諸經要集 3.47

3.47

According to the Xiangfa jueyi jing: "Building anew is not as good as repairing the old; creating blessings is not as good as avoiding calamity." These words are indeed verified. In some village quarters, stūpas, and monasteries, the graves are old, the halls and buildings of the saṅghārāma are decaying and damaged, and the houses and rooms have collapsed. Mats for curtains and woven-weed doors cannot keep out smoke and dust; jar-rim windows and thatched roofs provide no cover from frost and dew. Consequently, the gates and walls are dilapidated and ruined, excrement and filth fill the steps, the pathways have no human footprints, and the monastic community drifts about as lodgers, neither repairing nor adorning them, declining day by day. Committing sins and transgressions, they do not pause for an instant. In the dark night, lamps and candles have never been heard of; in the daytime, banners and flowers have never been seen. The halls are devoid of Sanskrit chanting, and the censers contain only ash and dust. This causes evil ghosts to show their uncanny power and good spirits to abandon their protection. The saṅghārāma lacks stability simply because the monastic community is negligent and lazy; and that the Buddha's Dharma has decayed is also because white-robed laypeople have no reverence. If one does not worry over this, what else should one seek? Furthermore, the Ratnarāśi-sūtra states: "There was a wise man whose face bore the marks of a king. A physiognomist saw this and gave his daughter to him in marriage. Later, the wise man entered a saṅgha monastery and leaned his staff against the saṅghārāma. Because he gave rise to arrogance, he lost his marks of kingship and fell into the great hell."