འཕགས་པ་མ་ཏག་བརྩགས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་གཟངས 2

2

A thus-gone one ¹⁰ is of immeasurable morality, immeasurable contemplation, immeasurable wisdom, immeasurable liberation, and immeasurable knowledge and vision of liberation. Thus, Siṃhavikrīḍita, since a thus-gone, worthy, fully awakened, perfect buddha is endowed with immeasurable heaps of virtue, it follows that the fruition of performing worship to him is also immeasurable.

“It is like this, Siṃhavikrīḍita. Those who perform the worship of a thus-gone one, whether present or departed into complete nirvāṇa, will attain complete nirvāṇa through one of the three vehicles—the vehicle of śrāvakas, the vehicle of pratyekabuddhas, or the great vehicle.¹¹ Moreover, Siṃhavikrīḍita, the fruition of merit is the same for a person whose mind becomes cleansed upon beholding the thus-gone, worthy, fully awakened, perfect buddha, and then with a cleansed mind¹² honors, reveres, worships, and venerates him with profits, clothing, alms, bedding, medicinal herbs, implements, and various kinds of comforts, as for a person who worships a caitya containing a relic even as small as a mustard seed from a thus-gone one who has departed into complete nirvāṇa. There is no difference, no distinction whatsoever between them.¹³

“Suppose, Siṃhavikrīḍita, that a householder bodhisattva were to donate a heap of precious materials as tall as Mount Meru to śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, or thus-gone, worthy, fully awakened, perfect Buddhas, and suppose a bodhisattva who has gone forth were to donate a single coin¹⁴ and then generate the aspiration for unsurpassed perfect awakening. The former roots of merit would not amount to even a hundredth of the latter—not a thousandth,