辯偽錄 2.16

2.16

The refutation states: When roots are deep, the fruit is abundant; when the source is far, the stream runs long. When the tiger roars, the wind arises; when the dragon chants, the mists gather. The auspicious appearance of a sage always has a deep source: planting good causes in the past, one now receives the marvelous fruit. Our Buddha, the Bhagavān, accumulated practices and piled up merit over three incalculable eons; practicing the six perfections without relinquishing, he sought bodhi. He gave up body and life as many times as the sands of the Ganges, and abandoned realms and cities as numerous as fine dust motes, adorning realms and guiding sentient beings. Only then did he receive the prediction of Dīpaṅkara and succeed to the position of Kāśyapa. He descended to be born in Central India, taking birth through transformation in the royal palace. Walking seven paces in all directions, he pointed to heaven and earth as uniquely noble; his thirty-two marks rivaled the sun and moon in brilliance. The Four Heavenly Kings held his feet as he left the worldly dust; with six years of practice fulfilled, he achieved the Way. He manifested bodies in hundreds of millions of lands and expounded the Dharma for forty-nine years, spreading sound teachings among gods and humans and crushing non-Buddhists beneath the Twin Trees. When his conversion tasks were completed, he returned to non-action (asamskṛta). He manifested thus in response to beings and fitting to the time. Why would he need Laozi to first transform Yin Xi to change his body, concealing another's divine merit and arrogating it as his own triumph? The Buddha was born in the era of King Zhao of Zhou; Lao[zi] descended in the reign of King Ding. They were separated by seventeen emperors and a span of more than three hundred years! His conversion had already filled the world; his teachings had already filled the dragon palaces; every household revered his compassionate ways, and every state observed the Śākya model. Why would he rely on Li Er to reorganize it or Fantuo to appear again, dragging the prior into the posterior to flatter and deceive the foolish and ignorant? When [Laozi] crossed the pass in former days, he hired Xu Jia as his servant—how could there be heavenly beings as an escort? He rode a rough deer cart—where was there a seven-jeweled throne? With a broad forehead and drooping ears, how could he have a body of myriad zhang? Deceitful and absurd, he cheated the worthy and slandered the sages. That the kun transforms into a peng is due to its own change; that a snake molts into a pheasant does not borrow the merit of another. These are all the spontaneous workings of nature: when yin and yang stimulate and respond, they emerge when the time comes, not caused by another. Laozi was originally an ordinary mortal; being a minister and a subject, how could he give birth to another divine sage, let alone make Yin Xi become a buddha? Blinding their own minds and gouging out the eyes of others, rebelling against propriety and slighting the sages, the retribution of disaster is the pulling out of their tongues! The immortal Shanhui (Sumedha) was about to ascend to the eighth stage when he met Dīpaṅkara Buddha and received the prediction of non-arising. This was an epithet of the Bhagavān in a past life! Since he had become a buddha, his merit achieved and his fruit perfected, his conversion tasks completed, he entered nirvāṇa, shifting his spirit to the realm of eternal bliss, permanently entering the sphere of non-action. How could he, after completing the buddha's tasks, become the immortal Shanhui again? Placing the later before the earlier—how utterly confused! Falsely stealing what is not genuine corrupts the eyes and ears of men. Now, heavenly and human realms, although pleasant, are ultimately cyclic existence; one cannot escape the catastrophe of the three disasters, nor flee the suffering of the five decays. Sages transcend birth and death, forgetting both suffering and pleasure; soaring high above the ford of the three realms, walking alone beyond the six dusts, why would he return to heaven and enter back into clamorous dust? Staining our sage and slighting our Great Awakened One! This is identical to abandoning the dignity of the Son of Heaven to yearn for the base labor of grooms and cooks, or leaving the vast halls of a magnificent mansion to delight in the thatched eaves of a humble hut. You rejoice in the glory of the Jiayi Heaven; I am ashamed of the humiliation of dung and dirt. When Yang Su, the Duke of Chu and high minister of Sui, was passing through Louguan, he saw the portraits on the wall and asked the Daoists, 'What picture is this?' The Daoists replied, 'It is the picture of Laozi Converting the Barbarians and Becoming a Buddha.' Su said, 'I have heard that when Laozi converted the barbarians, the barbarians would not accept it; only when Laozi transformed his body into a buddha did the barbarians accept it. Thus the Buddha can convert the barbarians, but the Dao cannot. Why say Laozi converts the barbarians?' The Daoists could make no reply. Excellent were Yang Su's words! This is the discourse of an understanding person. If the barbarians did not already know that there was a buddha, how would they be willing to accept the conversion of a buddha? Examining it by this, India already had the Buddha beforehand. Yet to say that Yin Xi became a buddha and only then did Laozi transform—how deeply do you deceive our tradition! (Louguan is the former residence of Yin Xi, south of the pass, where Daoists still reside today.)