法苑珠林 12.93

12.93

後漢郊祀志曰。佛者漢言覺也。將以覺悟群生也。統其教以修善心為主。不殺生類專務清淨。其精進者為沙門。漢言息惡。𩮜髮毀容。去家出俗。絕情洗欲。而歸於無為也。又以人死精神不滅隨後受形。而行善惡。後生皆有報應。所貴行善修道以鍊其神。鍊而不已。以至無生而得佛也。身長丈六黃金色。項佩日月光。變化無常。無所不入。故能通萬物。而大濟群生。有經書數千卷。以虛無為宗。包羅精麁無所不統。善為宏闊勝大之言。可求在於一體之內。所明在於視聽之表。歸於玄微深遠難測。故王公大人。觀生死報應之際。莫不懅然自失也。餘如漢法本內傳記。

The "Treatise on Suburban Sacrifices" of the Later Han says: "Fo" (Buddha) in the Han language means "Awakened," meaning one who awakens all living beings. The governing principle of his teaching takes the cultivation of a good mind as paramount; it does not kill living beings and devotes itself purely to purity. Those who are energetic become śramaṇas—in the Han language, "halting evil." They shave their hair and alter their appearance, leaving their families and departing the secular world, severing attachments and cleansing desires to return to non-action. Furthermore, they believe that when a person dies, the spirit is not extinguished but subsequently receives a physical form; depending on their practice of good and evil, subsequent births all receive retribution. What they value is practicing goodness and cultivating the Way to refine the spirit; refining it unceasingly, one reaches non-birth and attains Buddhahood. His body is sixteen feet tall and of golden color; around his neck he wears the radiance of the sun and moon. His transformations are without constant form, penetrating everywhere; hence he can pervade myriad things and universally rescue living beings. There are several thousand fascicles of his scriptures and books, taking voidness as their core principle, encompassing the fine and the coarse with nothing left uncontained. He is skilled in vast, expansive, and supreme words; what can be sought lies within a single body, and what is illuminated lies beyond seeing and hearing, returning to the mysterious, subtle, profound, and difficult to fathom. Therefore, when princes, dukes, and great men observe the juncture of life, death, and retribution, none fail to be apprehensive and lose their composure. The rest is as recorded in the Han *Bennei zhuan*.