法苑珠林 90.35

90.35

Furthermore, the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra says: "A person who breaks the precepts is not respected by others; his dwelling is like a grave that no one visits. A person who breaks the precepts loses all merits; he is like a withered tree that no one delights in. A person who breaks the precepts is like a frost-bitten lotus flower that no one is pleased to see. A person who breaks the precepts has a terrifying, evil mind, just like a rākṣasa. A bhikṣu who breaks the precepts, though outwardly resembling a good person, has no good dharmas within; although shaving his head, dyeing his robes, and taking tally sticks in sequence, being called a bhikṣu, he is truly not a bhikṣu. If a person who breaks the precepts wears the kāṣāya, it is like wrapping his body in sheets of molten copper and iron; if he holds an alms bowl, it is a vessel holding molten copper; whatever he eats is swallowing hot iron pellets and drinking boiling molten copper; if he receives offerings and provisions from others, they are wardens of hell guarding him; if he enters a monastery, it is entering a great hell; if he sits on the couches and beds of the Saṃgha, it is sitting on a hot iron bed. A person who breaks the precepts constantly harbors fear, like a gravely ill person always fearing the arrival of death. A person who breaks the precepts falls into the evil destinies after death. If in the Copper Stake Hell, the rākṣasa wardens ask the sinners: 'Where have you come from?' They answer: 'I am in extreme agony and confusion and do not know where I came from; I suffer only from hunger and thirst.' If they say they are thirsty, at that time the wardens drive them to sit upon hot copper stakes, pry open their mouths with iron pincers, and pour in molten copper. If they say they are hungry, they seat them upon copper stakes and make them swallow iron pellets; entering the mouth, the mouth is scorched; entering the throat, the throat is rotted; entering the belly, the belly bursts; burning through, the five viscera rot and ruin, and it passes straight through to fall onto the ground. All these people, due to causes and conditions from past deeds, robbed others of their wealth to feed themselves. Or renunciants sometimes feigned illness to seek much ghee and rock sugar, or having no meditation, no precepts, and no wisdom, nevertheless received many offerings from people, or injured people with harsh speech. Because of such various causes and conditions and the power of past karma, they fall into the Copper Stake Hell beyond all description. Practitioners should single-mindedly receive and uphold the moral precepts." Furthermore, the Adbhutadharma-sūtra states: "There are bhikṣus whose speech and actions do not match, whose minds and mouths contradict one another. Some do so for gain, money, food, and drink; some for fame to gather followers; and some, loathing royal laws and corvée labor, leave home for the Path. They have no intention at all toward the three gates of liberation to cross beyond the suffering of the three realms of existence. With an impure mind they greedily receive faithful offerings, unaware that in future lifetimes they will endure disaster for kalpas to repay their past debts. Even if they cultivate further good and are born in heaven, they still have residual guilt to suffer even in heaven."