法苑珠林 78.5

78.5

Now, the four snakes agitate restlessly and the three poisons run rampant; the six thieves encroach upon one another and a hundred sorrows gather together. Sometimes people harbor mutual hatred from past encounters, spying for shortcomings; having long fostered resentment, they apply themselves solely to harming each other. Utterly devoid of humaneness and righteousness, they abruptly abandon loving-kindness and compassion: prescribing the methods of killing, providing the conditions for killing, instructing in death, and praising death. Or they secretly administer poisons, or privately dispatch evil curses, causing the internal organs to be filled with poison and heart and liver to be torn apart by venom, forcing the victim to harbor grief through the long night and endure anguish in the nether springs. How can such winding agony be expressed? To whom can such bitter grievances be appealed? Therefore, a sutra states: In the house of an elder, many poisonous trees grow; upon the ocean of rākṣasas, they repeatedly beg for a floating bladder. It is also like ten thousand bundles of dry firewood that a bean-sized flame can burn down, or a dark room of a hundred years that a single lamp can shatter. Thus we know that an angry mind is worse than a fierce fire; practitioners should guard themselves against it. No thief that plunders merits is more harmful than this. If a single thought of the fire of anger arises, it burns up all roots of goodness and meritorious virtues. Therefore, evil-natured persons are feared by both humans and beasts. Making no distinction of virtuous people, their speech turns into poison; they delight in destroying the minds of others and causing others to detest them. Loved by no one, they are feared and cast aside by all, just like avoiding wolves and tigers. In the present life they are despised, and after death they fall into hell. Therefore, the wise, perceiving such faults, extinguish them with patience (kṣānti) and do not fear the various sufferings.