妙法蓮華經 6.7

6.7

other places—either dwelling in monasteries or tranquil places, cities, towns, villages, or forests—and teach what they have heard to their parents, relatives, good friends, and acquaintances according to the various capacities of these people. Having heard the teaching, they will rejoice and go on to teach it to others. These people having heard it will also joyfully teach it to others in turn, and so it continues in this way until it reaches the fiftieth person.

“O Ajita! I will now explain about the merit which this fiftieth son or daughter of a virtuous family acquires from joyful acceptance. You should listen attentively!

“Suppose that in the four hundreds of myriads of koṭis of incalculable worlds, there are sentient beings in the six transmigratory states and of the four modes of birth—born from an egg, born from the womb, from moisture, or born spontaneously—either with or without form, either with or without consciousness, either unconscious or not unconscious, having no legs, two, four, or many legs; and that, among the number of such beings, there is a person who seeks to acquire merit and gives pleasurable things to

these beings, according to their desire. He gives each of those sentient beings gold, silver, lapis lazuli, mother-of-pearl, agate, coral, amber, and other treasures such as would fill this continent of Jambudvīpa, as well as elephant carts, horse carts, and palaces and towers made out of the seven treasures. Having performed such acts of giving for a full eighty years, this great donor thinks:

I have already given these sentient beings such pleasurable things as

they wished. Yet now these sentient beings are old and feeble. They are

over eighty years old, with white hair and wrinkles, and they will die

before long. I should now instruct them by means of the Buddha-Dharma.

“He immediately gathers these sentient beings together, inspires them by proclaiming the Dharma, and gladdens them by revealing its benefits. In an instant they all successively attain the first stage of the śrāvakas called stream-winner (srota-āpanna), the second stage called once-returner (sakṛdāgāmin) the third stage called non-returner (anāgāmin), and finally the stage of the arhat, free from corruption, entering profound meditations, gaining complete mastery of all, and attaining the eight liberations.

“What do you think about this? Has this great donor acquired abundant merit or not?”

Maitreya addressed the Buddha, saying: “O Bhagavat! The donor’s merit is extremely great, immeasurable and limitless. Even if this donor had only given all those pleasurable things to sentient beings, the merit would have been immeasurable. How much greater is this donor’s merit after having caused them to attain arhatship!”

The Buddha addressed Maitreya, saying: “I will now clarify this for you. This person has given all these pleasurable things to the sentient beings in the six states of existence in four hundreds of myriads of koṭis of incalculable worlds, and enabled them to attain arhatship. The merit he has attained cannot be compared with that of even the fiftieth person who, after hearing even a single verse of the Lotus Sutra, received it with joy. It would be even less than a hundredth, a thousandth, a hundred thousandth of a myriad of a koṭi of that person’s merit.

“O Ajita! In this way the merit attained by even the fiftieth person who rejoiced in hearing this Lotus Sutra is immeasurable, limitless, and incalcu-