眾經撰雜譬喻 2.30

2.30

昔有一老母，惟有一子，得病命終，載著塚間停屍，哀感不能自勝：「正有一子當以備老，而捨我死，吾用活為？不能復歸，當併命一處。」不食不飲已四、五日。佛知，將五百比丘詣彼塚間。老母遙見佛來威神光奕，迷悟醉醒，前趣佛作禮住。佛告老母：「何以塚間也？」白言世尊：「唯有一子捨我終亡，愛之情重欲共死一處。」佛告老母：「欲令子更活不也？」母言：「善！」曰：「欲得矣！」佛言：「索香火，吾當呪願更生。」告老母：「求火宜得不死家火。」於是老母便行取火，見人輒問：「汝家前後頗有死者不？」答言：「先祖以來皆死。」過去所問之處，辭皆如是。經數十家不敢取火，便還佛所，白言世尊：「遍行求火無不死者，是以空還。」佛告老母：「天地開闢以來，無生不終。人之死亡，後人生活亦復可喜。母獨何迷索隨子死也？」母意便解識無常理。佛因爾廣為說經法，即得須陀洹道，塚間觀者數千人，發無上正真道意也。

Formerly, there was an elderly mother who had only an only son. He fell ill and died, and was taken to a cemetery where the corpse was laid out. Overcome with grief beyond endurance, she cried, "I had just one son to support me in my old age, yet he has abandoned me in death! What purpose is there in my living? I cannot go back; I must end my life together with him in the same place!" She neither ate nor drank for four or five days. Knowing this, the Buddha took five hundred bhikṣus and went to that cemetery. The elderly mother saw from afar the Buddha coming with magnificent spiritual radiance; as if waking from confusion and sobering from drunkenness, she stepped forward toward the Buddha, bowed, and stood to one side. The Buddha asked the elderly mother, "Why are you in the cemetery?" She said to the World-Honoured One, "I had only an only son who has abandoned me and died. My love for him is so deep that I wish to die together with him in the same place." The Buddha asked the elderly mother, "Do you wish to make your son live again?" The mother said, "Splendid!" She said, "I wish for it!" The Buddha said, "Seek incense and fire; I shall chant a blessing to bring him back to life." He told the elderly mother, "When seeking the fire, you must obtain fire from a household where no one has died." Thereupon, the elderly mother went out to fetch fire. Whenever she saw anyone, she would ask, "Have there ever been any deaths in your family?" They replied, "From our ancestors onwards, all have died." Everywhere she went and asked, the replies were all like this. Passing through several dozen households, she did not dare take any fire. She then returned to the Buddha and said to the World-Honoured One, "I went everywhere seeking fire, but there was no household where no one had died; thus I have returned empty-handed." The Buddha told the elderly mother, "Since the opening and creation of heaven and earth, there has been no life that does not come to an end. When people die, the lives of those who come after are also something to delight in. Why are you alone so bewildered as to seek to follow your son in death?" The mother's mind immediately understood, and she recognized the truth of anitya. Taking this occasion, the Buddha widely expounded the Dharma of the sūtras to her, and she immediately attained the fruit of srotaāpanna. Among the several thousand spectators in the cemetery, all gave rise to the aspiration for unsurpassed, true, and perfect enlightenment.