出三藏記集 5.21

5.21

夫應而不寂感之者至。感有精麁應亦不一。影響理也。若以方斯之非徒乖其圓。乃亦喪其方。故以備聞之悟喻其所疑。疑非膏肓麁必為治。若治所不至。喻復其如之何。並可詳覽往喻。昔漢室中興。孝明之世。無盡之照。始得揮光此壤。於二五之照。當是像法之初。自爾已來。西域名人安侯之徒。相繼而至。大化文言漸得淵照。邊俗陶其鄙倍。漢末魏初。廣陵彭城二相出家。並能任持大照。尋味之賢始有講次。而恢之以裕義。迂之以配說。下至法祖孟詳法行康會之徒。撰集諸經宣暢幽旨。粗得充允祖聽暨今。附文求旨。義不遠宗。言不乖實。起之於亡師。及至符并龜茲三王來朝。持法之宗亦並與經俱集。究摩羅法師至自龜茲。持律三藏集自罽賓。禪師徒眾尋亦並集。關中洋洋十數年中。當是大法後興之盛也。叡才常人鄙而得廁。對宗匠陶譯玄典。法言無日不聞。聞之無要不記故敢依准所聞。寄之紙墨以宣所懷。什公云。大教興世五十餘年。言無不實。實無不益。益而為言無非教也。實而為稱無非寶也。寶以如意為喻。教以正失為體。若能體其隨宜之旨。則言無不深。若守其一照。則惑無不至。今此世界以雜為名。則知本自離薄。本自離薄則易為風波。風波易以動。不淳易為離。易動易離。故大聖隨宜而進。進之不以一途。三乘離化由之而起。三藏祛其染滯。般若除其虛妄。法華開一究竟。泥洹闡其實化。此三津開照。照無遺矣。但優劣存乎人。深淺在其悟。任分而行。無所臧否。前五百年也。此五百年中。得道者多。不得者少。以多言之。故曰正法。後五百年。唯相是非執競盈路。得道者少。不得者多。亦以多目之。名為像法。像而非真。失之由人。由人之失。乃有非跋真言斧戟實化。無擇起於胸中不救出自脣吻。三十六國小乘人也。此釁流於秦地。慧導之徒遂復不信大品。既蒙什公入關開託真照。般若之明復得揮光。末俗朗茲實化尋出法華開方便門。令一實究竟廣其津途。欣樂之家景仰沐浴。真復不知老之將至。而曇樂道人。以偏執之。見而復非之。自畢幽途永不可誨。今大般泥洹經。法顯道人。遠尋真本。於天竺得之。持至揚都。大集京師義學之僧百有餘人。師執本。參而譯之詳而出之。此經云。泥洹不滅佛有真我。一切眾生皆有佛性。皆有佛性學得成佛。佛有真我故聖鏡特宗而為眾聖中王。泥洹永存。為應照之本。大化不泯真本存焉。而復致疑。安於漸照而排跋真誨任其偏執而自幽不救。其可如乎。此正是法華開佛知見。開佛知見今始可悟。金以瑩明顯發可知。而復非之。大化之由而有此心。經言闡提。真不虛也。此大法三門皆有成證。昔朱士行既襲真式。以大法為己任。於雒中講中小品。亦往往不通。乃出流沙尋求大品。既至于填果得真本。即遣弟子十人。送至雒陽。出為晉音。未發之間。彼土小乘學者。乃以聞王。云漢地沙門乃以婆羅門書或亂真言。王為地主若不折之。斷絕大法聾盲漢地。王之咎也。王即不聽。時朱士行乃求燒經為證。王亦從其所求積薪十車於殿階下。以火焚之。士行臨階而發誠誓。若漢地大化應流布者。經當不燒。若其不應命也如何。言已投之。火即為滅。不損一字。遂得有此法華正本。於于填大國輝光重壤踊出空中而得流此。此大般泥洹經既出之後。而有嫌其文不便者。而更便改之人情小惑。有慧祐道人。私以正本雇人寫之客書之。家忽然火起。三十餘家一時蕩然。寫經人於灰火之中求銅鐵器物。忽見所寫經本在火不燒。及其所寫一紙陌外亦燒。字亦無損餘諸巾紙寫經竹筒。皆為灰燼。此三經者。如什公所言。是大化三門無極真體。皆有神驗。無所疑也。什公時雖未有大般泥洹文。已有法身經明佛法身。即是泥洹。與今所出若合符契。此公若得聞此佛有真我一切眾生皆有佛性。便當應如白日朗其胸衿。甘露潤其四體。無所疑也。何以知之。每至苦問佛之真主亦復虛妄。積功累德誰為不惑之本。或時有言。佛若虛妄誰為真者。若是虛妄積功累德誰為其主。如其所探。今言佛有真業眾生有真性。雖未見其經。證明評量意。便為不乖。而亦曾問此土先有經言一切眾生皆當作佛。此云何。答言法華開佛知見。亦可皆有為佛性。若有佛性。復何為不得皆作佛耶。但此法華所明。明其唯有佛乘無二無三不明一切眾生皆當作佛。皆當作佛我未見之亦不抑言無也。若得聞此正言。真是會其心府。故知聞之必深信受。同吾之肆學正法者。小可虛其衿帶更聽往喻。如三十六國著小乘者。亦復自以為日月之明。無以進於己也。而大心寥朗。乃能鄙其狂而偏執。自貽重罪。慧道之非大品而尊重三藏。亦不自以為照。不周也。曇樂之非法華憑陵其氣。自以為是天下悠悠。唯己一人言其意亦無所與讓。今疑大般泥洹者。遠而求之。正當以一切眾生皆有佛性為不通真照。真照自可照其虛妄。真復何須其照一切眾生。既有偽矣。別有真性為不變之本。所以陶練既精真性乃發。恒以大慧之明除其虛妄。虛妄既盡法身獨存。為應化之本。應其所化能成之緣。一人不度吾終不捨。此義如驗。復何為疑耶。若於真性法身而復致疑者。恐此邪心無處不惑。佛之真我尚復生疑。亦可不信佛有正覺之照而為一切種智也。般若之明自是照虛妄之神器。復何與佛之真我法身常存。一切皆有佛之真性。真性存焉。學不越崖成不乖本乎。而欲以真照無虛言。言而亦無。佛我亦無。泥洹是邪見。但知執此照惑之明。不知無惑之性非其照也。為欲以此誣誷天下。天下之人何可誣也。所以遂不開默而驟明。明此照者。是惜一肆之上而有鑠金之說。一市之中而言有虎者三。易惑之徒則將為之所染。皆為不殺之物。亦得已而言之。豈其好明人罪耶。實是蝮蛇螫手。不得不斬。幸有深識者。體其不默之旨。未深入者尋而悟之。以求自清之路。如其已不可喻。吾復其如之何。

Now, responding without quiescence comes when those who stimulate reach out. Stimuli have the fine and the coarse, and responses likewise are not one: this is the principle of shadow and echo. If one uses this to square off against that, not only will one diverge from its roundness, one will also lose its squareness. Therefore, drawing upon the awakening of full learning, I illustrate that which is doubted. Where doubt is not deep in the vitals, the coarse must surely be treated. If treatment does not reach it, how then could an illustration avail? One may examine previous illustrations in full. In the past, during the restoration of the Han dynasty in the reign of Xiaoming, the light of endless illumination first began to shine upon this land. In terms of the illumination of two [periods of] five [hundred years], that must have been the beginning of the semblance Dharma. From then on, renowned persons of the Western Regions, the like of Marquis An, arrived in succession. The written words of the Great Transformation gradually attained profound illumination, and the frontier vulgarity had its coarseness and perversity refined away. At the end of the Han and the beginning of the Wei, the two chancellors of Guangling and Pengcheng left household life, and both were able to uphold the great illumination. Sages who sought its flavour began to arrange lectures, broadening them with generous interpretations and expanding them with matching expositions. Down to the likes of Fazu, Mengxiang, Faxing, and Kang Senghui, they compiled various sūtras to promulgate the profound purports, roughly managing to satisfy earlier listeners up to the present. Adhering to the texts to seek the purport, their meanings did not stray far from the ancestral source, and their words did not contradict reality—this began with my late master. And when it came to Fu [Jian] annexing Kucha and the three kings coming to court, the masters who upheld the Dharma also assembled together with the sūtras. Dharma Master Kumārajīva arrived from Kucha; tripiṭaka masters who upheld the vinaya gathered from Kapiśa; and dhyāna masters and their followings soon also assembled together. For more than ten years, the Guanzhong region was flourishing; this must have been the height of the Great Dharma's latter revival. I, Sengrui, have ordinary and base talents, yet was fortunate to take part. Facing the master craftsmen, refining and translating the esoteric scriptures, not a day passed without hearing the words of the Dharma; of what I heard, there was no essential point I failed to record. Therefore, I dare to rely upon what I heard and commit it to paper and ink to proclaim what I cherish. Master Kumārajīva said: 'The Great Teaching has flourished in the world for more than fifty years; no word of it is untrue, and in truth nothing fails to benefit. Uttered for benefit, nothing is not teaching; declared as truth, nothing is not a jewel. The jewel is illustrated by the wish-fulfilling [gem]; the teaching takes rectifying faults as its substance. If one can embody its purport of adapting to what is appropriate, then no word is not profound; but if one clings to one single illumination, then no delusion will fail to arise. Now this world is named "turbid" (saṃkirṇa), so one knows that it was originally detached and thin. Being originally detached and thin, it easily produces winds and waves. Winds and waves are easily stirred; what is unrefined is easily dissipated. Being easily stirred and easily dissipated, the Great Sage therefore advanced by adapting to what was appropriate. He did not advance by a single path, and the diversified transformation of the three vehicles arose from this. The Tripiṭaka dispels its defilements and stagnations; the Prajñā removes its illusions and falsehoods; the Lotus opens the single ultimate; and the Nirvāṇa expounds its real transformation. These three fords open illumination, and illumination leaves nothing out.' Yet excellence and inferiority lie in the person; depth and shallowness reside in one's awakening. One practices according to one's measure, without praise or blame. In the first five hundred years, during those five hundred years, many attained the Way and few did not; speaking in terms of the majority, it was called the true Dharma. In the latter five hundred years, there was only mutual censure and disputation filling the paths; few attained the Way and many did not; likewise, characterizing it by the majority, it is named the semblance Dharma. It resembles it yet is not true; the failure arises from human beings. Arising from human failure, there were even those who overturned true words, brandished axes and halberds against the real transformation, with indiscriminate [judgments] arising in their chests and irremediable [words] coming from their lips—these were the Hīnayāna people of the thirty-six kingdoms. This trouble spread to the land of Qin, and the followers of Huiduo then further disbelieved the Larger Chapter [of the Prajñāpāramitā]. After receiving Master Kumārajīva's entry through the pass to open and entrust the true illumination, the light of prajñā was able to shine once again. When the latter-day vulgarity was enlightened by this real transformation, the Lotus was subsequently produced to open the gate of expedient means, expanding its fords and paths so that the single reality became ultimate. Families who rejoiced looked up to it and bathed in it, truly unaware that old age was about to arrive. Yet the monk Tanle, clinging to a biased view, saw it and condemned it, cutting himself off in dark paths, forever unteachable. Now as for the Great Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the monk Faxian sought the authentic text afar and obtained it in India; bringing it to the capital at Yangdu, he held a great gathering of more than a hundred monks learned in doctrine from the capital. The master held the text, collated and translated it, and produced it in full detail. This sūtra says: 'Nirvāṇa is imperishable, the Buddha has a true self, all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, and having Buddha-nature, through learning they can become Buddhas. Because the Buddha has a true self, the mirror of the sage is particularly revered and he is the king among all sages. Nirvāṇa endures forever, serving as the basis of responsive illumination. The Great Transformation does not perish, and the authentic foundation is preserved therein.' Yet people again give rise to doubts, content with gradual illumination while rejecting true instruction, indulging their biased attachments and abandoning themselves to darkness beyond rescue. How can this be right? This is precisely the Lotus opening the Buddha's knowledge and vision. The opening of the Buddha's knowledge and vision can now for the first time be understood; like gold polished to brightness, its manifest appearance can be recognized. Yet they condemn it again! To have such a mind from the source of the Great Transformation—the sūtra's words about the icchantika are truly not in vain! These three gates of the Great Dharma all have confirmed proofs. Formerly, Zhu Shixing inherited the true models and took the Great Dharma as his own task. When lecturing on the Middle and Smaller Chapters [of the Prajñāpāramitā] in Luoyang, there were often places he could not comprehend; he therefore went out beyond the shifting sands to seek the Larger Chapter. Arriving in Khotan, he indeed obtained the authentic text, and immediately dispatched ten disciples to deliver it to Luoyang to be translated into the language of Jin. Before they departed, the Hīnayāna scholars of that land reported it to the king, saying: 'The śramaṇa of the land of Han intends to confuse and disrupt the true words with Brahmanical books. As ruler of the land, if Your Majesty does not stop him, you will cut off the Great Dharma and blind and deafen the land of Han—this will be Your Majesty's fault!' The king therefore would not permit it. Thereupon Zhu Shixing requested that the scripture be burned as proof. The king also complied with his request, stacking ten cartloads of firewood below the palace steps and setting it ablaze. Standing before the steps, Shixing made a sincere vow: 'If the Great Transformation is meant to spread in the land of Han, the scripture must not burn. If it is not meant to be, what can be done about fate?' Having spoken, he threw it in; the fire was immediately extinguished, without damaging a single character. Thus they were able to have this authentic text of the Lotus! In the great country of Khotan, its glory shone upon the double soil and leapt into the air, and thus it was able to circulate here. After this Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra was produced, there were those who disliked its phrasing as awkward and altered it to make it more convenient, following the petty delusions of human sentiments. There was a monk named Huiyou who privately hired someone to copy the authentic text. At the copyist's home, a fire suddenly broke out, and more than thirty houses were wiped out at once. Searching for bronze and iron utensils amid the ashes and flames, the copyist suddenly saw that the copied text remained in the fire unburned; while the outer margins of the paper he had written on were burned, the characters were not harmed at all, whereas all the other cloths, papers, and bamboo tubes for copying scriptures had been turned to ash. As Master Kumārajīva said, these three scriptures are the three gates of the Great Transformation and the limitless true body; all have spiritual confirmations, leaving no room for doubt. Although in Master Kumārajīva's time the text of the Mahāparinirvāṇa had not yet arrived, there was already the Dharmakāya Sūtra explaining that the Buddha's dharmakāya is precisely nirvāṇa, matching the present translation as if fitting two halves of a tally. If this master had been able to hear that the Buddha has a true self and that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, it would surely have been like the bright sun clearing his breast and sweet dew moistening his four limbs, without any doubt. How is this known? Whenever he was earnestly asked whether the true lord of the Buddha is also false and unreal, and who is the foundation of freedom from delusion after accumulating merits and virtues, he would sometimes say: 'If the Buddha is false and unreal, who is real? If it is false and unreal, after accumulating merits and virtues, who is their master?' According to what he explored, now to say that the Buddha has true karma and sentient beings have a true nature—even though he had not seen this scripture, when verifying and evaluating the intent, it does not diverge. Moreover, he was once asked: 'In this land there were previously sūtras saying that all sentient beings shall become Buddhas. What about this?' He replied: 'The Lotus opens the Buddha's knowledge and vision; this may also mean that all possess the nature to become Buddhas. If they have the Buddha-nature, why should they not all become Buddhas? However, what this Lotus explains is to explain that there is only the Buddha-vehicle, without a second or a third; it does not explain that all sentient beings shall become Buddhas. As for "all shall become Buddhas," I have not seen it, nor do I insistently deny it.' If he had been able to hear these true words, they would truly have accorded with his innermost mind. Therefore we know that if he heard them, he would have deeply believed and accepted them. Those who study the true Dharma in our company might lightly open their robes and listen again to past illustrations. Just like those attached to the Hīnayāna in the thirty-six kingdoms, who also thought of themselves as having the brilliance of the sun and the moon, with none surpassing them—yet those whose great minds were vast and bright were able to disesteem their madness and biased attachment, which brought upon themselves heavy guilt. Huidao's rejecting the Larger Chapter while revering the Tripiṭaka was likewise not done because he considered his illumination incomplete. Tanle's rejecting the Lotus, relying on his overbearing spirit, considering himself right and the rest of the world drifting in folly, thinking only he alone was correct, in his mind also conceded nothing to anyone. Now those who doubt the Mahāparinirvāṇa, seeking it from afar, must surely take 'all sentient beings have Buddha-nature' as failing to penetrate true illumination. True illumination can naturally illuminate what is false and unreal; why would the real again require it to illuminate all sentient beings? Since there is falsehood, there is separately a true nature as the unchangeable foundation; therefore, only when cultivation and refinement are thorough does the true nature manifest. One constantly uses the light of great wisdom to eliminate falsehood; when falsehood is exhausted, the dharmakāya alone remains, serving as the basis of responsive transformation. Responding to the conditions that can be brought to completion in those to be transformed, 'if one person is not delivered, I will never abandon them.' Since this doctrine has such confirmation, why should there be any doubt? If one further harbors doubts regarding the true nature and dharmakāya, I fear that this perverse mind will be deluded in every respect. If one even gives rise to doubt concerning the Buddha's true self, one might as well disbelieve that the Buddha has the illumination of correct awakening and possesses the knowledge of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). The brilliance of prajñā is naturally a divine vessel for illuminating what is false and unreal; what does it have to do with [denying] the Buddha's true self, the eternal existence of the dharmakāya, and all beings possessing the true Buddha-nature? With the true nature present, does not learning avoid overstepping its bounds, and does not completion avoid departing from the foundation? Yet some wish to claim that true illumination has no unreal words, that words are also non-existent, that the Buddha's self is also non-existent, and that nirvāṇa is a heterodox view! They only know how to cling to this light that illuminates delusion, not knowing that the nature free from delusion is not that illumination. They wish to use this to deceive the world, but how can the people of the world be deceived? The reason I have broken silence and repeatedly elucidated this illumination is out of regret that in a single marketplace there should be talk that melts metal, or that in a single market three men should report a tiger: easily deluded followers will then be tainted by it, and all become beings who do not refrain from killing. It was only because I could not bear it that I spoke out; how could I take pleasure in pointing out other people's faults? It is truly like a viper biting the hand: one cannot but cut it off. Fortunately, those of deep discernment will embody the intent behind my not keeping silent; those who have not entered deeply may pursue it and awaken, thereby seeking the path to self-purification. If they are already beyond illustration, what more can I do?