佛說阿難四事經

Thus have I truly heard: At one time, the Buddha was dwelling in the land of Kuśinagara. When the Buddha was about to enter parinirvāṇa, the Venerable Ānanda said:

– World-Honored One! I reflect that among the devas, nāgas, ghosts, spirits, kings, and common people who meet the Buddha and hear the Buddha's instructions, there is none who is not filled with joy. Among these assemblies, there are those whose aspiration is to become a śramaṇa, and they attain the fruit of the Worthy True One[1]; or there are those whose aspiration is to remain laypersons at home, upholding the five precepts, and at death they are born into the heavenly realms. But now the World-Honored One is to enter parinirvāṇa. The hosts of devas, nāgas, ghosts, spirits, kings, and common people, together with the four assemblies[2] of disciples—on what shall they rely in order to obtain blessings and be liberated? And whom must they follow in order to attain deliverance?

The Buddha taught:

– Excellent, Ānanda! You truly possess a vast and great compassion, pitying all beings. Devas and humans alike will, through you, attain deliverance. After I enter parinirvāṇa, in the age of the five turbidities[3], the hearts of people will be deluded, wicked, and confused; many will be perverse, despising the good and esteeming the evil—truly a cause for sorrow! Although the age is such, the World-Honored One has the scriptural teachings and the urgent precepts of the Dharma. If one wholeheartedly observes them, then blessings and virtue come of their own accord. Do not grieve. Although the World-Honored One enters parinirvāṇa, the scriptures continue to exist. The great Dharma of the six perfections[4] the World-Honored One does not take away with him. The practitioner's deliverance is not something bestowed by gods or sages. Do you not understand the teaching of the World-Honored One?

The Venerable Ānanda then said:

– World-Honored One! I pray that you will teach this again.

The Buddha taught:

– This great Dharma has four practices that must be carried out, and from them one is led to obtain blessings and to obtain the Way, and that blessing is equal to the blessing of attending upon and making offerings to the very body of the Buddha.

The Venerable Ānanda again said:

– World-Honored One! I pray that you will explain these four practices for us.

The Buddha taught:

– The first practice: One must, with a heart of loving-kindness, nourish those who are young and weak. Seeing beasts, birds, insects, the lowly and humble, and beggars, one must take pity on them and bestow upon them suitable food and drink so that they may be satisfied. One must not use blade or staff to wound them or to cut off their lives. The heart of loving-kindness and compassion must be like that of a father and mother loving their child. If devas, nāgas, ghosts, spirits, kings, and common people practice this loving-kindness, then that great blessing is equal to the merit of attending upon the very body of the Buddha.

– The second practice: In the world many calamities often arise, such as floods, droughts, unseasonable weather, the five grains failing to flourish, and the people suffering famine and crop failure, unable to remain peacefully in their native homeland, their hearts longing to flee elsewhere. Kings and their subjects who have many storehouses of rice and grain should remember impermanence—that the body and life are hard to preserve—and not covetously begrudge the five grains. Knowing the preciousness of human life, let them arouse a heart of compassion and bring forth rice and grain to provide for the poor and destitute, so as to save their lives and help them remain peacefully in their native place.

If one is greedy and miserly, unwilling to give, one must reflect carefully: "When a human being is first born, the spirit-soul comes from out of the void, relying upon the breath of the passionate desire of the father and mother to form the body. Dwelling in the mother's womb for ten months, it is then born. If the father and mother are joyful, the body and life may be preserved; if they meet a time of sorrow and anger, then it is at once cut off, suffering hardship to the utmost and dying—yet the spirit-soul is not destroyed but continues to seek another body.

Wealth and rank, poverty and lowliness, are all due to the deeds and karma of former lives. Office and rank, salary and emolument, country and realm, precious treasures—let these not delude one nor destroy lofty virtue. When one's lifespan is exhausted, the body and precious treasures will surely remain behind in the world; they do not follow one.

Therefore one must always arouse a heart of loving-kindness and cultivate according to the teaching of the scriptures. Moreover, using the bright and clear teaching of the Buddha, contemplate that people and things are like illusions, like apparitions, like dreams, like echoes—all empty, unable to endure. To contemplate the world in this way is the ultimate truth.

The people of the world are ignorant and deluded, their thoughts perverse, deceiving and deluding themselves, just like exchanging gold for copper. When the body dies and the soul departs, they will fall into the three evil paths[5]." Having reflected carefully in this way, one must urgently give in charity, racing against one's own life: to beggars who are poor and destitute, to the old and the sick, provide whatever things they need according to their need, and do not let them lose their lives.

Holding firm to such a heart, the Buddhas of the ten directions, the bodhisattvas, the devas, nāgas, ghosts, and spirits will all take pity. When one's lifespan comes to an end, wherever the spirit-soul is born, one will be wealthy and noble, body and mind at peace, encountering no calamity, attaining one's great vows; and the blessing is equal to the blessing of making offerings to the very body of the Buddha while he was yet in the world—no different.

– The third practice: When in a country there are many thieves and robbers, calamities of fire and water, the arising and spreading of poisonous vapors, and the spread of diseases everywhere, all of this is caused by the nāga-spirits and ghost-kings within the sea. People who are stricken by this poisonous vapor will fall gravely ill, sorrowful and afflicted. These ghost-kings and nāga-spirits are all created by the people of the world. The creatures that are killed by hunting, slaughter, snares and nets, and poison—their spirit-souls either fall to become nāgas within the sea or become beings possessing the power of mighty and miraculous transformation, knowing their lives of former existences. Resentful because of old enmities, they spread out clouds and mists and exhale poisonous vapors down upon that land. At such a time, among the people there are those who are poisoned and die, or who fall ill, or who become infected. All these calamities are brought about by the people of the world. To inhumanely kill the lives of living creatures causes enmity to bind and revolve in turn. Among them, the one who kills with his own hand is poisoned and dies at once; the one who takes delight in assisting that killing falls into sickness and destitution; or is infected, or is not infected. All of this is on account of eating flesh, whereby there is a distinguishing manifest sign, or there is no manifest sign by which to distinguish.

The intelligent person clearly knows that the sin of killing pursues a person forever without letting go, and taking oneself as the measure to infer others, they are the same and not different. Thus, reverently practicing according to the great Way of the Buddha and cultivating the four impartial minds—loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—then the rewards of blessings come of their own accord. If another has killed and then offers the flesh to oneself, one must not eat it.

The person who does not eat flesh, though dwelling in an evil age of thieves and robbers, calamities and disasters, and poisonous airs, is yet not infected. Kings and their subjects who are wealthy, with the five grains in abundance, should provide medicine, rice and gruel, and places of rest and care for those who are widowers and widows[6], those who lack sufficient clothing and food, the sick and the afflicted who cannot support themselves—helping them to recover from illness and not to die a needless death.

One must clearly understand that these people, in former lives, did evil, did not believe in the Three Jewels, abandoned the right and followed the wrong, and were greedy and miserly to the extreme; and so they have come to be thus. Therefore know that sin and blessing are clearly manifest. Do not do evil deeds; one must also arouse a heart of loving-kindness, using the Buddha-Dharma to admonish the ignorant and foolish to receive and uphold the scriptures and the Way.

If one rescues a single person from illness, shows them the path of goodness, helps them to uphold the five precepts and to remain pure throughout their life, then that blessing and virtue is equal to attending upon the very body of the Buddha—no different.

– The fourth practice: In the world there are those of lofty resolve and noble integrity, pure and free from craving. As for the śramaṇa and the brāhmaṇa, whose minds dwell only upon the scriptures, and whose spoken words are themselves Dharma and discipline—then kings, officials, and common people revere them and come to receive the precepts of the Dharma. The words spoken by these lofty ones[7] are all the scriptures of the Buddhas, causing people to forsake evil and return to good. This kindness is a hundred times greater than the kindness of father and mother, for it helps a person, after death, not to fall into the three evil paths. Therefore one must arouse a heart of loving-kindness and revere them. Rather would one endure having molten copper poured into one's mouth and a sharp knife cut one's tongue than ever to slander such pure ones! Rather would one cut off one's own hand than cause pain to such ones! Rather would one cut open one's own belly, pluck out one's heart, and burn it than ever to feel anger toward these ones! Suppose a foolish person encounters the scriptural teaching of the Buddha and clearly understands what should be forsaken and what should be taken up—thereby keeping far from the dull and stupid throng of the ignorant, drawing near to the worthy and good, and receiving and studying the sacred scriptures—and so becomes one of lofty virtue and conduct.

The śramaṇa and the brāhmaṇa should not buy and sell to seek profit, thereby making themselves base. Their mind and conduct should be pure and bright as the moon-bright pearl[8]; embracing and holding the alms-bowl, wearying the body in begging for alms, receiving only just enough for use, they should not hoard. Whether dwelling in monasteries, mountains and forests, lonely marshes, beneath trees, or in burial grounds, they all know the lives of former existences, distinguish the true from the false, compose scriptures and texts, make of themselves a bridge for living beings, arouse a heart of loving-kindness and compassion, and in all their dignified bearing pray for kings, officials, and the common people, that the land may be at peace.

Such lofty ones—their virtue and conduct move the devas and nāgas, and stir the ghosts and spirits to compassion. Furthermore, being a śramaṇa, one does not take part in worldly affairs, is not led into fault by passionate desire, and one's insight is worthy of praise. If kings, officials, and the common people have wisdom, then they must seek out and make offerings to such a one—robes, food, bedding, and medicine—so that the one may peacefully expound the scriptures and precepts, teaching and guiding others to sit in meditation and to mindfully cultivate concentration; that thereby they may be able to attain the Way, or after death be born into the heavenly realms.

To provide clothing and food for all the wicked people in an entire country is not equal to wholeheartedly making offerings to a single pure ascetic of the Way. That blessing is vast and great, equal to the blessing of making offerings to the very body of the Buddha while he was yet in the world.

If kings, officials, and the common people draw near to these lofty ones, then the devas, nāgas, ghosts, and spirits will all rejoice and aid and protect them.

The Buddha again said to Ānanda:

– Ānanda! In former lives the World-Honored One practiced these four things and thereby continued to accumulate blessings until he became a Buddha. For this reason the Tathāgata now repeats them for you to hear!

– Ānanda! You should expound these four things for the hosts of devas, for kings and officials, and for the common people. Whoever does good deeds obtains blessings of his own accord, and they are never lost in vain. Now the World-Honored One is about to enter parinirvāṇa, and so entrusts this to you.

When the Venerable Ānanda had heard this, with mingled sorrow and joy, he came before the World-Honored One, bowed his head and made obeisance, and then withdrew.

Notes:

[1] Worthy True One 應真: The highest sagely fruit of early Buddhism, the practitioner who is no longer subject to afflictions and delusion, who has escaped the realm of birth-and-death and the cycle of rebirth, and who is worthy to be revered by the world.

[2] Four assemblies 四輩: Bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, and upāsikās.

[3] Five turbidities 五濁: The five kinds of dregs and defilement that arise in the kalpa of decline. They are: the turbidity of the kalpa, the turbidity of views, the turbidity of afflictions, the turbidity of sentient beings, and the turbidity of lifespan.

[4] Six perfections 六度: The six ultimate practices that the Mahāyāna bodhisattva must accomplish in order to fulfill the ideal of attaining the fruit of Buddhahood. They are: giving, upholding the precepts, patient endurance, vigorous effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

[5] Three evil paths 三塗: The hells, the hungry ghosts, and the animals.

[6] Widowers and widows 鰥寡: A man who has lost his wife and a woman who has lost her husband.

[7] Lofty ones 高士: Those of learning and virtue surpassing others.

[8] Moon-bright pearl 明月珠: Because the light of this pearl is like the bright moon, it is called the moon-bright pearl.