法苑珠林 71.17

71.17

If ordinary persons produce such faults and merits without understanding that cause and effect, good and evil, have no intrinsic nature, this is being confused about phenomena and grasping at intrinsic nature, remaining perpetually bound to the three realms of existence. Thus the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says: "Just as a fly alights everywhere except on a flame, the attachment of sentient beings is also like this: they attach to both wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and even attach up to the state of neither-perception-nor-non-perception; they only fail to attach to the great fire of the emptiness of intrinsic nature of the prajñāpāramitā." From this it is proven that those who lack the nature of good and evil and constantly revolve in the five destinies are precisely sentient beings without buddha-nature. This briefly explains the two practices of faults and merits of ordinary persons, who are confused about phenomena and grasp at intrinsic nature, concluding the citations from sūtras and treatises.