法苑珠林 51.38

51.38

Contemplating the Great Sage's bestowing of transformation: he correctly gathers the minds of all beings. The two gates of good and evil serve to manifest the ultimate principle. Good kinds ascend in purity; the evil sink and plunge downward. This is truly because karmic delusion is not yet overturned, and the tridhātu forms a cage. Passionate defilements are not tranquil, concealing and obscuring through the five burnings. They are stranded in the sinking of the eight inversions, and wearied by the binding shackles of the four modes of birth. Therefore, by following evil masters and believing in and accepting bad friends, afflictive confusion becomes hard to restrain, and turbulent emissaries are constantly active. The mind-horse easily gallops away; the monkey of passion is hard to restrain. Cultivating merit and recollecting the good is rarely heard from oneself; committing transgressions and managing faults increase day by day. Because of this, one cycles through birth and death without cessation. When the Great Sage pities them, how could his heart not ache?