龍樹菩薩為禪陀迦王說法要偈

King Śātavāhana, you should know:

Birth and death are suffering and affliction, with many faults,

Wholly covered and obstructed by ignorance.

I now, for their sake, bring forth benefit.

Just as one who carves and fashions an image of the Buddha,

The wise, beholding it, should pay it reverence,

So I, relying on the Tathāgata, speak the true Dharma;

Great King, you too should believe and accept it deeply.

Though formerly you heard the words of Śākyamuni,

Now if you hear and accept them, your understanding will increase.

Just as a lotus pond of pure color,

So the moonlight shines forth brighter than the day.

The Buddha taught the six recollections that must be cultivated,

Namely: the Three Jewels, Giving, Precepts, and the Heavens.

Cultivate the ten wholesome deeds and purify the three karmas,

Abandon liquor, heedlessness, and wrong livelihood.

Contemplate that body, life, and wealth swiftly fall into peril,

So give to the Field of Merit and rescue the poor and destitute.

Giving makes one firm and steadfast, beyond all compare;

It is the foremost and closest of intimates.

Diligently cultivate pure precepts and remove the stains of defilement,

And do not crave or seek the various states of becoming.

Just as when one sows and plants in the great earth,

So the precepts give birth to all wholesome things.

Cultivate Patience, gentleness, and forbearance, and cast off anger and hatred;

The Buddha said this practice is the most supreme.

Likewise Effort, Meditation, and Wisdom:

Complete in these six practices, one transcends life and death.

One who can dwell at home with filial piety toward father and mother,

This indeed is called the excellent field of merit;

In this present life one's great renown spreads everywhere,

And in future lives the merit and reward turn forth without measure.

Killing, stealing, lust, falsehood, and indulgence in liquor,

Lofty and wide adorned beds, and the use of perfumes,

Singing, dancing, and entertainments, and eating past the proper time —

Such evils as these one must keep far away.

If for but a short time one cultivates these precepts,

One receives the joy of the heavens and ascends to nirvāṇa.

Stinginess, greed and desire, and flattery and deceit,

Cheating and delusion, perversion and indolence —

Such evil and unwholesome dharmas as these,

Great King, you must contemplate and swiftly cast away.

Comeliness, high rank, and the five desires —

You must know they are perilous and frivolous;

Do not rely upon those unstable things.

Arrogance and indulgence give birth to all sufferings;

If you wish to increase all wholesomeness and realize the ambrosia,

You must keep far away from them, as one casts off poison.

If you can diligently strive and abandon pride and conceit,

It is like clearing away the clouds to reveal the autumn moon,

Like Śikhin and Nanda,

And like Kṣema and the other sages.

The Tathāgata spoke of three kinds of speech:

Pleasing speech, truthful speech, and false speech.

Pleasing speech is like a flower; truthful speech is like honey;

False, evil, and base speech is like dung and filth.

You should cultivate the first two kinds,

And swiftly cut off and remove the false kind.

Four kinds of dharmas — from light entering into light —

The King must distinguish and ponder carefully:

The two kinds that enter into light should be cultivated,

But if they are deluded and dark, they must be swiftly abandoned.

The fruit of the āmra tree manifests in four kinds,

Which people find hard to distinguish — and so it is likewise.

You must with wisdom contemplate deeply;

If they are truly virtuous and good, you should draw near them.

Though you behold a woman of utmost dignity and adornment,

You must regard her as a mother or as a servant.

If a mind of lustful desire and defiling attachment arises,

You must rightly cultivate the contemplation of impurity.

This restless mind must be checked and restrained,

As one guards one's life or precious treasures.

If a mind of desire arises, you must be alarmed and afraid,

As one fears swords and blades and the various beasts of prey.

Desire works to one's harm, like an enmity or poison —

Thus spoke the Lord Muni.

The cycle of birth and death exceeds the bonds of a prison,

So one must diligently cultivate and seek liberation.

The Six Entrances are restless and chase after the various objects;

You must gather and restrain them, do not let them run wild.

One who can thus subdue the faculties

Surpasses even the brave general who conquers a mighty foe.

This body is impure, flowing from its nine apertures,

Without end, like the rivers and the sea.

The thin skin covers it over as if it were pure,

Like false necklaces adorning oneself.

Those who have wisdom rightly discern,

Knowing that it deceives, and at once cast it away.

Just as a scabby person beside a roaring fire —

Though at first it brings a moment's pleasure, afterward suffering increases —

The notions of lustful desire are likewise:

A little pleasure at first, but many calamities after.

Seeing the true character of the body, that all is impure,

Right there contemplate that it is empty, that there is no self.

If one can cultivate this contemplation,

Among all benefits it is the most unsurpassed.

Though one has lineage and has heard much,

If one lacks precepts and wisdom, one is like a beast.

Though one's place is lowly and one has seen and heard little,

If one attains precepts and wisdom, one is called an excellent person.

The eight dharmas — gain, decline, and the rest — are hard to avoid;

If one can remove them, it is truly beyond compare.

The śramaṇas and the brāhmaṇas

Have fathers and mothers, wives and children, and kinsfolk.

Do not, for the sake of their wishes, accept their words

And widely commit unwholesome deeds, practicing what is contrary to the Dharma;

If because of this you give rise to faults,

In the future the great suffering you alone will receive.

In general, when one commits various evils, the retribution does not come at once,

Not like a sword or blade that immediately wounds and harms;

At the moment of death the marks of the sin first appear together,

And afterward one enters the hells and undergoes the various sufferings.

Faith, Giving, Precepts, learning, Wisdom, Shame, and Conscience —

These seven dharmas are called the Wealth of the Noble Ones,

True and beyond compare, as the Muni declared,

Surpassing all the precious treasures of the world.

Great King, if you gather this excellent wealth,

Before long you too will realize the fruit of the place of awakening.

Skill at chess, sweet wine, and fine lute and flute,

Indolence, arrogance, and evil companions,

Untimely acts, frivolous restlessness, and much agitation —

These seven dharmas you must keep far away.

Contentment is the first and surpasses all riches —

Such words were spoken by the World-Honored One.

Knowing what is enough, though poor, one is called rich;

Having possessions yet much desire is called poor.

If with much wealth and enterprise one increases the various sufferings,

It is like a many-headed dragon adding to its venom.

You must contemplate fine flavors as if they were poison,

Using the water of wisdom to sprinkle and make them clean.

In order to sustain this body, one must eat,

But do not crave flavor and beauty, which increase pride and conceit;

Toward the various defilements of desire, you must give rise to disgust.

Regulate and harmonize this body so as to make it peaceful and at ease,

Diligently seek the unsurpassed path of nirvāṇa,

And thereafter you should cultivate the fasting precepts.

In dividing a single night there are five watches;

During two of those watches you should sleep and rest;

In the first watch, the middle, and the last, contemplate birth and death,

And diligently seek liberation — do not let them pass in vain.

The four immeasurable concentrations must be cultivated;

These are called the opening of the road to Brahmā's Heaven.

If one focuses and binds one's mindfulness to the four mental concentrations,

When life ends one will surely be born in that heaven.

All conditioned things shift and change and are all impermanent —

Suffering, empty, decaying, and not firm,

Without self, without joy, and not pure.

Such are all called the dharmas of counteraction.

If anyone contemplates this dharma-gate deeply,

In future lives one will ever dwell in an honored and noble station.

Cultivate the five precepts and cut off the five wrongs —

This too is what the Great King should bear in mind:

Just as a little salt cast into the Ganges River

Cannot make its waters taste salty,

So if a small and slight evil meets with the various wholesome deeds,

It is dissolved and destroyed in just the same way.

If the five wrongs increase, they plunder one's merit;

The King must remove and destroy them, not letting them increase.

The five faculties, such as Faith and the rest, the sources of all goodness —

These you must cultivate and cause to increase.

The eight sufferings, such as birth and the rest, ever blaze and burn;

Always use the water of wisdom to sprinkle and extinguish them.

If you wish to seek the joy of heaven and nirvāṇa,

You must constantly cultivate right view and knowledge.

Though one has sharp wits, if one enters a deviant path,

The subtle and wondrous merits are forever beyond reach.

The four kinds of perversion harm all that is wholesome;

Therefore you must contemplate them and not let them arise:

Form is not the self, and the self is not form;

Within the self there is no form, and within form there is no self.

Concerning form, these four kinds of mind arise;

The remaining aggregates are likewise.

These twenty minds are called the perversions;

To be able to remove them is the most supreme.

Dharmas do not arise of themselves; they arise from ignorance;

They are not made by a Self-Existent Being, nor by time, nor by existence;

All arise from ignorance, from karma and craving;

If there is no cause and condition, they at once cease and perish.

Great King, since you now know these causes,

You must light the lamp of wisdom to dispel the darkness of delusion.

The fetters of view of the body, clinging to precepts, and doubt —

These three can obstruct the path that is free of outflows;

If the King ruins them and causes them to be destroyed,

The Noble Dharma of liberation will manifest.

Just as a blind man asking about the character of water

Cannot know it through a hundred thousand myriad kalpas,

So one who desires to seek nirvāṇa is likewise:

Only by one's own diligent effort does one afterward realize it.

Those who desire kinsfolk and acquaintances

Find such things extremely hard to obtain;

Therefore, Great King, you must be diligent,

And thereafter you can realize tranquil cessation.

Giving, Precepts, much Learning, and Meditative Concentration —

By these one gradually draws near to the four noble truths.

The lord of men should cultivate luminous wisdom;

Practicing these three dharmas, one seeks liberation.

If one can cultivate this supreme vehicle,

It surely gathers in all the other wholesome things.

Great King, you must cultivate the dharma of Mindfulness of the Body;

The World-Honored One called it the pure path.

If one lacks this mindfulness, evil and awakening of the wrong sort increase;

Therefore one must diligently cultivate it.

Human life is brief and does not long endure,

Like a bubble upon the water, arising and at once ceasing.

In the moments of breathing out, breathing in, and sleeping and resting,

Thought after thought ever wanes and constantly declines;

Before long one will see it utterly destroyed.

The flesh and skin rot and decay, utterly worthy of disgust:

Blue phlegm, swelling and decay, and clotted blood flowing;

Worms and maggots feed and suck until it is parched and exhausted.

Hair, body-hair, nails, and teeth each scatter apart;

The wind blows and the sun scorches, gradually drying it utterly.

You must know that this body is not firm or lasting,

Accumulated from immeasurable sufferings and afflictions;

Therefore the sages and those who have wisdom

All contemplate its faults and cast it away.

Mount Sumeru, the vast ocean, and the long rivers —

When the seven suns shine, they are all dissolved away.

Firm and solid as they are, they are still destroyed;

How much more this perilous body!

When impermanence arrives, there is no rescue or refuge,

One cannot rely on affection or on pursuit and seeking.

Therefore, Great King, you must contemplate carefully,

Swiftly give rise to disgust, and seek the excellent Dharma.

A human body is hard to obtain, and the Dharma is hard to hear,

Like a blind turtle meeting a drifting hole in the yoke.

If you have already obtained this rare body,

You must with attentive mind hear the true Dharma.

To obtain a subtle and wondrous body yet commit evil

Is like a precious vessel holding poisons.

Born in the central country, meeting good companions,

Single-mindedly recollect, give rise to the mind, and arouse right vows.

Having long planted merit and possessing all the faculties,

The King is now complete in all these wholesome things;

If you further draw near to people of insight,

The Buddha calls this the pure Brahma-conduct.

Therefore you should joyfully follow it in accord,

For the Buddhas through this have realized nirvāṇa.

Having met the pure, subtle, and wondrous Dharma,

You must resolve to seek the path that is free of desire.

The perils of birth and death and their immeasurable sufferings,

Even speaking to the end of a kalpa, cannot be exhausted.

I now, for the King's sake, will briefly distinguish them;

You must listen attentively and ponder well.

The three realms revolve and turn without limit;

Fathers and mothers, wives and children, are causes for one another;

Enmity and affection, love and hatred, are places of impermanence —

Like a wheel of fire, how could they come to an end?

In beginningless birth and death and the returning of the world,

The mother's milk one has drunk exceeds the great ocean;

If one does not diligently strive to realize the wisdom of Emptiness,

In times to come one will drink it again without end.

Rolling through the five paths, passing through gods and humans,

If one gathered up one's bones, they would be higher than Sumeru;

The tears of loving partings and sorrowful grief

Are also not to be compared with rivers and seas.

If one were to count the fathers and mothers of a single person,

They would exceed the number of trees and grasses in the world.

Though one enjoys the five desires and joys of heaven,

In the end one falls back into the suffering of the evil destinies.

The gods' lifespans are extremely long,

And the joys they receive in that span are hard to declare:

Singing, dancing, and music with wondrous sounds,

Voices harmonious and gentle, very clear and far-reaching;

Maidens of wondrous beauty and utmost dignity

Surround and attend them in shared delight;

Banquets of a hundred flavors all complete,

Coming forth of themselves according to one's desire;

Jeweled ponds filled with fragrant, pure water,

Everywhere spread over and covered with wondrous flowers;

Birds of strange colors gather above,

Singing in harmony, sending forth wondrous sounds afar;

The gods sport and bathe therein —

Such delights as these cannot be told.

When the merit is spent and death approaches, the five signs of decline appear;

Then they sit in suffering, recalling the joys of before.

Therefore, though there are the delights of the heavenly maidens,

The wise, beholding them, have already given rise to disgust.

Though one ascends to a tower terrace among precious treasures,

One will surely fall back into filth and defilement;

Though one dwells in the Nandana garden in heaven,

One must again enter the forest of swords and blades;

Though one bathes in the Mandākinī pond of the gods,

In the end one will fall into the hell of the river of ashes;

Though one occupies the rank of a Wheel-Turning King,

In the end one becomes a servant pursued and driven;

Though one receives the desire-free joys of the Brahmā Heaven,

One again falls into the burning suffering of the Avīci hell;

Though one dwells in a heavenly palace full of light,

One afterward enters the dark and gloomy hells —

Called the hells of Reviving, of the Black Rope,

of Burning, of Cutting, of Slashing, of Stabbing, and of Avīci.

These eight hells ever burn and scorch,

All being the karmic retribution of evil beings.

Some undergo great suffering, pressed like oil-seeds;

Some have their bodies ground like fine powder;

Some have their limbs and joints torn and scattered;

Some again are slashed, cut, and burned and boiled;

Some have molten copper poured into their mouths;

Some have their bodies torn by iron claws;

Iron dogs vie with one another to devour them;

Iron birds gather together to peck and tear them;

All kinds of venomous worms gnaw and bite them;

Some have burning copper pillars piercing through their bodies;

The great fire blazes and roars all at once,

And because of their sinful karma there is no escape.

The cauldron of boiling oil seethes and leaps high,

And the sinners, deluded and confused, hurl themselves in.

Human life is in peril, extremely swift,

Like the span of a single breath of the gods.

If anyone, with a life as short as this,

Hears of the sufferings above and is not alarmed or afraid,

You must know that such a mind is very firm and solid,

Like a diamond hard to break.

If one sees them in a painted picture, or hears people tell of them,

Or recalls and ponders them from the scriptures —

When one knows of them thus it is already hard to bear,

How much more if one's own body passes through them?

The great hells are unceasing and without rescue;

Therein the various sufferings are without end.

If again there were someone, who in a single day

Were stabbed in the body by three hundred spears,

Compared with a single moment's suffering in the Avīci hell,

It would not equal one part in a hundred thousand myriad.

Undergoing this great suffering for a whole kalpa,

When the karmic condition of the sin is exhausted, one is again released.

From whom does such affliction arise?

All of it arises from the three unwholesome karmas.

Though now the Great King has no such calamity,

If you do not cultivate the causes, in the end you will fall and degenerate.

Among the animals the sufferings are immeasurable:

Some are bound and tied, some beaten with whips.

Because they lack Faith, Precepts, and much Learning,

They ever devour one another with an evil mind;

Their bones, hair, skin, and flesh are damaged and destroyed,

Or their bright pearls, fur, horns, and teeth are taken;

They are saddled and ridden by people, not free,

And ever suffer the pain of tiles, stones, knives, and clubs.

Among the hungry ghosts the suffering is likewise:

Whatever they seek for does not follow their wishes;

Hunger and thirst press upon them, distress of cold and heat,

And the sufferings of want and weariness are many and immeasurable.

Their bellies are large as mountains, their throats like needles;

Of the dung, filth, and reeking blood, one cannot speak.

Naked of form and covered with hair, utterly ugly and evil,

Like a tāla tree burned and cut down;

At night their mouths are surely burned by a great fire,

And the various worms come together to vie in feeding and sucking.

Excrement, urine, defilement, and all impurities —

For a hundred thousand myriad kalpas they cannot obtain even these;

And if again they seek and obtain even a small portion,

They plunder it from one another until it is utterly lost.

The cool moon of an autumn night is for them like a calamity of fire;

The mild warmth of a spring day turns into the suffering of cold;

If they come to a garden or forest, the fruit is all gone;

If they come to a clear stream, it turns dry and parched.

Because of the condition of their sinful karma, they endure for a long time,

Passing through ten thousand years and a thousand years,

Undergoing the venomous sufferings without any reprieve —

All of these are the karmic retribution of the hungry ghosts.

The Perfectly Enlightened One spoke of the cause of these afflictions,

Called the karma of stinginess, greed, and jealousy.

If one's heavenly merit is exhausted yet some goodness remains,

By that one may become a king among humans;

But afterward, if indolent, when the merit is exhausted,

One will surely fall into the three evil destinies, without the slightest doubt.

Or one is born among the asuras and gives rise to arrogant pride;

Anger, jealousy, greed, and harm increase the various afflictions.

Though the gods have the reward of wholesome conduct,

Because of that stinginess and jealousy they lose their benefit and joy.

Therefore you must know that the fetter of jealousy

Is a defiling and evil dharma that must be cast away.

Great King, you now know fully

That birth and death have many evil faults and sufferings;

You must diligently cultivate the world-transcending wholesome,

As one who is thirsty wishes to drink, or rescues a burning head.

If you further add effort and cut off the various states of becoming,

Among all wholesome things it is the most unsurpassed.

You must diligently keep the precepts and cultivate meditation and wisdom,

Subdue that mind, and seek nirvāṇa.

Nirvāṇa is subtle and wondrous, cutting off all marks;

There is no suffering of birth, aging, sickness, or affliction and grief,

Nor are there rivers, mountains, sun, or moon;

Therefore you must swiftly realize and know it.

If you wish to realize the wisdom of the Teacherless One,

You must single-mindedly cultivate the dharma of the Seven Factors of Awakening;

Whoever rides the boat of these Factors of Awakening

Easily crosses over and escapes the great sea of birth and death.

The fourteen dharmas were not spoken of by the Buddha;

Only give rise to a mind of faith, do not doubt or be perplexed;

Only with right mindfulness diligently strive,

And resolutely cultivate all the wholesome dharmas.

Ignorance conditions formations, consciousness, name-and-form,

The six entrances, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming;

Becoming conditions birth, and birth conditions death;

If birth and death are ended, the chain of cause and condition ceases.

Thus rightly contemplating the twelve links of conditioning,

This person will surely behold the Noble Lion.

If you wish in succession to behold the Four Truths,

You must diligently cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.

Though dwelling in a place of honor and glory, amid the five desires,

You can still attain the Noble Path and cut off all the fetters.

This fruit cannot be sought from another;

It must be by one's own mind that one realizes it.

I have spoken of the various sufferings and of nirvāṇa

Because I wish to bring benefit to the Great King;

You should not give rise to a mind of alarm and fear,

But only diligently recite and practice, and perform all wholesome deeds.

The mind is the root of all dharmas;

If you first subdue it, then all things become joyful.

I have spoken the essentials of the Dharma, briefly distinguished;

The King should not give rise to a mind of weariness or surfeit.

If those of great wisdom expound it more fully,

You must also still your mind and diligently listen and accept.

The King is now called a Great Vessel of the Dharma;

If you broadly hear the Dharma, there will surely be much benefit.

If you see anyone cultivating the three wholesome karmas,

You must give rise to a mind of sympathetic joy and help them deeply;

Practicing the wholesome yourself and rejoicing in sympathy,

Wholly dedicate such merit in transference.

The King must look up to and learn from the sages,

Like the virtuous Avalokiteśvara, and the rest, who liberate beings;

In future lives you will surely accomplish perfect awakening,

In a realm without birth, aging, or the harm of the three poisons.

Great King, if you cultivate the wholesome things above,

Your fair renown will surely spread far and wide;

And thereafter, using this to teach and transform others,

Cause all beings everywhere to accomplish perfect awakening.

The swift river of afflictions carries beings along;

Because they are deeply alarmed by the burning blaze of suffering,

Wishing to extinguish such defiling toils,

You must cultivate the true truth of liberation.

Departing from the worldly dharmas of false names,

You will surely attain the place of immovable purity.

If there is a wife of venomous and harmful heart,

Such a wife should be kept far away;

But if she is chaste and virtuous, gentle and loving, and reveres her husband,

Humble and diligent like a servant,

Ever mindful of kinsfolk and the foster-mother,

You should honor and revere her like a household deity.

The Dharma that I have spoken is just thus;

The King should, day and night, diligently cultivate and practice it.