釋禪波羅蜜次第法門 9.39

9.39

Answer: When this monk himself gives and upholds the precepts, fear is immediately removed. Why is this? If he broke the precepts, he would fear falling into hell; if he were stingy and greedy, he would fear falling into hungry ghosts or poverty. He reflects to himself: 'I have these pure precepts and giving, so I rejoice. The various deities above all attain their retributive fruit through giving and upholding the precepts, and I also possess this merit.' Therefore, recollecting the deities can also prevent fear from arising. In the sixteen practices, when recollecting ānāpāna, subtle mental vitarka is still extinguished, so how much more so coarse thoughts of fear? As for recollecting death, one recollects that this body of five aggregates arises and ceases moment by moment; since birth, it has always been together with death—why fear death now? Although the Buddha did not separately explain these five recollections [in that passage], know that they are for deeply removing fear. Why is this? Removing fear by recollecting the merits of others is difficult, but removing fear by recollecting one's own merits is easy. For this reason, they were not separately mentioned.