鐔津文集 2.8

2.8

Emotions emerge from nature; nature is concealed within emotions. When nature is concealed, the Way of the ultimate reality ceases. Therefore, the sage takes nature as the teaching to instruct people. The movements of all under heaven are born from emotions; the delusions of the myriad things are rectified in nature. Can all under heaven fail to examine the good and evil of emotions and nature? To know good and evil without knowing the end and beginning of good and evil—can that be ultimate knowledge? To know its end without knowing its beginning—can that be ultimate knowledge? Only the sage's ultimate knowledge knows the beginning, knows the end, knows the subtle, and knows the vanished. Seeing that they run through birth and death, the unseen and the manifest, to form images and shapes, heaven and earth—vast though they are—originate in emotions; the universe—great though it is—is enclosed within nature. Therefore, among the myriad things, nothing is more flourishing than emotions and nature. Emotion is the beginning of existence: where there is existence, there is attachment; where there is attachment, there is craving and desire; where there is craving and desire, men and women and the myriad things are born and die therein. Under the stimulation of birth and death, good and evil transform according to their categories, beginning and ending, revolving through birth and death without ever resting. Nature is the utmost of non-existence: ultimate non-existence has never been non-existent; emerging into life and entering into death, it is neither death nor life. This is why the sage's Way is quiescent and luminous, adapting only as resonance requires. Emotion acts as falsehood and consciousness: when obtained properly, it becomes affection, kindness, love for kin, distance from the distant, sometimes good and sometimes evil; when lost, it becomes deceit, craftiness, violence, insubordination, greed, drowning in craving and desire, losing the mind, and destroying nature. Nature acts as the true, the such, the utmost, the flawless, the pure, and the tranquil: approaching it, one becomes a worthy or an upright person; going far into it, one becomes a divine sage or a greatly great sage. The sage instructs people by taking nature as the teaching and not by emotions; this is its esoteric depth. The presence of emotions and nature in things is ever so, vivid and clear: seeking it, one cannot grasp it; severing it, it cannot be cut off. Heaven and earth have an end, but the numinous nature is never exhausted; the five destinies alternate and change, but the encumbrance of emotions is not released. Therefore, regarding what is called emotions and nature, all under heaven must not fail to discriminate. Instructing people by means of emotions—does that not remain within birth and death? Instructing people by means of nature—does that not step outside birth and death? Teaching through emotion is near; teaching through nature is far. To treat what lies outside birth and death as extravagant fabrication and deny it is to be blind to the heavenly principle and to sever the source of unceasing generation. Small knowledge cannot reach great knowledge; the midge confined within a jar—is it not just like this?