法苑珠林 17.68

17.68

Consider that in the present final age, the Dharma is corrupted along with people; the religious and the secular are mixed and confused, transmitting errors and turning their backs on truth, mingling together in shared practice. They do not cultivate the internal scriptures, but devote themselves exclusively to secular books. Even when they transcribe [scriptures], their minds are not sincere; they neither preserve purity nor avoid numerous errors and blunders. They lodge and sleep together with [the scriptures], or place them under eaves and doorways, feeling no fear whatsoever of wind, rain, insects, or soot. This causes the scriptures to lack efficacious power and recitation to lack the benefit of saving from suffering; this truly stems from fabrication without sincerity, and also from people's arrogance. Therefore, the Jingfu jing (Sūtra on Reverence for Blessings) says: "Good man, in the method of writing scriptures, one must not make errors. If two characters are repeatedly marked, for five hundred lifetimes one will fall into paths of delusion and not hear the saddharma."