Answering a Guest on the South Veranda南軒答客
我昨於南軒。晏起日已暾。盥嗽執經卷。方向手中翻。客有枝木冠。謁我仍有言。以正不以雜。君子義所敦。而此浮屠法。奚爲於丘門。我言男兒者。各有懷抱存。士方顯仕時。經緯以人文。詩書與禮樂。輔相千載君。旣老退閑居。有或事琴樽。此輩吾敢望。無功補毫分。琴樽已非分。事佛有何痕。況復儒與釋。理極同一源。誰駁又誰純。咄哉渠所論。
Yesterday, on the South Veranda, I rose late, and the sun was already up. I washed my face, rinsed my mouth, took up a scripture, and was just then turning its leaves in my hands. There was a guest wearing the cap of a Confucian (儒者) who, having greeted me, promptly said: To go by what is upright and not by what is mixed — this is the duty a gentleman holds dear. Why, then, is this law of the Buddha to be found at the gate of Confucius? I said: as for men, each has his own cherished purpose. When a scholar is coming into prominence and holds office, he makes the writings of men his warp and weft, and with the Book of Songs and the Book of Documents, with rites and music, he assists a ruler such as comes once in a thousand years. Once he is old, retired, and living at leisure, he may now and then make the geomungo and the wine jar his business. How should I dare hope to be counted among such men? I have not added so much as a hair's worth of merit. The geomungo and wine are already beyond my portion — what fault can there be in my serving the Buddha? Still more, since Confucianism and Buddhism, carried to the end of their reasoning, are one source, who is the mixed one, and who the pure? Tut! Such is this man's argument.
Interlinear notes 1
千載君 — this is also read as 「a ruler whose name will last a thousand years」. — Translator