慈悲道場懺法 4.18

4.18

The Buddha said to Ānanda: "If there are sentient beings who kill their fathers, harm their mothers, or revile and disgrace their six relations, when those who commit these crimes approach the end of their lives, the bronze dogs open their mouths and transform into eighteen carts, resembling golden carts with jeweled canopies above them, and all the blazes transform into jade maidens. The sinners see them from afar and give rise to joy in their hearts, thinking: 'I want to go inside! I want to go inside!' The wind-knives dismember their bodies, and shivering with extreme cold they cry out: 'If only I could get some good fire to sit on in the cart and warm myself by burning fire!' Having formed this thought, their lives immediately end. In an instant, they are already seated in the golden carts. Looking at the jade maidens, they see them all brandishing iron axes to chop and sever their bodies. Beneath their bodies fire blazes up like a whirling firebrand; just like a strong person flexing or extending an arm, they plunge straight down into the Great Hell of Avīci. From the upper compartment down to the lower compartment they spin like a whirling firebrand, their bodies filling the compartment. The bronze dogs roar loudly, biting their bones and sucking their marrow. The rākṣasa hell wardens take great iron forks, forking them by their heads to make them rise, their entire bodies ablaze with flames filling the city of Avīci, while the iron nets rain down knives that enter through their pores. A manifested King Yama commands them in a loud voice: 'Foolish persons, hell-seed! While you were in the world, you were unfilial to your parents and deviously arrogant without the Way. The place where you are born now is called the Avīci Hell. You did not recognize kindness and had no shame or conscience; is experiencing this torment and anguish pleasurable or not?' Having spoken these words, he vanishes and is no longer seen. At that time, the hell wardens drive the sinners again from the lower compartment up to the upper compartment, passing through the eighty-four thousand compartments, dragging their bodies along until they reach the iron net, taking a full day and night to traverse it completely. A single day and night in the Avīci Hell equals sixty small kalpas in the solar, lunar, and annual reckoning of this Jambudvīpa, and their lifespan lasts for an entire great kalpa. Sinners guilty of the five heinous offenses have no shame and no conscience; having committed the five heinous offenses, by virtue of these crimes, when their lives come to an end, eighteen wind-knives like iron fire-carts dismember and sever their bodies. Tormented by intense heat, they then say: 'If only I could find lovely flowers and a cool, great tree to play beneath, would that not be delightful!' When they form this thought, the eighty-four thousand terrible sword forests of the Avīci Hell transform into jeweled trees, their flowers and fruits flourishing and standing in rows before them, while the fiercely hot blazes transform into lotus flowers beneath those trees. Seeing them, the sinners say: 'What I desired has now borne fruit!' As soon as they utter these words, faster than torrential rain they sit upon the lotus flowers. Soon after they sit, various iron-beaked insects arise from the fire-blossoms, boring through bones and entering marrow, piercing the heart and perforating the brain. When they climb the trees, all the sword branches shave their flesh down to the bone, and countless knife forests descend from above. Fire carts, charcoal pits, and the eighteen torments arrive all at once to greet them. When these signs appear, they sink and plunge beneath the earth. Rising from the lower compartment, their bodies spread out like blossoming flowers, filling the lower compartment; from the lower compartment the fierce fire blazes up to the upper compartment. Arriving at the upper compartment, their bodies fill it, and pressed by scorching torment, they widen their eyes and stick out their tongues. Due to this person's sins, tens of billions of measures of molten bronze and hundreds of thousands of knife wheels fall from the sky, entering through the head and exiting through the feet. All the agonies surpass what was spoken above a hundred thousand myriad-fold. Those fully guilty of the five heinous offenses undergo punishment for five full kalpas. Furthermore, there are sentient beings who break the Buddha's prohibitive precepts, consume the offerings of the faithful in vain, hold slandering and deviant views, fail to recognize cause and effect, abandon the study of prajñā, defame the Buddhas of the ten directions, steal property of the Buddha and the Dharma, engage in various foul and impure conduct, lack shame and conscience, insult and dishonor their kin, and commit a multitude of evil deeds. As retribution for their sins, when their lives approach the end, the wind-knives dismember their bodies; they toss and turn without rest, as though being whipped and thrashed. Their minds become deranged, producing mad and foolish thoughts; they see their own houses, men, women, young and old, as nothing but impure filth, with feces, urine, and foul stenches overflowing outside. At that time, the sinner says: 'Why is there no fine city or splendid mountain forest here for me to roam and play in, instead of having to dwell amidst such impurities?' Having spoken these words, the rākṣasa hell wardens lift the Avīci Hell and its knife forests on great iron forks, transforming them into jeweled trees and cool pools, the blazes into golden-leaved lotus flowers, the iron-beaked insects into ducks and geese, and the screams of hell into the sound of singing. Hearing this, the sinner thinks: 'I will go and roam in such a wonderful place!' With this thought, they instantly sit upon the fiery lotus flowers; various iron-beaked insects burrow through their pores and devour their flesh, hundreds of thousands of iron wheels enter from the crowns of their heads, and iron forks as numerous as the sands of the Ganges gouge out their eyes. The bronze dogs of hell transform into ten billion iron dogs, competing to tear apart their bodies, snatching their hearts to eat. In an instant, their bodies spread like iron flowers filling the eighteen compartments, each petal numbering eighty-four thousand, with bodies, hands, and limbs on each petal tip within a compartment. The hell is not large, yet this body is not small, filling this entire great hell. These sinners fall into this hell and pass through eighty-four thousand great kalpas. When this niraya is exhausted, they enter the eighteen compartments of the east, undergoing suffering as before. This Avīci Hell likewise has eighteen compartments in the south, eighteen compartments in the west, and eighteen compartments in the north. Slandering the Vaipulya sūtras, completing the five heinous offenses, destroying the noble and holy, and severing all wholesome roots—such sinners, having accumulated a multitude of crimes, have their bodies fill the Avīci Hell, their four limbs filling the eighteen compartments. This Avīci Hell burns only sentient beings who are of such hell-seed. When the kalpa is about to end, the eastern gate opens, and outside the eastern gate, clear springs, running streams, flowers, fruits, and forest groves all appear together. When these sinners see this from the lower compartment, the fire in their eyes briefly subsides. Rising from the lower compartment, twisting and crawling on their bellies, dragging their bodies along, they run up into the upper compartment, grasping knife wheels with their hands while hot iron pellets rain down from the sky. They run toward the eastern gate, and once they reach the threshold, the rākṣasa hell wardens grasp iron forks and stab them backward through their eyes, and bronze dogs bite their hearts so that they swoon and die; having died, they revive. Seeing the southern gate open, it is no different from before; the western and northern gates are also like this. They spend half a kalpa in this manner. Dying in the Avīci Hell, they are reborn in the Hell of Freezing Ice; dying in the Hell of Freezing Ice, they are born in a place of pitch darkness, seeing nothing with their eyes for eighty million years. Assuming the bodies of large worms, twisting and crawling on their bellies, their senses darkened and blocked with no understanding, hundreds of thousands of foxes and wolves drag, tear, and eat them. After their lives end, they are born among the animals, undergoing the forms of birds and beasts for fifty million lifetimes. When their retribution is finished in this way, they are reborn among humans, adorned with deafness, blindness, mutism, dumbness, scabies, leprosy, boils, ulcers, poverty, baseness, and all manner of decline. Experiencing such lowly forms for five hundred lifetimes, they are subsequently reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts. In the realm of hungry ghosts, they encounter kalyāṇamitras, great bodhisattvas, who rebuke them, saying: 'In your past bodies across immeasurable lifetimes, you committed boundless crimes, slandering and lacking faith, and fell into the Avīci Hell, undergoing torments and anguishes that cannot be fully recounted. You should now generate a mind of compassion and loving-kindness.' When the hungry ghosts hear these words, they chant, 'Namo Buddhāya.' Relying on the power of the Buddha's grace, they immediately die and are born in the abode of the Four Heavenly Kings. Having been born in that heaven, they repent their faults, reproach themselves, and generate the bodhicitta. The radiant light of the Buddhas' minds does not abandon them; it gathers and embraces them, holding them in loving pity as though they were Rāhula, teaching them to avoid hell just as one cherishes one's own eyes." The Buddha said to the Great King: "If you wish to know what the radiant light of the Buddha's mind illuminates, it constantly illuminates such suffering sentient beings who are without intermission and without rescue. That which the Buddha's mind contemplates constantly contemplates such extremely evil sentient beings. Because the Buddha's mind-power adorns itself, across kalpas beyond reckoning, it causes those evil persons to generate the bodhicitta."