法苑珠林 91.40

91.40

One reflects on the sorrow of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness, and ponders the afflictions of birth, old age, sickness, and death. In the long night, one grieves over the suffering of hanging upside down; drifting and drowning, one laments the submergence of sinking and falling. Thinking of this is heart-rending, and also profoundly dreadful. Truly, this is because the field of merit is slight and thin, and faithful offerings are difficult to digest. When fasting and precepts lack firmness, the matter is like an unbaked earthen jar, easy to destroy and hard to preserve, and also like frost and dew. The self and others grow increasingly dominant, clinging more tightly than glue and lacquer. One fears not the calamities of accumulated kalpas, but worries only for the life of a single body. Therefore, gorging on food and sleeping for long periods, how does one differ from pigs and dogs? Breaking the fast and eating at night is no different from the realm of hungry ghosts. Therefore, the donor loses the timely merit, and the saṃgha damages the seeds of the good field.