寶王三昧念佛直指 2.5

2.5

A confused person asked: "Now having heard the explanation of the direct pointing to buddha-mindfulness on abstaining from killing, it may indeed be said to point to the essence and accord with the capacity, complete in both phenomena and principle, truly a teaching that benefits the world and profits beings. May I venture to ask: is it only this karma of killing that should be strictly abstained from? Or should all other evils such as stealing, sexual misconduct, and lying likewise be profoundly abstained from? If all should be abstained from, why was the explanation brief?" / I answered: "Alas! What words are these? Have you not heard that the sūtras speak of being fully endowed with the multitude of precepts? Why would it only be abstaining from killing? It is only that the karma of killing is the heaviest, pervasive among both the noble and the lowly, and hard for people to eliminate. Therefore, at the very beginning of the primary practice, people are first made to cut off killing so that they may be endowed with the multitude of precepts; thus it was explained in detail. How could the essence of the precepts involve choosing some and discarding others? Furthermore, if the virtue of the precepts is not cultivated, upon what can practice be established? Just as when a vessel is to store clarified butter, one must first wash away its impurities. The cultivator of samādhi is also like this: only when the multitude of precepts are pure can it be achieved. Even if one's past karma is deep and heavy and cannot be cut off abruptly, one must still use skillful means to restrain it, exhorting one's own mind, examining oneself and repenting errors, cultivating the four applications of mindfulness, completely understanding that the world has little joy and much suffering, is impermanent and subject to decay, soon wearing away, and that all dharmas are impure, like dreams and illusions, devoid of self. One should devise various skillful means so as to surely cut it off; how could one follow deluded thoughts and lose one's mastery? Furthermore, even if the virtue of the precepts is complete, if one does not make body and mind tranquil and settled, ceaselessly put an end to worldly skills and miscellaneous arts, and cast aside all things, whether good or evil, that can divide one's thoughts, how can one single-mindedly cultivate this samādhi? If samādhi is not unified, by what means could rebirth occur? However, the beginningless karmic consciousness of all sentient beings now completely pervades the dharmadhātu; if even a single worldly thought arises, one is dragged away by such worldly afflictions and demonic hordes, one's entire body sinking down, with no hope of escape. For example, though a swimming fish is carefree, a single thread can bind it; its harm is not small. If it is so even with mental thoughts, how much more so with bodily actions? Now having cultivated this samādhi, one precisely desires to hit the target with a single mind like an arrow, not waiting for the exhaustion of this bodily retribution, leaping out of the dense forest and definitively attaining rebirth in the Pure Land. How could one lose the precepts and climb upon conditions, following habitual routine in intention and action, causing the samādhi to fail and entering the evil destinies once more? Could this not be deeply lamentable? If one indeed hears this and does not observe the precepts, then at the end of life there will be no verification; do not say that the Buddha's power lacks efficacy."