眾經撰雜譬喻 1.31

1.31

須彌山南有一大樹，高四千里，諸鉢叉鳥棲宿其上，樹常不動，有小鳥形類鶉鴳，住止其上，樹即振搖，鉢叉鳥語樹神言：「無知我身將重而初不動，小鳥來宿反更振動。」樹神言：「此鳥雖小，從大海底來純食金剛，金剛為物所墮之處無不破壞，所以大怖不能自安。」經以為喻，若有凡人解深經一句口誦心念，身中三毒四魔八萬垢門皆不能自安，何況博採眾法為世橋梁者也！

South of Mount Sumeru there is a great tree, four thousand li high, on which various pakṣa birds roost. The tree is always motionless. But when a small bird resembling a quail came to rest on it, the tree shook and trembled. The pakṣa bird said to the tree spirit: "Without your knowing, my body is heavy, yet you never moved; but when a small bird comes to roost, you shake and tremble instead." The tree spirit said: "Though this bird is small, it came from the bottom of the great ocean and feeds solely on vajra. Where vajra falls, there is nothing it does not destroy; therefore I am terrified and cannot remain at ease." The sūtras take this as a parable: if an ordinary person understands a single phrase of a profound sūtra, chanting it with his mouth and contemplating it in his mind, the three poisons, four māras, and eighty thousand defilement-gates within his body will all be unable to remain at ease—how much more so for one who broadly gathers the manifold dharmas and serves as a bridge for the world!