遊心安樂道 1.97

1.97

"Passages such as these are found throughout the scriptures. How lamentable! Sinful karma is self-created, and its bitter fruit follows like a shadow. How agonizing! Bound by one's own causes to solitary distress, there is no one to provide rescue and protection. Were it not for the great compassion of identical essence and the secret arts of vast deliverance, who could open the dark locks from afar and ascend the lotus terrace? Although there is no principle that one can receive the fruit of what another has made, there is nonetheless the inconceivable power of dependent origination. Thus we know that by encountering the empowered sand, the conditions are established; if one is not touched by the sand, how can there be any talk of a time of deliverance? Indeed, great compassion has no fixed bounds, and the Buddha's broad and long tongue speaks without deceit. If one does not practice and does not believe, subsequent regret will be of no avail. Therefore, those who do not believe and apply it merely betray profound kindness, and the day of repaying it becomes ever more distant; for those who accord with it and practice, the soul is received upon a blooming lotus, and filial piety is immediately established. Having fortunately encountered this dhāraṇī, causing [the deceased] to escape is not difficult; among all noble gentlemen, who would not uphold and practice it? If scattering sand over a grave still leads to rebirth in that realm, how much more so empowering clothes to be worn on the body, or hearing its sound and reciting its syllables?"