廬山蓮宗寶鑑 1.77

1.77

Now, as the initial gate for studying Buddhism, great compassion is the proper track of the bodhisattva; as the essential practice for benefiting others, encouraging and inspiring is the supreme day of pure karma. The worthy assembly of the Jin-dynasty society prayed for birth in Sukhāvatī; the ocean-like multitudes of the ten directions joyfully seek transcendence from the Sahā world. Painfully lamenting the difficulty of escaping birth and death, and truly sighing at the swift arrival of impermanence, how could one not emulate the noble conduct of former sages and guide those who follow after? To encourage one person, two persons, or even many persons is the Dharma-giving of the Buddhist gate; to be mindful of one buddha, two buddhas, or even ten thousand buddhas is the profound design for proceeding to the Land of Joy. If one undertakes a daily quota of a thousand recitations of the buddha's name, accumulating them from months to a year, there will be 360,000 recitations of the buddha. If one accumulates them without slacking, does this not approach the buddha-stage? If one performs one small good deed a day, accumulating them from months to a year, there will be 360 good deeds; if one accumulates them without slacking, does this not approach the exemplary person? Those who are foolish and petty, who lack repentance and are no different from beasts, are truly so because they do not study and have no one to encourage and inspire them. A sūtra says: 'If someone were to offer the seven treasures of the four continents to the buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas, and śrāvakas, they would obtain great merit; yet this is not equal to encouraging someone to utter a single recitation of the buddha's name, whose merit surpasses that.' This is the World-Honoured One's encouragement and inspiration. An adage says: 'Desiring to establish oneself, one establishes others; desiring to advance oneself, one advances others.' This is Confucius's encouragement and inspiration. Exert yourselves, companions of the covenant, to perfume and cultivate pure practices. Gather either in the first, fifth, and ninth months as one assembly, or in half a year, one year, or three years as one period; plant deep good roots and dedicate them universally, constantly acting as companions on the Path to support each other mutually. When one person falls back into indolence, join forces to guide and uphold them; when one person casts off the ordinary, look after one another in turn. Even if you cannot broadly propagate the teaching to benefit sentient beings, you can still review the old to understand the new. Do you not see that when one gives a person a single coin, they acknowledge receiving kindness; if one benefits a person with a single word, how could they be unaware of it? The gift of material goods relieves the poverty of a single lifetime; the gift of food preserves life for a single day; but the gift of the Dharma enables one to transcend the world—how could its merit be compared? The gift of material goods is like a lamp that illuminates only a single room; the gift of the Dharma is like the sun that shines everywhere throughout the trichiliocosm. If one is stingy with the Dharma and does not encourage cultivation, one will sink into the dark hells for cumulative kalpas; if one extends oneself to guide and convert, in this very life one is an Amitābha. We dare to hope that you will exercise compassion to encourage and inspire one another in turn, and through these compassionate vows bind this pure affinity, pulling out those stuck and submerged in the sinking current, treading the shortcut out of saṃsāra, and ascending together to the Land of Joy to repay the Buddha's kindness. This may indeed be called 'causing those not yet liberated to attain liberation.'