諸經要集 10.45

10.45

Furthermore, the *Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra* states: If one vexes one's family members to obtain goods for dāna, even though this person may obtain a great reward in the future, their body will suffer illness and pain. If one cannot first provide for one's parents, but distresses one's wife, children, and slaves, causing them hardship to give dāna, this is called an evil person; this is nominally called giving, but is not called giving in true principle. Giving of this kind is called being devoid of pity and ignorant of repaying kindness. Even though this person may obtain wealth and treasures in the future, they will constantly seek them without accumulating any, unable to spend or use them, and their body will suffer much illness and pain. Using this passage as proof, forcibly conscripting people's property to undertake the cultivation of merit instead incurs painful retribution. How can this be called producing benefit? In the present latter age, both monastics and laity are in decay and decline, competing to hold fasts and lectures, and forcibly extorting wealth to build and repair stūpas and monasteries. According to the sūtras, this is improper, and instead incurs the aforesaid sins. It is not as good as sitting in quietude to cultivate real practice within; among forms of renunciation, there is none superior to this. If one has a pure mind and expounds the Dharma for others, and the other person with reverent sincerity seeks the Dharma and relinquishes gifts, one must preach for them to help accomplish their merit and wisdom. One must not indiscriminately reject everything based on the previous judgment, wildly producing slander and obstructing others' merit. Furthermore, the commentary to the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha* by Asanga [and Asvabhāva] states: The bodhisattva sees that those sentient beings have heavy karmic hindrances regarding their wealth and status, and therefore does not give to them, so that the charitable gift is not rendered empty and without fruit. Even if one were to give to them, they would not be able to receive it; what would be the use of giving? As a verse says: