dying and no being born, then that person does not crave life nor abhor death. Dissolving outer absurdities means that outside one's essential nature and principle, the defilements of passion between male and female, appetites, desires, and the hundred kinds of lustful delusion are all fallacious absurdities. Once absurdities are released and birth and death are equalized, the person's nature and life become pure, tranquil, and attain the utmost correctness. Laozi said: 'Purity and stillness are the standard for the world.' These words resemble this. When nature and life are already correct, why must it be that people like Xian have to wait until they die and are reborn to become sages, spirits, or great realized persons? In the present world itself, one can truly become an upright person of supreme conduct: already worthy, one becomes more worthy; what was not good must become good. Yet Master Han did not keep to his words to Xian; in his *Yuandao*, he instead said: 'They sever your ways of mutual birth and nourishment to seek what they call purity, stillness, and extinction (nirvāṇa).' Purity, stillness, and extinction precisely mean guiding people to equalize birth and death, dissolve outer absurdities, and relieve the encumbrance of clinging passions, so as to complete the correctness of their nature and life. When Master Han wrote, he did not look back to what he had said before and after, but precipitously wrote the *Yuandao*; and later, superficial scholars whose minds do not penetrate principle look at it and suppose that Master Han's intention ended there. They follow his tracks to the end of their lives, darkening their nature and life and arrogantly defying the Buddha, not realizing that Master Han spoke without reflection. Even if we follow what was said to Xian, it merely took Xian's Buddhist allegiance as the basis without intending to promote his Dao as beneficial to the world; yet if an idea is truly beneficial to the world, why would a gentleman not praise it? Confucius said: 'A great man does not initiate idle words,' which means that if words are not beneficial in application, one does not speak them. If one considers Master Han a disciple of the sages and worthies, how could he utter useless words? Or could it be that, although Master Han is called a man of letters, he truly had not arrived at the Dao? I do not know.