法苑珠林 96.27

96.27

"This useless body, / Disliking to trouble the labor of others, / Casts off its form upon the bare rocks, / Scatters its limbs among cliff-side pines. / Devas, humans, and asuras, / Mountain spirits and tree spirits, / If there be any who seek the Way, / Behold my giving up of this body! / I vow that sentient beings, / Seeing my skeleton, / Shall have the great ship of their defilements / Utterly overturned and submerged. / I vow that sentient beings, / Hearing of my surrender of life, / Shall attain the divine ear, / And ultimately realize bodhi. / I vow that sentient beings, / When they bring me to mind, / Shall be endowed with the power of mindfulness, / And attain broad learning and dhāraṇī. / Once this retribution [body] ceases, / The four elements wither and scatter; / The springs and forests end their paths, / The rock chambers fall silent. / Universally given to birds and beasts, / Down even to the insects: / Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood / Shall be filled with roots of goodness within. / I vow that in the future / I shall swiftly become a Sugata, / Free in body and mind, / Bound to rescue them all. / This body is impure, / An utter sack of dung; / The nine apertures constantly flow, / Like a breached embankment. / This body is loathsome, / Unfit to be looked upon; / Wrapped in thin skin with blood, / Smeared and covered with filth. / This body is foul and putrid, / Just like a dead dog; / Formed of the six-and-six, / Not born from flowers. / Contemplate this foul body, / Imprisoned by impermanence; / No escape, forward or back, / Sure to meet with ants and worms. / This body is hard to protect; / Where there is life, it must be lost, / Devoured by foxes and wolves, / In the end turning to maggots and flies. / Devas, humans, men and women, / Fair and ugly, noble and base, / Burned by the fire of death, / Seen for a moment like lightning. / The law of death preys on humanity, / The bitterest enemy among enemies; / Considering it my foe, / I vow to sever its roots and source. / In this body there is no joy: / A casket of poisonous snakes, / Hemmed round by the four elements, / Afflicted with a hundred diseases. / Given the name 'heap of suffering', / Numbering old age, sickness, and death; / Body and mind fevered and tormented, / Plagued by manifold faults. / In this body there is no self; / Being devoid of autonomy, / Groundlessly imagined without reality, / Governed by foolish worldlings. / Deluded for ages long, / Driven by topsy-turvy falsehood, / Losing roots of goodness, / Dying the same as beasts. / Cast away hundreds of thousands of times, / Blood and milk have formed an ocean; / Bones have piled into great mountains, / And in the future will double again. / Never yet having served any good, / Fruitlessly bearing toils and pain, / Useless to sentient beings, / Of no aid to the Dharma. / Patiently enduring pain to give it away, / Its efficacy is boundless; / I vow never to fall back, / And to transcend the four entanglements. / Relinquishing this defiled form, / I vow to be born in the Pure Land; / In a single thought the flower will open / In the realm of the Buddha Amitâbha. / Swiftly beholding the worthy and sage, / The Buddhas of the ten directions, / Long parting from the three evil destinies, / Settled upon the correct path, / Obtaining the five superknowledges as reward, / Flying freely at will, / Feasting on the Dharma beneath jeweled trees, / Realizing the great non-arising. / The Dharma-body having gained autonomy, / Never severing the three existences, / Wiping out the ways of Māra, / Taking the protection of the Dharma as foremost, / Fulfilling the ten grounds, / Divine transformations without limit, / Virtues endowed with the four excellences, / Bearing the title of Dharma King. / I vow to cast off this body / And swiftly attain autonomy; / With the Dharma-body attaining autonomy, / Present in all realms of rebirth, / Wherever there is benefit, / Protecting the Dharma and saving living beings. / Once again, karmic effects must come to an end; / Conditioned things are all like this. / The three realms are impermanent; / Coming is not by one's own will. / Slain by others or dying [of old age], / All ultimately return to this. / The wise take no pleasure in it / And should reflect upon this: / As all conditions have now converged, / My karma ends this very day."