一百五十讚佛頌

The World-Honored One, most supremely excellent,

Has nobly severed every evil cause.

The measureless merits and virtues—

All of them dwell in the body of the Tathāgata.

In the Buddha alone should one take refuge;

One should praise Him and render Him service.

The one who contemplates in accord with truth

Should abide within these very words.

The host of evils and afflictions—

To aid the world, one should cast them out.

When merit and wisdom are both complete,

One only reveres, never falling back.

Letting loose, one gives rise to evil views;

Toward the Noble One, regret arises.

Search through the deeds of body and speech—

No enmity or fault can be found in Him.

He helped me obtain a human body,

To hear the Dharma and give rise to joy—

Like a blind turtle within the vast ocean

That meets the hollow of a floating log.

Deluded thoughts forever follow along,

And the karma they evoke plunges one into a deep pit.

Therefore I employ these words

To praise the true merits of the Buddha.

The Muni's measureless realm,

His noble virtue, is truly without limit.

In order to seek my own benefit,

I now offer this slight praise.

Reverent homage to the Teacherless Wisdom,

Rare and wondrous in all His deeds.

His merit, wisdom, and majestic radiance—

Who could fully comprehend their measure?

The Tathāgata's virtue is boundless,

Beyond compare, beyond all telling.

I now, seeking blessing and benefit,

Therefore employ words of praise.

My powers of wisdom are coarse and shallow;

The Buddha's virtue is hard to equal.

I only pray that, in great loving-kindness and compassion,

He may rescue me who have no refuge.

Toward foe and kin alike, all equal,

He gives rise to the great compassion without conditions,

Reaching universally throughout all beings,

Forever becoming their true and good friend.

He ever practices the giving away of inner wealth—

How much more so of outer wealth!

He has never grudged or begrudged.

He does not fear the evil destinies,

Nor does He covet realms of bliss.

It is only for the sake of a pure heart

That moral discipline arises from this very source.

He ever departs from all that is false and beguiling,

And is able to draw near the upright and honest.

The intrinsic nature of all deeds is empty;

He dwells only in the supreme truth.

These many sufferings that press upon the body—

He is able skillfully to console them.

With right wisdom He cuts off all doubts;

As they pass, His heart of compassion rises.

He rescues those lives from calamity,

Giving rise to measureless joy.

As though for the dead He truly grieves and plans,

Then with delight passes on to that place.

When foes harm this very body,

In all times He is ever sorrowful;

He does not regard them as exceedingly evil,

But ever gives rise to the heart of great compassion.

His right view is like Bodhi itself;

His heart ever holds it as treasured and precious.

The Great Hero's wisdom hard to surpass—

Nothing can be its equal.

Hard to compare is the fruit of Bodhi;

If one creates this cause,

For its sake He has no care for the body.

He urges the cultivation of every good deed.

To the wealthy and to the poor alike,

He turns His great compassion equally.

Toward all these differences,

There is no high or low at all.

The fruit of supreme bliss He has attained and holds,

Yet His heart has no grasping attachment.

He universally delivers the multitude of beings;

His great compassion knows no interruption.

Though He meets with extreme suffering,

Toward pleasure He seeks and craves nothing.

The marvelous wisdom and all the merits—

So excellent they cannot be exhausted.

Among the mingled dharmas, defiled and pure,

He discerns the false and keeps to the true—

Like the beautiful King of Geese

That drinks the milk poured into the water.

Through measureless millions of kalpas,

Valiant and brave toward Bodhi,

In life after life there,

He gave up His body to seek the wondrous Dharma.

Through the number of three asaṃkhyeyas,

Diligent and never weary,

He held to this as His companion,

Easily realizing the wondrous Bodhi.

He has no heart of jealousy;

Toward that, He removes the very thought.

Equanimous, without contention,

His supreme conduct is wholly fulfilled.

Though He labored heavily at the cause,

He sought not the perfectly rounded fruit.

He is able to cultivate every excellent deed,

And the host of virtues fills Him of itself.

He earnestly cultivates the dharma of separation,

Rising above to lofty deeds.

Sitting, lying, or in walking meditation,

There is nowhere that is not a field of merit.

He uproots and removes all defilements,

And increases pure virtue—

All by means of the work of accumulation.

Though He is highest and most supreme,

All the merits are complete in Him;

Every error is wholly dispelled.

The Tathāgata's body is pure;

All defilements have been severed.

The provisions, gathered together,

All return to the body of the Tamer.

Should one wish to seek in His vows,

One cannot become equal to the Buddha.

Looking everywhere throughout the world,

Calamities and many hindering vexations,

Indulgence and few good deeds—

This makes it easy to do such things.

Far departing from all faults and offenses,

Surely He is at peace and unmoved.

The most supreme of wholesome roots

Cannot be likened by any simile.

The Tathāgata's wisdom is deep and far;

It is neither low nor bounded.

Worldly matters, beside the Buddha's body,

Are like an ox's footprint beside the great ocean.

The ancients bore everything—

In the world this is hard to find;

The great earth bears its mighty burden,

Yet compared to this it is truly light.

The darkness of folly is easily dispelled;

The Muni's radiance shines forth universally.

Worldly wisdom cannot be likened to it—

Like a spark beside the sun.

The Tathāgata's three deeds are pure—

The autumn moon shining on a still lake.

The cleansed world is likened to the Buddha's body,

Yet all still bears the nature of dust and defilement.

As has been drawn out and explained above,

Among the world's most excellent things,

The Buddha-Dharma far surpasses;

The world's affairs hold sorrow and grief.

The holy Dharma is like a precious treasure;

The Buddha presides upon the lofty summit,

With none above and none that can compare—

Only a Buddha together with a Buddha.

The Tathāgata, the ocean of holy wisdom—

Rejoicing, I praise but a little.

Those words that extol His virtue,

When compared, are truly not many.

In the world He subdues the Māras;

All must come and submit.

Contemplating Him and His true nature,

I am not yet equal to a feather's lightness.

Feigning a great battle,

With great wisdom He is able to subdue.

His holy virtue surpasses the world;

To subdue them needs no simile.

After that, the subduing of Māra followed,

In the middle and latter portions of the night.

He cut off the cause of the afflictions;

His great virtue was wholly complete.

His holy wisdom dispels delusion and ignorance,

Surpassing even a thousand suns.

He subdues all that is crooked and false—

Rare and wondrous, hard to equal.

The three wholesome roots are perfectly fulfilled;

Forever extinguishing greed and delusion.

All evil seeds must be removed;

His purity is hard to liken.

The wondrous Dharma, lofty, He is able to praise;

What is not the true Dharma must be removed.

False speech and wrong He fittingly corrects;

His heart holds neither anger nor favor.

Toward those holy disciples,

And the masters and pupils of the heterodox—

Whether they are wrong or right,

The Buddha's heart makes no distinction.

Toward virtue, His feelings are unstained;

Toward that virtue He has no craving desire.

How excellent—truly without defilement!

His holy wisdom is able to be pure.

His every faculty is deeply settled;

He has departed far from the deluded mind.

Within all the realms of objects,

By direct perception He sees them near at hand.

His mindfulness and wisdom reach the very end—

Not what the foolish worldling can match.

He skillfully establishes language,

Not forgetting any of these words.

Tranquil and luminous, unobstructed,

That radiance is like a reflection.

His handsome form, rare in the world,

Truly one cannot but hold a reverent heart.

Whether one meets Him for the very first time,

Or has long beheld Him in contemplation,

His excellent marks are without duality;

Before and after, all rejoice.

The most supreme majestic virtue of His body—

The one who contemplates it, his heart knows no care.

Though measureless kalpas pass by,

He rejoices as if meeting Him anew.

Relying upon that virtue,

One is able to rely upon the heart of virtue.

Nature and mark, the two are penetrated through;

Subject and object, in the end, are not different.

Just as one understands the virtue of the Sugata—

All of it is the body of the Tathāgata.

Apart from the Buddha's fine bodily marks,

There is no place of peace and security.

I, through the merits of former lives,

Have met the Tamer of beings.

Extolling the mountain of His merits,

From afar I gaze and speak with reverence.

All sentient beings

Are bound up by their afflictions;

Only the Buddha is able joyfully to remove them.

Out of love for the world, He long abides.

Who shall first revere and bow before Him?

Only the Buddha, with His heart of great compassion.

His holy virtue surpasses the world;

His compassionate vow remains within birth-and-death.

He delights in tranquil quietude;

In the defiled places of beings,

Throughout the kalpas He is ever diligent.

Loving-kindness is His all;

From true loving-kindness He benefits the worldly.

Born out of compassion,

Like a spell employed to subdue dragons,

With abundant clouds and wind and rain,

He ever abides in the Stage of Supreme Concentration.

With contemplation He embraces foe and kin alike.

Toward the perilous, the deranged, and the mad,

He gives up His body and returns to holy virtue.

With spiritual powers, the Lion's roar,

He extols the One of the Three Realms.

He ever conceals His name and fame;

Out of compassion He praises Himself.

He ever practices the deeds that benefit others,

Yet has never harbored a self-benefiting heart.

His thought of loving-kindness pervades all beings;

Toward them He has no private affection.

His compassion for foes knows no bounds;

Accordingly He liberates the multitude of beings.

In body and mind He keeps all in mind,

Never abandoning them for a moment.

When His benefit to others is repaid with insult,

For this reason it is not the Buddha's doing.

In gentle tones He speaks the wondrous meaning,

Truthful, never uttering falsehood.

Broad or brief, according to circumstance and condition,

Complete, He turns it in accord with the times.

If one hears Him expound,

If one does not rejoice—how rare that would be!

This makes them recall their evil minds;

The wise should treasure faith.

That meaning is His skillful means.

Or again He speaks harsh words,

Yet the benefit is surely no deception,

And so it becomes truly wondrous.

Soft and gentle, or coarse and rough—

According to that, He delivers beings.

His holy wisdom is unobstructed in mind,

Of a single taste, all equal,

Far surpassing, without defiled karma,

Skillful as a master craftsman.

He has perfected this subtle and wondrous body,

Joyfully speaking precious words.

To behold it is a delight;

Hearing the words, the heart at once opens.

His handsome form together with His fine words

Are like the moon that drips down ambrosia,

The cloud of loving-kindness raining lovely Dharma,

Able to cleanse the dust of desire.

Like that great Garuda bird

That destroys the evil dragons,

He is able to remove the darkness of ignorance,

Just like a thousand suns.

He shatters the mountain of arrogance,

Just like the staff of the Heavenly Emperor.

Manifestly realized, without falsehood or error,

His meditative stillness removes the scattered mind.

In accord with reality He nobly practices;

The three matters are all perfectly fulfilled.

Hearing broadly the Buddha's teaching of the Dharma,

The heart rejoices and then grows clear and bright.

From this He nobly contemplates,

Dispelling all defilement and stain.

Meeting suffering, He is able to console;

To the heedless He gives rise to fear;

To those drowned in pleasure He makes the heart grow weary.

Accordingly, all is opened up.

The superior in wisdom realize the joy of the Dharma;

The middling faculties give rise to Excellent Understanding;

The lowly and humble bring forth a faithful heart.

His words universally bring benefit and joy.

He nobly casts off all wrong views,

Leading to the place of Nirvāṇa.

Sin and defilement He is able to wash away,

For He rains down the great Dharma.

His every wisdom is unobstructed;

He ever abides in right mindfulness.

What the Tathāgata particularly speaks

Is wholly without falsehood or error.

Never out of place, never out of season,

And never seen to alter or change.

His words are never spoken in error;

Those who hear surely cultivate individually.

In a single path He employs skillful means,

Without admixture, fit to be cultivated.

Beginning, middle, and end are all good;

There is nowhere that His teaching is superfluous.

Thus directed toward the good,

Yet the fool gives rise to a heart of scorn.

If toward these words one gives rise to doubt—

He who is without enmity and without deceit,

Kalpa after kalpa for the sake of the deluded multitude,

Has passed through bitter and venomous sufferings.

These words are only that which is not good;

The recollection of the Buddha should be cultivated.

How much more so, since it brings benefit and joy,

And again speaks the deep and wondrous meaning.

Heedless indulgence is like a burning head;

Before these words, He saves and delivers.

Sovereign and free, He delights in awakening;

His holy virtue is ever calm and serene.

All this is born from these very words;

Realizing that, one forgets the words themselves.

The Hero of the World teaches what is true and real;

The heterodox sects, hearing it, are all alarmed.

The Māra-king recalls his tormented heart,

While humans and gods give rise to joy.

The earth makes no distinction,

Equal toward all places;

The holy teaching benefits the multitude of beings,

Bringing abundant benefit to wrong and right alike.

Gradually hearing the Buddha speak the Dharma,

Like a diamond it shall be perfected.

Not yet having released the bitter venom,

In the end one escapes that place of death.

Hearing the Dharma, one comes to clear understanding,

And in accord with reality nobly cultivates.

One by one, the three wisdoms are completed;

Other teachings cannot compare.

Only the solitary Sage, the Bull-King,

Whose beautiful principle is perfectly rounded—

If one does not diligently cultivate that teaching,

Surely there is an enmity greater than this.

Gradually hearing, He removes thirsting craving;

Wrong views and the deliberating mind arise.

Those who hear bring forth a joyful heart,

And relying on it, fulfill the pure precepts.

When the time of true joy has arrived,

The community grows, and the world all rejoices.

Teaching and transforming, He benefits the multitude of beings;

In tranquil cessation, together with compassionate feeling.

In praise and chant He removes all venoms,

And remembering them, He bears a heart of joy.

First seeking to give rise to wisdom,

His understanding and awakening, the heart is perfectly rounded.

Meeting one held in honor and esteem,

A reverent and noble heart arises.

To render service is all owing to merit;

Drawing near, one removes worry and vexation.

His moral discipline is wholly pure;

In meditative stillness the heart grows settled.

His prajñā wisdom is perfectly complete;

Merits as numerous as the sands of the Ganges gather together.

His honored countenance, and what He teaches,

And that which He has realized—

To see, hear, ponder, and remember these:

This treasure is exceedingly excellent.

Drifting and floating, He builds up dry land;

This harm He ever turns to help.

Those who are afraid should return to Him;

He leads them to the place of liberation.

Pure precepts form a vessel of goodness;

The good field gives rise to fresh fruit.

The good friend is able to bring benefit;

The life of wisdom is born from this.

Mindful of kindness, and harmonious in patience,

Those who behold Him share in joy.

Broadly gathering a heart of kindness and benevolence,

His merit is truly without end.

In body and speech He commits no error;

Love and reverence are born from this.

The auspicious and the manifold meanings—

Or one relies upon the virtue of the Sugata.

The guiding teacher is able to do good;

For those who have fallen, He raises them up;

His equal concentration upholds the crooked mind;

The confused He turns back to the right.

Those whose wholesome roots have ripened

Mount the vehicle of the Three Vehicles.

Vast and grand, hard for any to hold—

Out of compassion He gradually relinquishes.

Where He meets danger, He is able to save;

In peace and joy He urges the cultivation of goodness.

He has compassion for the suffering of beings,

Bringing benefit and joy to the multitude of the sprouting deluded.

To wrongdoing He turns the thought of loving-kindness;

When the wrongdoer gives rise to worry,

When wrath arises, He gives rise to a heart of compassion.

His holy virtue is hard to praise.

His deep kindness is like a net cast over us;

The world should clearly come to know it.

Here, in return, enmity arises,

Yet He ever gives rise to loving tenderness.

He gives up His body to save them all;

His own affairs He counts not worth a care.

Together with those who have fallen,

Drawing near, He must rescue and aid them.

Through two lives He renders kindness and grace,

Surpassing all the world.

In darkness He ever shines forth light;

For the sake of wisdom He makes Himself a lamp.

Humans and gods all depend upon Him,

Differing according to their kinds.

Only He is the master of the true Dharma,

Equal, without distinction.

He looks not upon kindred or clan,

Upon beauty of form or age;

According to a person's wholesome roots,

The seekers all have their wishes fulfilled.

Broadly He manifests rare and wondrous deeds;

Without conditions He gives rise to great compassion.

The holy assembly, and gods and humans,

Joining palms or drawing near—

A cry of voices, the fear of birth-and-death:

The Buddha appears, and with His light

He brings benefit and joy to all beings,

So that they all attain the fulfillment of their wishes.

The evil ones in one and the same place,

Wishing for joy, receive worry and vexation.

The afflictions that harm this body,

He receives as though receiving good virtue.

Because of things He bears much suffering,

Yet has never had a heart of defiled attachment.

The World-Honored One's virtue is rare and wondrous,

Hard to express in words.

He entered into peril and evil,

In the time of the horse and the ox-goad arrows.

Through six years of ascetic austerities

He calmly endured, His heart never retreating.

He dwells in the most supreme place,

In compassion delivering the multitude of beings.

Meeting one who is exceedingly foolish,

In body and speech He surpasses in reverent courtesy.

Or in the presence of one held in honor,

He has never harbored an arrogant heart.

Concealing the affairs of beings,

He is reverent as a humble servant.

The myriad feelings of hundreds of millions of kinds,

Spoken of, are harder still a hundred thousandfold.

The Tathāgata's loving and gentle voice,

In a single reply, parts all doubt.

His deep kindness is kept concealed,

Yet toward that virtue deep enmity arises.

He regards both hatred and circumstance

As though they were grace truly weighty.

When enmity is turned against Him into harm,

He turns toward that enmity into kinship.

That one ever seeks within the Buddha;

The Buddha and that one are bound in kindness.

The heterodox sects are able to envy,

Feeding poison and the pit of fire.

His compassionate vow transforms it into a clear pond,

Changing poison into ambrosia.

With patience He tames wrath and rage;

With true words He upholds against slander.

The power of loving-kindness transforms Māra's enmity;

Right wisdom removes Māra's venom.

The deluded multitude, through many kalpas,

By evil have formed their very nature.

Only He, by His subtle and wondrous conduct,

In a single thought turns them to goodness.

With warmth and gentleness He subdues wrath and defiance;

With the energy of wisdom He shatters stinginess.

Good words overcome harsh words—

Only He is fully furnished with skillful means.

Nandi and the great arrogant ones,

Aṅgulimāla—He gives rise to a heart of compassion.

The hard to tame, He is able to nobly tame;

Who would not extol it? How rare it is!

Though He has His holy disciples,

The savor of the Dharma is the joy of His own heart.

Sitting upon grass, He is at peace and ease;

A bed of gold He counts not precious.

He nobly knows their faculties, desires, and natures,

And gathers and transforms them by means of conditions.

Or again He awaits their request,

Or, unasked, He speaks of His own accord.

First He bestows the precepts upon them;

Afterward, the pure mind is born.

Later He speaks the true Dharma,

And at the last brings them to perfect realization.

Fear and dread spread to every place;

In the Buddha alone is the place of refuge.

The valiant and brave One of Great Compassion

Rescues and aids the multitude of beings.

His cloud-like body pervades the Dharma-realm;

The rain of Dharma falls in every place.

His responsive manifestations are not alike;

According to capacity, therefore, they do not differ.

Nobly at peace, committing no error,

In Him alone should one render reverent service.

Broadly He delivers all the gods and humans.

Or, when one comes to make offerings,

His body and mouth do not stir against them.

His noble transformation reaches every place;

What He speaks accords nobly with all.

This virtue belongs to Him alone—

Through long ages He cultivated the three good deeds.

His wondrous marks appear in every place;

Looking everywhere throughout the worlds,

There has never been a virtue surpassing this.

How much more for one who is utterly evil!

Purely He practices the lofty loving-kindness and compassion,

Reaching broadly to every being,

Valiant and brave together with diligent energy.

The Śrāvakas, those who understand the Dharma,

Toward Him ever render service,

Becoming those who realize Nirvāṇa.

At the last He is called the one who bears the charge.

They are that holy assembly,

Who for this sake cultivate and study.

Because the heart of relinquishing benefit is born,

There is no name, yet there is the responsibility.

Ignorance—this awakening lay asleep;

With compassionate contemplation He looks everywhere.

Lifting them further, He gives rise to their diligence;

The holy and good are able to draw near.

Māra's enmity and the harm of vexation,

The Buddha's power is ever able to remove.

Within the merit of fearlessness,

He ever manifests, more or less.

His compassionate heart transforms all;

His holy intent is utterly hard to seek.

Of benefit and joy there is nothing He does not bestow;

All things turn out fine and good.

The Tathāgata's great and wondrous Dharma—

If only one could exchange for it!

Devadatta and Sunakṣatra

Should not have abandoned these words.

Within the beginningless flowing and turning,

Together we found no benefit or joy.

Because the Buddha appeared in the world,

He revealed and opened the way to deliver beings.

At the Deer Park He delivered all;

In the Sturdy Grove He delivered Subhadra.

Those delivered, their roots and conditions complete,

At once were no longer bound.

The Dharma-wheel turns on, long and enduring,

Awakening the multitude of the deluded.

People numerous as the Ganges' sands receive His teaching,

All bringing benefit to the three realms.

By means of the supreme Vajra Samādhi,

He opens of Himself the prison of the body.

Never departing from great compassion,

His self-deliverance is as if shared out.

The conduct of the two benefits already fulfilled,

The two bodies of form and Dharma are complete.

Rescuing and gathering even the icchantika,

In the Twin Groves He revealed the Buddha-nature.

His compassionate heart embraces the three realms;

Form-images together with the multitude of beings.

Like a grain of rice He divides His body,

And thus enters into final extinction.

How excellent—He entrusts it to be kept and guarded!

Rare and wondrous, the merits of His body.

The Great Awakened One's every Dharma-gate

Has never before existed in the world.

He bequeaths His kindness to the sentient,

His body and speech ever serene and still.

The foolish worldling is moistened by the Holy One's grace,

Yet toward Him they slander and rage.

The Dharma-store, the precious treasury, is truly inexhaustible;

The source of virtue, the ocean of merit, is truly hard to equal.

If there be a being who has once bowed to Him,

To bow to Him is again called a noble homage.

His holy virtue and divine power have no end;

I now, of lowly wisdom, am like the dust and dirt.

Wishing to extol the merits of the Tathāgata,

I hope to pass through it only by coming to a halt.

Measureless, numberless, boundless realms,

Hard to conceive, hard to see, hard to realize—

Only the Buddha's holy wisdom alone clearly knows.

How could the foolish worldling find a place to praise?

A single hair, a single mark fills the Dharma-realm;

A single deed, a single virtue pervades the whole mind.

Pure and vast like the grasses of a pond,

He is able of Himself to bear the afflictions of beings.

I praise the Muni, the ocean of merit;

Relying on these wholesome deeds, I reach toward Bodhi.

I universally pray that the sentient bring forth the great mind,

And resolutely depart from the foolish worldling's false and deluded consciousness.

One hundred fifty verses extolling the Buddha — The End