法苑珠林 33.20

33.20

又薩婆多論云。有檀越與闡那比丘三十萬錢作大房。即日成即日崩倒。功用甚大檀越心退。諸比丘為檀越說法。房雖崩倒功德成就。房未壞時。佛已到此房中。即是受用。佛是無上福田。佛既受用。功德深廣不可測量。又房始成有一新受戒年少比丘戒德清淨。入此房中已畢。檀越信施之德。若起億數種種房閣莊嚴。下至金剛地際高廣嚴飾。猶若須彌。設有一淨戒比丘。暫時受用已畢。施恩以戒非世間是向泥洹門。不同房舍臥具飲食湯藥是世間法非是離世難得之法。

Furthermore, the *Sarvāstivāda-śāstra* says: A dānapati gave three hundred thousand coins to the monk Channa to build a large cell. The cell was completed on the very day it collapsed. The expense and labor having been vast, the dānapati's mind fell back in regret. The monks preached the Dharma for the dānapati: Although the cell collapsed, the merit was accomplished. Before the cell was ruined, the Buddha had already arrived inside this cell, which constitutes its use. The Buddha is an unsurpassed field of merit (puṇyakṣetra); since the Buddha already made use of it, the merit is profound, vast, and immeasurable. Moreover, when the cell was first completed, a newly ordained young monk whose precept-virtue was pure had entered this cell and finished [his use of it]. The virtue of the dānapati's faithful gift: even if one were to erect hundreds of millions of diverse, ornate chambers and pavilions, reaching down to the Vajra-ground and rising high and wide like Mount Sumeru—if a single monk of pure precepts makes use of it for even a moment and finishes, the beneficence of the gift, being based on precepts, is not of the worldly realm but is the gateway to nirvāṇa. It is not like dwellings, bedding, food, and medicine, which are worldly phenomena, not the rare phenomena that transcend the world.