慈悲道場懺法 7.27

7.27

Today, members of the assembly sharing this karmic endeavor in the bodhimaṇḍa! All the divine heavenly kings possess such kindness and virtue in sheltering and protecting sentient beings, yet sentient beings have never generated the resolve to repay this kindness and virtue. The ancients were still able to be moved by the favor of a single meal to give up their lives; how much more so should this be for all the devas, good spirits, and divine generals of the eight classes who have such kindness and virtue toward sentient beings! The merit of this kindness and virtue is boundless. That we today repent and generate the bodhicitta is entirely due to the heavenly kings secretly adding their spiritual power to encourage and assist practitioners, enabling their minds to attain fulfillment. If they did not add their support, such minds as these would long ago have fallen back and perished. For this reason, the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas repeatedly praise the kalyāṇamitra as a great condition that enables us to tread upon the bodhimaṇḍa. Were there no kalyāṇamitra, how could we be enabled to see all the Buddhas? Throwing down one's body is insufficient to repay such great benevolence; giving up one's life is insufficient to repay such deep grace. Even bodhisattva-mahāsattvas utter such words; how much less should those below them fail to make return! Assembly! Today, since we are not yet able to cast off our bones and give up our lives, we should for now practice diligent exertion and vigor, which is also the beginning of repaying kindness. Together, each of us should intensify our efforts, mobilize our minds, know kindness and repay kindness, and not drift with the current without means of self-examination. As expressed before in our self-rejoicing, a second encounter is difficult; having obtained our present fruit which is hard to gain, what else do we wait for? If we lose this single gathering, who knows what destiny we will head to next? We must solely be valiant, forgetting ourselves for the sake of other beings. In affairs, there is success and there is failure, just as spring is followed by winter; time waits for no one, and how can life last long? Reflecting that after this departure, our reunion cannot be scheduled, let each strive diligently, united in one poignant anguish, prostrating with the five limbs touching the ground, and on behalf of all heavenly lords, all devas, and their respective retinues in the ten directions to the ends of empty space, take refuge in, revere, and pay homage to the Great Compassionate Father of the World.