妙法蓮華經文句 8.82

8.82

Second, exhorting to uphold has prose and gāthās. The prose has five parts: 1. The Buddha looks with his eyes; 2. The bodhisattvas request instruction; 3. The Buddha remains silent; 4. The bodhisattvas know his intention; 5. Making vows to propagate the sūtra. As for looking with his eyes and silently exhorting without speaking: although he did not give a specific command above, he held up the profound and thick merits of upholding the sūtra and brought forth clear verification; Prabhūtaratna's emanations came from afar to exhort and inspire—the earnestness of this matter and principle was already sufficient. Those who wished to respond to the command should immediately make vows without troubling him to speak again; furthermore, to protect the śrāvakas' vow for other lands, he did not praise them. The verse has twenty stanzas requesting protection and upholding of the sūtra; we will not subdivide them further, for they can be understood by following the text. The first seventeen stanzas: donning the armor of patience to propagate the sūtra. The second, one stanza: entering the room to propagate the sūtra. The third, one stanza: sitting on the seat to propagate the sūtra. The fourth, one stanza: concluding generally and requesting empowerment. Fascicle 6 of the Madhyama Āgama says: "Araṇya is translated here as 'free of business'; dhūta is translated here as 'shaking off'." Fascicle 6 of the Ratnamegha-sūtra says: "A monk dwelling in an araṇya sees a king, a prince, a brāhmaṇa, or any person coming; the monk calls out, 'Welcome, you may take this seat.' If they sit together, good; if that person does not sit, the monk also does not sit, and should expound the Dharma for them to make them rejoice." After the Buddha's extinction, in the late evil age, monks who do not follow the rules may make a living by expounding the precepts, yet take no delight in practicing the precepts. Applying this across the fivefold Dharma-body, all other path dharmas are also like this: they are like a person with a diseased nose expounding on sandalwood—they themselves have no fragrance and do not smell it themselves; devas, humans, dragon gods, and kumbhāṇḍas will never make offerings to a precept-less person. The other four parts are also expounded like this: none can bring the wondrous Dharma, for it must arise from pure precepts; the other four are also like this. If one encounters a terminal, most severe illness, oppressed by intense pain without cure, one never abandons the mindfulness of the Buddha samādhi; though all kinds of bitter urgency seize one's mind, because that person understands this Dharma for themselves, they know all dharmas are empty. As for the "armor of patience", fascicle 5 of the Madhyama Āgama says: "The monk Black-Teeth complained to the Buddha, saying, 'Śāriputra reviled and spoke ill of me.' The Buddha quickly summoned Śāriputra: 'Did you truly revile and speak ill of him or not?' Śāriputra said: 'One whose mind is unsettled might speak ill and revile; my mind is already settled, how could I speak ill and revile? Like an ox with broken horns that does not gore people; like an impaired boy who feels ashamed and does not annoy others; my mind is like earth, water, fire, and wind, receiving pure and impure, feces, urine, mucus, and spittle without reviling; my mind is like a broom sweeping both clean and unclean; and like a broken vessel holding fat placed in the sun, constantly leaking drop by drop—observing my own nine apertures constantly leaking impurity, how could I revile and speak ill of another? And like a dead snake or dog tied to a pure boy's neck, being ashamed and self-reproachful, I do not revile or speak ill of others.' The Buddha asked: 'How do you view such evil people?' He answered: 'People are of five kinds: 1. Bodily good, but verbal and mental not good: I only contemplate their good and do not contemplate their ungood, like a monk in rag robes seeing a pile of dung with a tattered cloth, holding it with his left hand and spreading it with his right, cutting away and discarding the impure and taking the pure—contemplating using their bodily purity to regulate my body, and discarding their speech and thought to admonish my speech and thought. 2. Verbal action is pure, but bodily and mental are not pure: I also contemplate their speech and discard their body and mind, like a thirsty person encountering a grassy pond, parting the grass to scoop up water to cool the body and quench thirst. 3. Mental is pure, but bodily and verbal are not pure: I also contemplate their mind and do not use their body and speech, like a traveler thirsty on the road finding only a little water in a cow's footprint; if I scoop it with my hands the water will be muddied, so I should kneel on both knees, lean on both hands, and drink directly with my mouth to quench the heat and thirst. 4. All three karmas are impure: although there is nothing usable, I should deeply pity them, like seeing a sick person on the road and settling them comfortably, contemplating this impurity so they may meet a good spiritual friend to cure their three karmas and not fall into the three miserable destinies. 5. All three kinds are pure: I constantly contemplate this person to instruct and guide myself, with equal mindfulness and equal vows, like a cool pond with many flowers and grasses, where the hot and thirsty enter to rest and revive; I constantly contemplate the state to remove my evil.'" This is using suffering, impermanence, impurity, non-self, and emptiness as armor in the Tripiṭaka teaching. Fascicle 8 of the Vibhāṣā says: "Contemplate that 'scolding' is just one word, while the rest are calling sounds; what does a whole day of calling sounds do to me? Furthermore, here it is a base word, but in other lands it is a word of praise; if I dwell on this base word, nowhere will I find joy. Furthermore, observe this word 'scold': if one reverses this word, it becomes praise. Furthermore, scolding is a small part of one realm, a small part of one sense field, a small part of one aggregate; scolding is small, not scolding is much. Furthermore, who accomplished the scolding? The scolder accomplished it; the accomplishment belongs to them, what does it do to me? Furthermore, scolding is one syllable; one syllable does not make a scold, two syllables make a scold, yet there is no single moment when one pronounces two syllables: if one pronounces the latter syllable, the former syllable has already ceased. Furthermore, the one who can scold and the one who is scolded are of one moment, both ceasing in the same single kṣaṇa; what does it do to me?" In such ways, emptiness is used as armor. Fascicle 17 says: "Ordinary beings and sages both have the three feelings; what is the difference? For ordinary beings, regarding painful feeling there are two: 1. The body feels pain, 2. The mind feels sorrow and grief; like three poisoned arrows, losing joy brings anger, gaining joy brings delight, and neither-pain-nor-joy brings delusion. Sages only have bodily feeling and no mental feeling; they have no anger toward pain, no attachment toward joy, and no delusion toward neither-pain-nor-joy; the three defilements cannot drive them, and they attain liberation from the drives. Thus there is a difference between ordinary beings and sages." Having or not having such gradations: this uses the distinctive teaching as armor. In the present sūtra, clarifying the armor consists of using mindfulness of the Buddha as armor, which is mindfulness of the Dharma Buddha in the supreme sense, because the Buddha is precisely the Dharma. As the text says, mindfulness of the Buddha's decree is precisely the Dharma; the Buddha is precisely the Saṅgha, and the Saṅgha is the harmony of both phenomena and principle—Vairocana pervading all places. Such armor: one armor is all armor, which is the armor of the perfect teaching.