法苑珠林 82.9

82.9

'How strange that as I approach the end of life,
You would break the necklace of my precepts!
I adorn my body with the precepts,
With no need for funeral accoutrements.
Since a human body is already hard to obtain,
To encounter the precepts is even harder.
I would rather surrender hundreds of thousands of lives
Than violate and break the restrictive precepts.
Only once in immeasurable hundreds of thousands of kalpas
Does one ever encounter the precepts.
Within the world of Jambudvīpa,
A human body is extremely hard to obtain.
Though one may again obtain a human body,
To encounter the saddharma is doubly hard.
And when one occasionally encounters the treasure of Dharma,
The foolish do not know to take it.
One who is able to distinguish it well—
This matter is also difficult.
The treasure of precepts has entered my hands;
Why would you wish to snatch it away?
This is to act as an enemy,
Not as one dear to me.'