眾經撰雜譬喻 2.8

2.8

Once, five hundred merchants boarded a ship and entered the ocean in search of rare jewels. They encountered a great makara fish that poked its head out and opened its mouth, wishing to devour living beings. At that time, the wind blew fierce and the ship shot forward like an arrow. The merchant leader said to the crowd, 'The ship is going too fast; we can let down the sails and lower the drifter.' They did exactly as he said, letting down the sails and lowering the drifter, yet the ship still moved rapidly and could not be stopped. The merchant leader asked the people on board, 'What do you see?' They replied, 'We see two suns rising above, white mountains below the suns, and black mountains in between.' The merchant leader said in alarm, 'This is a great fish! What can we do? We have now met with dire distress; entering this fish's belly, there is no principle by which we may live again. Each of you, according to what you worship, single-mindedly plead for rescue!' Thereupon, the people each, according to what they worshiped, single-mindedly took refuge and sought escape from this distress. The more earnestly they pleaded, the faster the ship went; in an instant, without stopping, it would enter the fish's mouth. Thereupon, the merchant leader told the people, 'I have a great deity whose name is the Buddha. Each of you, cast aside what you have raised up and single-mindedly invoke him!' At that moment, the five hundred people together raised their voices and cried, 'Namo buddhāya!' Hearing the name of the Buddha, the fish thought to itself, 'Today in the world, there is again a Buddha! How can I bear to harm living beings again?' Just as it finished thinking this, it closed its mouth. The water immediately flowed backward, moving away from the fish's mouth, and the five hundred merchants escaped the danger at once. In a previous life, this fish had once been a renunciant; due to a minor offense, it received the body of this fish. Having heard the sound of the Buddha['s name], it immediately remembered its former lives, and because of this contemplation, a wholesome mind arose. This clarifies that the five hundred merchants simply single-mindedly were mindful of the Buddha and briefly invoked his name, and they immediately attained liberation from a disaster as vast as heaven. How much more so for one who receives and upholds the buddhānusmṛti-samādhi, making heavy offenses light and extinguishing light offenses; this suffices as proof.