法苑珠林 96.4

96.4

The nature of form has no physical mark; when touched, it inevitably returns to emptiness. If the three times are illusory, when examined to their minutest elements, they will ultimately disperse. Even with authority that can turn the heavens and shake the earth, it will inevitably end in obliteration; the splendor of the Qi caps and the Chu sashes can never save one from turning to dust and soil. Therefore, the body has no fixed substance, being a confluence of diverse conditions; the four elements differ, and wind and fire constantly diverge. Splitting and separating them, they are originally not a single thing. [The distance between] the liver of Yan and the gallbladder of Yue is not sufficient as a comparison. Only when bodhisattvas benefit living beings do they fully exhaust its meaning. Yet accumulating this dark delusion, beings are born and reborn without cease. If a single thought should happen to occur, before even a moment passes, obstacles and habit-energies buffet one another, and they immediately lose their way. They point errantly to emptiness and call it existence; harming life to nourish oneself is termed poison. Storing up wealth outside the body to satisfy desires, and encroaching upon what is not one's share to indulge extravagance—how could it merely be a matter of warming the skin and filling the stomach like this? Even to the extent of amassing chests and filling storerooms, overflowing platters and filling larders, from beginningless time until now people have served this illusory self, yet have never been sated. Reflecting quietly on this matter, is it not sinful? Now that one has realized the error of vainly keeping this unbaked jar, both object and self are entirely empty; where does treasure and cherish lie? Therefore, understanding illusion and deceit is the constant mind of the Great Being; relinquishing the false to seek the true is the constant vow of the bodhisattva. They realize that the three realms are an abode of morning and evening, and awaken to the four modes of birth being a realm of dreams and illusions. Secular teachings say: "In life, the body is a lodge; in death, one should take Heaven and Earth as inner and outer coffins." Buddhist teachings say: "The prince offering his body surpassed nine kalpas of merit; slicing flesh to ransom a dove shook the three thousand [worlds]." Comparing the present to antiquity, one hopes to be the same, seeking to enable the white ox to have the strength for the long road, and the jewel ship to have the power to reach the other shore.