A certain pedant gathered a group of young novice monks to lecture on the Zhuangzi (a book of collected works by Zhuangzhou/Chuangtzu), and shamelessly he declared: “The wisdom of Zhuangzi is even more profound than that of the Surangama Sutra.” At the time, neither the young monks nor the lay Buddhists in the audience refuted him.
While Zhuangzi indeed is outstanding among worldly books, to claim that it surpasses the Surangama Sutra, however, that’s utterly ludicrous! The pedant was merely a boorish village schoolmaster, dull-witted and ill-informed; it’s not worth making a fuss over him. My only concern is that he might mislead the young novices.
Yet, those novices with any keenness of mind would eventually realize the truth by themselves – it only requires some basic common sense after all. If you try to deceive a child by saying that alloy is more valuable than gold – surely he will spit in your face once he grows up!
by Grand Master Lian Chi (蓮池大師), the Eighth Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism
莊子 (一) – 錄自明末蓮池大師《竹窗隨筆》(初筆)
有俗士，聚諸年少沙彌講莊子，大言曰:「南華義勝首楞嚴。」一時緇流及居士輩無斥其非者。夫南華於世書誠為高妙，而謂勝楞嚴，何可笑之甚也! 士固村學究，其品猥細不足較，其言亦無旨趣，不足辨，獨恐誤諸沙彌耳! 然諸沙彌稍明敏者，久當自知; 如言鍮勝黃金以誑小兒，小兒既長，必唾其面矣!
Buddha Mind 