Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 39
Continuing the Third Collection (三筆). A rigorous, almost legalistic argument that donated funds must be used strictly for their stated purpose — food for feeding monks cannot be diverted to build a hall, funds for a Buddha statue cannot be spent on the surrounding temple, and money meant to free captive animals cannot be spent on a fishpond instead — grounded in a specific ghost story Zhuhong treats as documented fact.
116. 齋僧錢作僧堂 — Using Funds Donated to Feed Monks in Order to Build a Monastic Hall Instead
A rigorous, almost legalistic argument that donated funds must be used strictly for their stated purpose — food for feeding monks cannot be diverted to build a hall, funds for a Buddha statue cannot be spent on the surrounding temple, and money meant to ransom captive animals cannot be spent on a fishpond instead — grounded in a specific account Zhuhong treats as documented fact.
或曰：「僧糧，僧所食也；僧堂，僧所居也。居食二者，皆僧受用，奈何以齋僧錢作僧堂，而受火枷之報也？」此義有二：一者米粟蔬菜，人以濟饑；樑棟牆壁，能濟饑否？則物類不相應也。二者施主作齋，汝今作屋，磚錢買瓦，違信施心，則因果不相應也。或曰：「別化錢齋僧，可準過否？」彼人齋僧，自彼人福，與前人何涉？「然則如之何而後可？」曰：折僧堂，如數齋僧，而火枷滅，有明徵矣。又問：「造佛錢作佛殿，總之供佛也，可乎？」曰：不可。畫棟雕樑，還當得如來相好光明否？「造經錢作經廚，總之供經也，可乎？」曰：不可。錦囊寶匱，還當得如來金口玉音否？「如是乃至放生錢買池塘，總之濟物利生也，可乎？」曰：不可。空陂野澤，千頃汪洋，還當得彼時失救，垂臨鼎鑊，將被刀砧百千萬億生靈否？況那移變換，舛錯因果乎！又有說焉：「造佛餘錢，可用作佛前供器否？」則律有開許之文。餘諸福事無文，慎之慎之！毋恣己見而反招業報也。
Someone said: "Food for the monastic community is meant to feed monks; a monastic hall is meant to house monks. Both housing and food alike are things monks make use of — why, then, should using funds donated to feed monks in order to build a monastic hall instead bring down the punishment of the fire-cangue?" This raises two distinct points. First: rice, grain, and vegetables are things by which people relieve hunger — can beams, ridgepoles, and walls relieve hunger in the same way? The two things simply do not correspond to one another in kind. Second: the donor's original intention was to provide a meal; if you instead use the funds to build a structure, this is exactly like using money meant for buying bricks to buy roof tiles instead — it violates the donor's own original intention, and so the cause and its effect no longer correspond to one another.
Someone asked: "If one separately raises new funds to feed the monks afterward, can this make up for the earlier violation?" But whoever provides that later meal earns the merit for himself — what does that have to do with the person who committed the earlier offense? "Then what, in the end, should be done to set things right?" I answered: tear down the monastic hall, and use its equivalent value to provide the promised meal for the monks in full — and the punishment of the fire-cangue will indeed be lifted. This is something for which there exists clear, documented proof.
Someone asked further: "If funds meant for making a Buddha image are instead used to build the surrounding temple hall, since both are ultimately offerings to the Buddha, is this acceptable?" I answered: it is not. However finely painted and carved its beams and rafters may be, could a temple hall ever truly stand in for the Tathāgata's own resplendent, radiant form? "If funds meant for printing sutras are instead used to build a cabinet to store them, since both are ultimately offerings to the sutras themselves, is this acceptable?" I answered: it is not. However fine a brocade bag or jeweled chest may be, could it ever truly stand in for the Tathāgata's own golden voice and jade-like words?
"And what, then, of using funds donated to free captive animals in order to buy a pond instead, since both are ultimately acts of benefiting living beings — is this acceptable?" I answered: it is not. However vast an empty marsh or open lake may be, stretching a thousand acres wide, could it ever truly stand in for the hundred thousand million living beings who, at that very moment, are about to lose their chance of rescue, already facing the cooking pot, about to fall beneath the knife and cutting board? How much more true this is when one considers that such diversion and substitution is itself, at its core, a violation of the very relationship between cause and effect!
Someone raised one further question: "May funds left over from making a Buddha image be used to make offering vessels to place before the Buddha instead?" To this, the monastic code itself does contain an explicit provision granting permission. But for every other kind of meritorious project, where no such explicit provision exists, one must be exceedingly careful — again and again, be exceedingly careful! Never indulge your own private opinion on such matters, lest you bring karmic retribution down upon yourself instead.
Zhuhong's assertion that misusing funds meant for feeding monks brings a specific "fire-cangue" retribution is grounded in an account he himself recorded elsewhere, in his own commentary on the Brahma Net Sutra precepts, describing a monastic administrator who appeared after death wearing a burning wooden collar as punishment for exactly this offense, relieved only once the misappropriated funds were properly restored — treating this not as folklore but as documented precedent, in the same spirit as the firsthand "witnessed, not rumored" cases of retribution recorded earlier in this collection's entry 105; the specific carve-out permitting leftover Buddha-image funds to be used for altar vessels, which Zhuhong notes is explicitly sanctioned "in the monastic code," reflects a genuine ruling recorded in his own Brahma Net Sutra commentary, making this entry a distilled restatement, in casual essay form, of a more technical precept discussion found in his formal scholarly writing.