慈悲道場懺法 4.16

4.16

Today, assembly sharing this karmic endeavor in the bodhimaṇḍa! Although the ten thousand dharmas differ in rank and their functions are not identical, when it comes to the contrast between light and dark, there are only good and evil. Speaking of good, there are the supreme fruits of humans and devas; recounting evil, there are the severe retributions of the three wretched paths. These two matters are laid out in the world, distinct, evident, and not false. Yet those who are foolish and deluded mostly give rise to doubts and dissent, sometimes claiming that humans and devas are arbitrary fabrications and that hells are not true teachings, failing to infer the cause to verify the fruit, or failing to examine the fruit to trace the cause. Having failed to distinguish cause and effect, each clings to worldly understanding; not only do they discourse on emptiness and expound on existence, but they even compose chapters and write treatises, their minds straying from supreme goodness while never admitting error, and even if instructed and admonished, their clinging becomes ever more stubborn. Such persons throw themselves into the evil destinies; as quickly as an arrow shot, they fall into hell, where compassionate parents and filial children cannot save one another. They can only advance into the fiery cauldrons, where body and mind are crushed and their spirits suffer agonizing torment. At such a time, how could regret be of any avail?