法苑珠林 82.22

82.22

"'Should I preserve myself,
Or is following the Buddha's words superior?
He is a mass of immeasurable merit,
Whose fame pervades the ten directions.
My physical body and life are extremely vile and lowly;
How could I go against the noble teaching?
I have now received the Buddha's precepts,
And unto death I will surely uphold them firmly.
In order to follow the Buddha's words,
I offer the plank and surrender my body and life.
If one does not perform difficult tasks,
One will never obtain difficult fruits.
If I hold this plank,
I will surely cross the disaster of the great sea;
Yet if I do not comply with the noble intention,
I will sink into the sea of birth and death.
If I now sink into the water and die,
Though dead, it will still be called superior;
If I abandon what the Buddha taught,
I will lose the benefits of gods and men,
As well as the great nirvāṇa,
The supreme and foremost bliss.'"