量處輕重儀 1.68

1.68

Now there are those who transgress the four prohibitions, which sūtras and Vinayas alike call 'decapitation'. Transgressors remain calm and fearless, acting as human teachers and masters of the Dharma. They do not believe that for a single transgression, one will be born for nine hundred and twenty-one billion, sixty thousand years with retribution in the Avīci hell. How much less would they consider this distribution of gold strange! Scholars of the teaching all unite in condemning it; how could one have expected that today this corrupt practice would be raised again? Gold is what the vulgar world prizes; upon hearing its name they rejoice, being of the ilk of Guan Ning. If even trivial, worldly commoners are still like this, how much more so those who renounce the world? Even if some do distribute it, being people who are eternally submerged in the Gaṅgā, they are not worth wondering at. But censuring afflicted people is not worth discussing; as for the precepts instituted throughout the Buddha's entire dispensation, they all cut off vulgarity before all else. There are only four precepts established with special weight against vulgarity: first, sexual misconduct; second, alcohol; third, treasure; fourth, wrong livelihood. Sexual misconduct is the root of birth and death; the three kinds of sages cut off its source. Alcohol is the medicine of drunken stupor; through it the four unpardonable sins can be fulfilled. Treasure is the condition for giving rise to greed; all afflictions multiply because of it. Wrong livelihood is the cause of harm to oneself; through it the bad destinies open wide. The Nirvāṇa-sūtra and various Vinayas reveal this in full; why not open and read the sacred scriptures instead of following compromised and abrogated teachings? Therefore the text states: 'That the sun and moon are not bright and pure is because they are obscured by smoke, clouds, dust, and fog; that my Dharma is not pure is because monks practice four things. If there are disciples who take me as their master yet practice the former four, I am not their master, and they are not my disciples, because they do not believe my Dharma and Vinaya.' What is said here is attested by explicit passages in the Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, and other extant Vinayas and treatises. How could one receive the precepts under this Vinaya yet adopt that school's distribution of gold? Abandoning the prohibition to adopt the dispensation, failing to recognize the applicability and limitation of the capacity and teaching, and colluding with greed and ignorance, one fails to view comprehensively the explicit prohibitions of the ultimate teaching—can one not be cautious and vigilant? In life, one is a confused follower stained with dust; in death, one must bear suffering oneself. Trusting a moment of intense desire to become an unwholesome fool for ten thousand kalpas—this is profoundly lamentable!