釋門自鏡錄 2.29.4

2.29.4

"They will plummet into hell faster than a piercing spear. Truly, all renunciants ought to reflect deeply on this." He also commanded She, saying: "When a śrāvaka receives the discipline precepts, they originally regulate the seven actions of body and speech. Once received, even during sleep, fainting, and so forth, the discipline constantly arises, and from thought-moment to thought-moment one attains unprecedented discipline. Why is this? Sleep and the like do not give rise to evil thoughts; therefore the precepts are not damaged or lost, and indeed constantly arise. If one gives rise to a thought of wishing to kill, under the śrāvaka Dharma, although one does not lose the precepts of body and speech, there is damage to the precepts. It does not merely damage the precept against killing, but also defiles the other precepts. When it comes to clasping with the hands or biting with the teeth, activating the karma of body and speech, one loses the precepts of body and speech. At that time, the unmanifest discipline is immediately severed and does not continue. Having lost the precept against killing, one also defiles the remaining precepts. Why is this? When a caṇḍāla slaughters meat, for what kind of people does he kill? Precisely for those who eat meat. If one eats meat, one partakes in the killing, and in the precept against killing there is thus a deficiency. If one were to claim that partaking in the share of killing while possessing wholesome discipline does not cause a deficiency in the precept against killing, then for a person of unwholesome discipline who observes the eightfold fast, that evil discipline should still continue. If an evil-disciplined person observing the eightfold fast no longer continues in evil discipline, then one knows that when a person of wholesome discipline receives shares of killing, that precept against killing is instantly breached; the prātimokṣa precept is no longer liberating. For a person of evil discipline, regardless of whether they observe the eightfold fast, as soon as a single thought of good arises, the evil discipline is severed. If it were not severed in a single thought-moment, it would also not be severed in many thought-moments; if it is severed in many thought-moments, one knows it is severed at the time of a single thought-moment. For a person of wholesome discipline the matter is also like this: regardless of receiving various shares of killing, if there is even a small share of killing, the discipline of non-killing is immediately severed as well. Bodhisattvas maintain the mind-precepts; therefore they know that in principle there is no such thing as eating sentient beings. If one breaches the śrāvaka precepts, in the end one cannot escape the sufferings of hell and the like."