樂邦文類 4.50

4.50

Question: One who has practiced evil all one's life accumulates deep causes; how can ten recitations at the time of death abruptly dispel them? Answer: The Milindapañha states: 'The king asked the śramaṇa Nāgasena: "A person in the world does evil up to a hundred years. When near death, he practices buddha-mindfulness and after death is born in a buddha-land. I do not believe these words." Nāgasena said: "It is like placing a hundred great stones onto a boat; because of the boat, they do not sink. Even if a person has original evil, by a moment of buddha-mindfulness he does not enter Niraya. That small stones sink is like a person who does evil and does not know buddha-mindfulness; he straightway enters Niraya."' Furthermore, the Treatise on the Great Prajñāpāramitā asks: 'How can the mind of a brief moment at the time of death surpass the power of lifelong practice?' It answers: 'Although this mind lasts for a short duration, the power of the mind is fierce and sharp. Like fire or poison, though small, it can accomplish great deeds. Because this mind when nearing death is decisive and courageous, it surpasses the power of a hundred years of practice; this final mind is called the great mind. Also, because all the sense faculties are in an emergency, like a man entering battle without sparing body or life, it is called robust. Therefore, know that good and evil are not fixed, and causes and conditions are empty in substance; traces show rising or sinking, and phenomena are divided into superior and inferior. One ounce of genuine gold surpasses a hundred ounces of cotton flowers; the tiny flicker of a spark incinerates ten thousand fathoms of piled-up grass.'