法苑珠林 91.42

91.42

As the *Śāriputraparipṛcchā-sūtra* states, Śāriputra said to the Buddha: "There are dānapatis who build saṃghārāmas and provide abundant resources to supply monks coming and going. If there are monks who resemble renouncers, who go at improper times to the monk in charge of food to demand food, and food is given to them, what kind of sin do the eaters and the givers incur? What kind of merit do the original dānapatis obtain?"
The Buddha said: "Those who eat at improper times are people who break the precepts; they are people who commit theft. Those who give at improper times are also people who break the precepts; they are also people who commit theft. They steal the goods of the dānapatis; this is taking what is not given, which is not the intention of the donor. The donor has no merit, because the goods are lost, though there is still the goodness of the initial resolve to establish it."
Śāriputra said: "If one receives at the proper time and eats at the proper time, and if what is eaten is not exhausted, and one eats again at an improper time; or if one receives at the proper time, but waits until an improper time to eat, does one obtain merit or not?"
The Buddha said: "Those who eat purely at the proper time are indeed fields of merit; they are indeed renouncers; they are indeed the saṃgha; they are indeed good friends to gods and humans; they are indeed guides to gods and humans. Those who are impure are still precept-breakers; they are great robbers; they are hungry ghosts; they are dens of sins. As for those who demand at improper times, if one readily gives at proper or improper times, the giver of food is called one who retrogresses from the path, an evil māra, the three evil realms, a broken vessel, a leper. Because they destroy the good fruit and sustain their lives by stealing and begging, the Brahmins do not eat at improper times, and the heterodox parivrājakas do not eat by wrong livelihood. How much more so for my disciples, who know the Dharma and practice the Dharma—should they act thus? All such as these are not my disciples; they are people who steal the benefits of my Dharma and cling to lawlessness; they are called illicit people who steal food. Both the giving in theft and the receiving in theft, whether a ball, a pinch, a bit of salt, or a bit of vinegar—all will, after death, fall into the Scorched Entrails Hell and swallow hot iron balls. Emerging from the hell, they will be born among pigs and dogs to eat various impurities; they will also be born as evil birds whose cries people find ominous; later they will be born as hungry ghosts, returning to the saṃghārāma to dwell in the latrines and consume filth for hundreds of thousands of myriad years. When born again among humans, they will be impoverished, low and base, despised and hated by people beyond description, and people will not trust them. This is not like stealing the goods of a single person, where the sin is still light; [this sin is severe] because it takes by force from many people, because it pertains to the excellent field of merit, and because it severs the supramundane path."