大乘入道次第 1.18

1.18

Seventh, in comparing superior and inferior, a verse in the Mahāsaṃnipāta-sūtra states: "If someone can generate the bodhimind, / He can thereby surpass all vehicles, / Can purify the minds of all sentient beings, / And can also expound the unexcelled path." It also says: "If sentient beings as numerous as the sands of the Ganges all abode in the Śrāvaka or Pratyekabuddha Vehicle, and one wished to compare them to the karma of a bodhisattva's initial generation of the mind, it could not be illustrated even by a hundredth or a thousandth part. Why is this? People of the two vehicles contemplate afflictions for the sake of their own liberation. A bodhisattva is not like that; he constantly contemplates afflictions for the sake of causing sentient beings to attain liberation." Another verse states: "Though one were to fill worlds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges / With wondrous jewels and give them in donation, / Although there would be such immeasurable merit, / It is not as good as generating bodhi out of compassion. / Though one were to make offerings of pure and wondrous flowers and incense / To Buddhas as numerous as the sands of immeasurable kotis of Ganges rivers, / Such merit would still not equal / Taking seven strides with the generation of the bodhimind."