寶王三昧念佛直指 2.3

2.3

The Prime Minister, Lord Pei Meixiu, once composed the 'Preface to the Commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment', which states in brief: 'Whatever possesses blood and breath must have awareness, and all that have awareness must be of one substance—the so-called truly pure, luminous, and marvelous, emptily pervasive and spiritually cognizant, towering and solely abiding.' Viewed from this perspective, we know that the most minute creatures that fly and wriggle, as well as those of large bodies such as lions, elephants, and giant serpents, together with the marvelous mind of perfect enlightenment of the Buddhas of the ten directions, are emptily pervasive, spiritually cognizant, and of identical true purity—how could any distinction of superior and inferior be made? Since sentient beings and Buddhas are identical, although humans are supremely spiritual, are they not also of identical substance and nature with them, jointly endowed with the physical substance of the four elements and the five phases? Being born together between heaven and earth, creatures such as the rat of Xu and the swallow of Wei correspond above to celestial patterns and resemble the sun and moon; they can conversely govern humans' disasters and blessings—how could they fail to equal human beings? Once this principle is understood, one knows that humans and animal species are equal in nature and heavenly fellowship. Since they are without difference, how can one indulge one's fleeting violence, take advantage of their slightness and weakness, and stealthily carry out slaughter? Furthermore, the reason they differ from humans is merely that they are pulled by the extremely heavy evil karma of beginningless delusion, and thus, unawares and unawares, change their heads and alter their faces, receiving physical forms as diverse species; it is not that their mental substance is different. Since the substance is not different, and we dwell together with those species in birth and death, how can one flay their skin and bones, rend their flesh and blood, intestines, stomach, liver, and gall, or weigh and trade them, boil and fry them in a hundred ways, chew their bodies, indulging in their sweetness, merely to sate our greed for an instant and gratify our mouths and bellies, never fearing the pain of long kalpas in the future evil destinies? This may be called an extreme failure. Although humans may claim to be superior to them, it is only that the confrontation with karma has not yet arrived—are they truly superior to them? Furthermore, among those species, there are those whose retributions are ending and who will become humans or devas, and there are sages, Buddhas, and bodhisattvas who manifest as their kind. Blinded by our obstructions, we do not recognise them; how can we kill the bodies and lives they hold most dear and precious merely to gratify our momentary appetite? When suddenly our human karmic retribution ends, we may instead fall inferior to them; why claim that those species are our food and must definitely be inferior to us? Moreover, our own bodies were once the same as those species, and those species were the same as us; throughout the various species, we have mutually been fathers, mothers, brothers, wives, children, sisters, and all kinds of kin. As our physical forms shifted and flowed, our minds also became deluded and submerged, no longer recognising one another, falsely deeming them inferior. Killing and eating them now is killing our parents and former cherished relatives. Furthermore, our body is not separate from the four elements, so it is also killing our own former body of the four elements. Moreover, the Buddha said: 'All sentient beings possess the buddha-nature.' Because they are bound to become Buddhas in the future, we should still make offerings and attend upon them with the thought of them as parents; how can we bear to kill them? If one kills them, this is also killing a future Buddha. How could one not be terrified? Alas! Those who kill and harm today do not understand past causes. When they were relatives, in adversity they often generated antagonism; from kinship arose enmity, and from enmity hatred was forged. Enmity and hatred connected feud to feud, never lost from lifetime to lifetime, so that they give birth to each other and kill each other in turn without end, like the ocean tides that wax and wane, coming and going, unable to cease of themselves. Reflecting upon them and examining oneself, how could one not be deeply grieved? Therefore, in the Fanwang jing, not only is killing oneself prohibited, but even instructing others, expedient praise, vows, curses, and other teachings, as well as the causes, conditions, methods, and karmas [of killing], are all commanded to be severed forever. These are the Buddha's sincere admonitions. If we do not cease devouring one another, we will surely cause those wicked seekers—farmers, hunters, fishers, and trappers—to multiply more and more, leaving all sentient beings moving on water, land, and in the air nowhere to hide. As soon as they fall into their hands, their fur, feathers, scales, and shells are instantly damaged and destroyed; before their mournful cries have ceased, they are served as food, or traded for other things to nourish our bodies. How do they not know that the mind of all creatures fearing death and clinging to life is originally identical to our own? If one can recognise them as past relatives and jointly sever the karma of killing, one will also be able to fulfill the way of filial piety. The sutra says: 'Filial piety is named precept.' Thus, refraining from killing is filial piety. Furthermore, those creatures possess an innate foreknowledge; in seeking escape, they choose no time, and in fleeing, they choose no place. Moreover, heaven and earth are vast, and there are places where they could sustain themselves. That they now cannot preserve their lives and happen to encounter humans and must fall into human hands is because past causes cannot be escaped. Since past causes cannot be escaped, one should deeply contemplate and bitterly abstain from present causes. If one fails to abstain, the karma of mutual killing and harm will surely drag one into their species as before; how could one escape it? The sutra says: 'Even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas, the karma created does not perish; when conditions and causes converge, the retribution is received by oneself.' How could these be empty words? Therefore, our World-Honoured One, the fully Pure Awakened One, manifested his form among humans, and in various Dharma assemblies repeatedly and earnestly gave this admonition against killing, not merely two or three times. Moreover, he placed this precept at the head of all vehicles, and within the pure conduct (brahmacarya) it is exceedingly strict. Furthermore, he manifested the great King Virūḍhaka exterminating the Śākya clan, where the Buddha also suffered a headache, as well as the retribution of the golden spear, bequeathing warnings to the world so that people would know that cause and effect are inescapable and would jointly cease killing. How could one not believe it? If some say that the Buddha certainly did not have such things and merely manifested them for the sake of beings, then the sage would be guilty of deceiving people. Since the Buddha is without fault, how could this not be real? Since this is real, if even the Buddha was subject to it, how much more so ordinary people? Thus we know that the principle of karmic retribution follows like a shadow following a form. Furthermore, consider ordinary people who are friendly throughout their lives: if there is but one contrary word or the offense of a single object, they still harbor resentment unto death; how much more so when the cold blade is applied and their flesh is freely devoured—can such deep hatred ever be forgotten? Moreover, even secular classics contain the admonitions not to encircle fully, not to catch the whole flock, to angle with a hook but not use a net, and not to shoot at roosting birds with arrows, as well as not bearing to eat meat after hearing its cries. These are quite similar to our Buddha's gradual teaching in the Tripiṭaka permitting the consumption of the three kinds of clean meat. Although not like the Mahāyāna Vaipulya teachings that entirely stop the karma of killing, they are nonetheless gradual steps toward stopping killing. Even gradual steps toward stopping killing received praise for 'supreme virtue reaching even birds and beasts'; how much more so if one eats entirely vegetarian food, wears hempen robes on one's body, and focuses one's mind purely on kindness and patience without harming a single thing, allowing each to fulfill its life—would not such virtuous transformation be boundless and praiseworthy? Furthermore, ancient sages would not leave even dry bones exposed; dry bones have no consciousness, yet out of an unbearable heart they buried them; how much less should creatures endowed with life, blood, flesh, and the same sentience be killed and eaten? Laozi said: 'Galloping and hunting make the human heart go mad.' It is also said: 'Shooting flying birds and chasing running beasts, digging up hibernating creatures and disturbing nests.' Giving rein to violent killing and injury, improper cooking and slaughtering, and even harming and killing creatures in walking, standing, sitting, lying, or any physical action—for these, between heaven, earth, and the empty sky, there must be the Arbiter of Destiny, who reverently executes the virtue of the Sovereign on High in loving life. In accordance with their gravity or lightness, he records them all with his brush without missing a hair's breadth, causing the perpetrators in life to have their lifespans curtailed and to encounter adversities, and after death to fall into hells to undergo manifold sufferings: all the mountains of knives and trees of swords, hacking and chopping, frying and boiling, drawing out intestines and pulling out lungs, flaying skin and eating flesh, cutting bones and scraping marrow, severing heads and gouging eyes, burning feet and roasting hands—there are none among the great hells they do not experience, their lifespans beyond comparison even by brushing a rock or the sands of dust. Even if the retribution in those great hells comes to an end, for hundreds of thousands of kalpas they again fall among the hungry ghosts, and for such kalpas they again fall among animals. Among animals, they must repay one death for each one killed. If the mind of killing was severe, for killing one they may repay thousands, tens of thousands, or even boundlessly, before finally encountering the person they killed as before, being either killed or eaten, to repay their past debts without the error of a grain or dram. If they previously had slight good deeds and managed to be born among humans, they will still be impoverished, orphaned, and wretched for lifetimes, afflicted with many illnesses and short-lived, epileptic and demented, blind, deaf, mute, suffering from scabies, leprosy, ulcers, carbuncles, pus, blood, and manifold declines, adorning themselves with hundreds of thousands of such sufferings, all kinds of hostile circumstances converging upon their bodies, abandoned by relatives, unbearable to endure. All these arise because their karma of killing was deep, hence they receive such extreme suffering. Therefore, the Imperial Lord of Zitong has a chapter on refraining from killing in his Huashu. The Book of Documents also states: 'Upon those who do evil, a hundred misfortunes descend.' Is this not indeed so? Moreover, diverse species also possess benevolent hearts, so in principle they must not be killed. The lamb kneels to nurse, and the filial bird returns to feed its parents; they have the propriety of practicing filial piety. The northern dog protects its master, and the xiezhi does not yield; they have the capacity for loyalty and uprightness. Bees and ants have ruler and minister; mandarin ducks have husband and wife; wild geese fly in fraternal order; birds chirp in harmonious friendship. Observing those multitudes of living beings, how do they differ from humans? Although humans are supremely spiritual, they conversely cannot extend the compassion of identical substance to sentient beings, and further kill their lives to nourish their own single self—can they be called spiritual? Can they be called benevolent? Furthermore, when Grand Master Lu Gen asked Nanquan: 'Is it right for this disciple to eat meat, or is it right not to eat meat?' Nanquan said: 'Eating is the Grand Master's salary; not eating is the Grand Master's blessing.' The meaning is also clear. Even when secular society hosts banquets for guests and conducts seasonal sacrificial rites, are there not duckweed, algae, melons, fruits, and assorted delicacies that can be offered in ritual, so that the way of fasting and precepts may be preserved intact? For example, as the sutra relates, formerly the son of a butcher sought to leave the household. Because he refused to kill, his father shut the son together with a knife and a sheep in a secret room, saying: 'If you do not kill the sheep, I will kill you.' The son thereupon killed himself. By virtue of this merit, he was immediately born in heaven, enjoying heavenly bliss for many kalpas. From this we know that those who do not kill, having been born in good realms, will surely preserve their bodies well, obtain the retribution of long life lifetime after lifetime, and furthermore their virtue will extend far to their descendants for generations. Yet now the Buddhadharma is about to perish, like a single thread holding nine bronze cauldrons. Many who are disciples of the Buddha cannot embody the Buddha's compassion; they drink and dine with utter indifference, and seeing vegetarian people, they instead slander them as Hīnayāna, as demon heads, and even compare them to cattle and sheep, geese and pigs, or claim that their hearts are too vicious, exposing their faults with a hundred varieties of flattering words. Although heavenly spirits gaze upon such wicked people with wrath, deeming them man-eating rākṣasas, how is it that worldly people, upon hearing their kind, instead call them forthright and upright? Alas! This is an omen that the Buddhadharma is about to perish, which one must not fail to recognise. Master Yan Zichan, regarding a fish, still uttered the sigh, 'It has found its place!'; King Xuan of Qi could not bear [the slaughter of an ox], which was called a 'technique of benevolence that does no harm.' The Record of Rites contains the discourse that killing beasts [unseasonably] is unfilial, and the scholar who saved ants was selected in the highest grade of the civil examinations. One should know that whether killing or not killing, the harm and benefit are crystal clear. How much less should the fourfold assembly of our Śākya lineage practice this karma of killing? The Śūraṅgama says: 'Because a human eats a sheep, when the sheep dies it becomes a human, and when the human dies he becomes a sheep. You repay my life, and I repay your debt. Due to these causes and conditions, through hundreds of thousands of kalpas they remain constantly in birth and death.' It also says: 'Life after life, death after death, they come mutually to devour each other; evil karma arises together, exhausting the limits of the future.' The Lotus Sutra says: 'Farmers, hunters, fishers, and trappers, those who kill and harm for profit, and those who sell meat to make a living—do not approach any of them.' There is also a verse: 'If one wishes to kill living beings, / one should contemplate one's own body: / one's own body must not be killed, / and the lives of creatures are no different.' Are not such sincere admonitions crystal clear? There may be people of perverse views who claim that those sentient beings are all falsely born and falsely die, that offenses and blessings are originally empty, and that killing them brings no retribution. Then why do they not say that we also falsely seek and falsely eat, that flavors on the tongue are originally empty, and that eating them brings no benefit? Therefore, since there is a greedy mind, how could there not be an environment of retribution? If one says, 'What is the use of these creatures if not eaten?', then centipedes, snakes, and vipers are all useless—can one eat them? What has been stated above is to examine oneself to compare with others, non-killing in equality, which is the path practiced respectively by benevolent persons. If we, sons who have left the household, wish to cultivate the buddha-mindfulness samādhi, precisely desiring to purify the three karmas, untie enmities and dissolve knots, and be born in the Pure Land, how could we not sever the killing and eating [of flesh], and thereby obstruct ourselves at the time of death? Throughout the Great Canon of Sutras there are extensive teachings; the Buddhas speak with one voice, from beginning to end without duality, and the sacred instructions of the three teachings are all alike in this—how could they be fully cited in a single sheet of paper? It is only hoped that sentient beings of the dharmadhātu, hearing these principles and import, will embody the Way and love life, ascend together to benevolence and longevity, fully live out their natural lifespans, and be free from all knots of enmity. Furthermore, if they can convert people in accord with the Dharma, fulfilling the sage's path of compassionate relief, causing both others and oneself to fully realise the compassionate mind, they will surely arrive together in the Lotus Realm and attain perfect awakening.