諸經要集 7.14

7.14

The parivrājaka said, "This is not something you women understand. If you are not pleased, you may return on your own. I myself will take our daughter to the Buddha's place." Bowing his head to the Buddha's feet, he said, "O Great Benevolent One, you labor diligently in teaching, yet you have no one to attend on you. I have this coarse daughter, and I wish to offer her to sweep and clean for you." The Buddha said, "Do you consider this daughter to be beautiful?" He replied, "Having fathered this daughter, her facial features are truly beautiful, peerless in the world. Many kings and nobles from various lands have sought her, but I would not give her to them. I have seen that the Great Benevolent One's radiant light is towering and majestic, unseen in the world. Desiring to offer her into your service, I have ventured to come and take refuge." The Buddha said, "Wherein lies this girl's beauty?" The parivrājaka said, "From head to foot, wherever one looks around, there is nothing that is not beautiful." The Buddha said, "How deluded are the eyes of flesh! As I now see her, from head to foot there is not a single thing that is beautiful. You see hair upon her head, but hair is merely animal fur; the tails of elephants and horses are just the same. Beneath the hair is a skull; a skull is bone, and a pig's skull in a butcher shop is just the same. Inside the head is a brain; the brain is like mud, foul-smelling and offensive to the nose; if cast to the ground, no one could bear to step on it. The eyes are pools; pierce them and they are pure juice. In the nose is snot, and the mouth has only saliva. The belly conceals liver and lungs, all of which are rank and foul. The intestines, stomach, and bladder hold only feces and urine, rotten and fetid beyond description. The belly is a leather bag containing all manner of impurities. The four limbs, hands, and feet are bones propping up bones, with sinews drawn tight and skin stretched, relying only on the breath to move. It is like a wooden puppet operated by mechanisms: once operated and finished, when its parts are dismantled and peeled apart, joint is separated from joint, with head and feet strewn in disorder. Humans are also like this. What beauty is there, that you say she has few equals? In the past, when I was beneath the Pippala tree, the king of the sixth Māra heaven adorned three daughters, whose faces and adornments were peerless in heaven, far surpassing the likes of this. Wishing to destroy my resolve for the Path, I spoke to them of the foul filth within the body, and they immediately transformed into old hags, their forms ruined beyond restoration, and departed in shame. Now, what transformation could this sack of dung perform? Take her back at once; I will not accept her." Hearing what the Buddha said, the parivrājaka suddenly felt ashamed and speechless. He then addressed the Buddha again, "If the Benevolent One will not take her, may I give her as wife to King Udayana?" The Buddha did not reply. The parivrājaka then presented his daughter to King Udayana. When the king obtained the girl, he was overjoyed; he appointed the father as Grand Tutor, built a palace for the girl, and provided a thousand female musicians to attend upon her. The king's principal queen served the Buddha as her teacher and attained the fruit of srotāpanna. This girl slandered her to the king, and the king, deluded by her words, shot a hundred arrows at the queen. When the queen saw the arrows, she was not afraid and felt no anger at all. With single-minded devotion, she meditated on the Buddha with a mind of loving-kindness and knelt toward the king. The arrows all circled the queen three times and returned to halt before the king; all one hundred arrows did likewise. The king then came to his senses, dismayed and terrified. He immediately mounted a golden chariot with a white elephant and rushed to the Buddha's place. Before arriving, he stepped down from the chariot, dismissed his retinue, clasped his hands together, advanced on foot, bowed his head to the Buddha's feet, and knelt upright to confess, saying, "I have committed a grave offense, and I feel ashamed before the Three Honored Ones. Driven by lust, plotting to give rise to evil, I harbored poisonous and vile thoughts toward the holy assembly of the Buddha, and shot one hundred arrows at the Buddha's disciple." He related the matter as it happened: "Seeing this, my heart was filled with terror. I contemplate only the supreme, immeasurable loving-kindness of the Buddha. If a lay disciple possesses such power of loving-kindness, how much more so the unsurpassed, truly enlightened Buddha! I now confess my fault and take refuge in the Three Honored Ones. May the Buddha, in his vast loving-kindness, forgive and pardon my offense." The Buddha praised him, saying, "Excellent! The king perceives his evil and repents of his offense; this is the conduct of a wise person. I accept the king's good intention." The king bowed his head like this three times, and the Buddha also accepted it three times. The king then touched his head to the ground, withdrew to a seat, and said, "Endowed with a cruel and stubborn nature, I have indulged my anger and wilfulness, lacking a mind of patience, not eradicating the three poisons, and indulging in evil conduct for momentary pleasure. Beguiled by the alluring charms of a woman, I did not recognize her evil. Reflecting upon myself, after death I must surely enter hell. I pray the Buddha will show mercy and broadly explain the evil of women and their goblin-like guile. Once caught in their net, few can extricate themselves. Hearing of this calamity, I will surely take heed, and the people of my kingdom, great and small, may reform their ways." The Buddha said, "Must you ask about this? Let us speak only of other matters." The king said, "Other matters can be learned on another day without being too late. But women disorder and confuse the mind, causing great disaster and calamity; if one does not hear of their perils, by what means can one stay far from them? I pray the Buddha will explain fully for me the transformations of hell and the filth of women." The Buddha said, "Listen then. Men have the evils of madness and folly; turn back and examine the bewitchment of women." The king said, "Excellent. I wish to receive your luminous teaching." The Buddha said, "Men have four evils that must urgently be understood. There are lustful men in the world who constantly long to gaze upon women, who yearn to hear their bewitching voices, abandoning the true Dharma, doubting the genuine and believing in the perverse. Bound by the net of desire, they sink into blindness and darkness, driven by desire like slaves fearing their master. Greedy for the pleasure of female beauty, they give no thought to the foul filth of the nine orifices' discharges. Immersed in desire like pigs in a mire, they do not notice its stench, taking pleasant comfort in it. They do not consider that in future lives they will suffer endless agony in the Avīci Hell. Their minds fixed on lust, they suck their snot and saliva, play with their pus and blood, prizing it like jade and finding it as sweet as honey. Thus they are called slaves of desire; this is the first evil trait. Furthermore, when parents raise a child, conceiving, giving birth, and bringing him up to adulthood, their toil and hardship are beyond words. When the son grows up, the household is drained and wealth exhausted, crawling on knees and elbows to convey feelings through a matchmaker in order to bring that woman to be his wife. If she is in another city, he pursues her, heedless of distance or hardship. His attention fixed on lust, he abandons and forgets his aged parents. Once he has taken her as his wife, he values her like a jewel; wishing to take private pleasure with her, he resents seeing his parents. Believing her bewitching words, he may even enter into strife and litigation, failing to consider whence his body came and betraying the immeasurable kindness of his parents; this is the second evil trait. Furthermore, when a person lives in the world, toiling with his body and working hard to acquire wealth, he originally had sincere faith and respect for the Path, venerating śramaṇas and brāhmaṇas, recognizing the impermanence of the world, and giving alms to cultivate merit. Yet after taking a wife, his feelings are deluded by lust; blindly self-obstructed, he turns his back on the genuine and leans toward the perverse, entirely following the schemes of the woman. If he has the intent to give alms, he seeks only to speak of adorning female beauty, severing pure practice and degrading himself into a petty person, ignorant of the grave admonitions of the Buddhist scriptures and where fortune and misfortune ultimately lead. Simply driven by lust, he throws himself into the net, bound to fall into the evil destinies and never repenting to the end; this is the third evil trait. Furthermore, if as a son one does not think of the kindness of being raised, and in managing a livelihood to acquire wealth does not use it to support one's parents, but instead goes east and west widely seeking paths of lust, carrying treasures to seduce other men's wives, or slaughtering domestic animals to offer lewd sacrifices to ghosts and spirits, drinking wine, singing, dancing, and bringing men and women together, indulging in pleasure and revelry more and more all day long, feigning externally to pray for blessings while internally soliciting adultery; once drunk, they mutually seek expedients and beckon one another to fulfill their illicit passions; when they obtain a partner, their joy is beyond compare, their lustful fetters binding them so that they recognize nothing else. At that time, they take only this to be pleasure, unaware of the foulness of impure discharges and the agony of hell. On the one hand it is laughable; on the other, it is lamentable. Like the mad and raving who know not their own wrongs; this is the fourth evil trait. When men have these four evils, they fall into the three miserable destinies. One must examine and stay far from these to escape suffering. Now listen further as I explain the evils of women." The Buddha then spoke in verse (abridged to the essentials):