福蓋正行所集經

At that time the Lord of the Devas, wearing upon his head a crown of Maṇi precious jewels, came from the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (Trāyastriṃśa) before the Buddha. Beholding the Buddha's bodily marks and his various adornments of virtue, his mind was filled with much joy such as he had never known before. He bowed his head and face to the ground in homage at the feet of the World-Honored One, and then, with a clear and mighty voice, he extolled the Buddha's virtues.

If sentient beings, seeing the Buddha's fine marks, give rise to a rare aspiration and make offerings with reverence, honoring and praising him, they will straightway destroy the four kinds of karma, accomplish those great meanings, and obtain those joys. All of you devas, humans, and the hosts of Māra and Brahmā will come here to meet these unsurpassed ones. At that time there were the Great Sage Vidyādhara together with the Sun and Moon Devaputras and those who dwell alongside them, such as: the Deva of Water, the Deva of Fire, the Deva of Much-Hearing, Yama Deva, Mahābrahmā Deva, the Deva of Firm Strength, Nārāyaṇa Deva, Prāṇa-māna Deva, and so forth, together with the Nāgas, Yakṣas, Gandharvas, Asuras, Garuḍas, Kiṃnaras, the Pretas, Piśācas, Mahoragas,

and so forth—beings of these kinds, all with one mind, made offerings, paid homage, and praised the merits of the Buddha.

This is the one who has transcended the world, foremost in wisdom, of vast renown, whom nothing escapes his knowing. The Venerable Śāriputra together with the great Śrāvakas, all of them, were unable to comprehend fully the realm of that wisdom. From the summit of Sumeru up to the Akaniṣṭha Heaven, all sentient beings came to gaze upon the Tathāgata: the Worthy of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the One Perfect in Knowledge and Conduct, the Well-Gone One, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed One, the Tamer of Beings to Be Tamed, the Teacher of Devas and Humans, the Buddha, the World-Honored One.

In this teaching of the Dharma, he speaks words that are not false; the beginning and the end are all wholesome; these words are subtle and skillful, and their meaning is profound. He is able to dispel the things seldom heard by those sentient beings who are without wisdom, foolish, dull, and benighted. He causes them, having heard, to give rise to great enlightenment, to delight in cultivating right conduct, to increase the lifespan of wisdom, and to be assuredly spared from entering the dreadful evil destinies.

He can open wide the gate to the city of Nirvāṇa and lead them into the inconceivable realm of liberation.

This sūtra speaks of the prior cause of the canopy of merit. How is this clearly known?—Having heard in this way, one then broadly performs the practice of pure giving and firmly upholds the precepts and prohibitions. Toward the pleasures of the world one gives rise to no craving or defilement.

Beneficial deeds such as these cause favorable faith to arise. Cultivating and creating in this way, one soon attains accomplishment. It is like a person who in the dark of night brings a great torch into a house, whereupon everything within is seen wholly illumined.

Stored within there are many precious treasures and all manner of goods—whether fine or coarse, each one is made manifest. All of them can be put to use, bringing peace, security, and delight. If, again, there is a person who, with respect to this sūtra, receives and upholds it, reads and recites it, delights in hearing its profound meaning, draws near to the Dharma masters, reflects in accordance with reason, and gives rise in his mind to enlightenment—it should be known that this person, in the long night of birth and death, holds the lamp of wisdom and enters the city of Nirvāṇa.

With regard to that profound Dharma, whether in principle or in phenomena, he understands it all. Moreover he attains penetrating comprehension, departs from doubts and confusions, destroys all benightedness, leaves far behind the cycle of rebirth, and his mind, being liberated, is able to enjoy the inexhaustible bliss of the Dharma.

As the World-Honored One taught: The world is subject to outflows; therefore it has no great wisdom; only by realizing right knowledge can one destroy benightedness. Therefore the wise must seek the right Dharma that transcends the world and is free of outflows. With respect to what is taught in the discourses, the reasoning and discussion must accord with the teaching of the Dharma; thus one should observe well.

It is like the various sentient beings who create merit or what is not merit—each one must receive that corresponding fruit and recompense, decidedly without deviation. Therefore one should understand that the world, all of it, arises from causes and conditions. If there were no sentient beings, then there would be no afflictions.

If there were no afflictions, then there would be no hells. Therefore I expound the Dharma of causes and conditions; it is not like the heterodox who cling to wrong views and see otherwise. They hold that without cause and without condition all dharmas can arise.

Through such mistaken reckoning they wish to bring abundant benefit. The one who strips away the fur and hide of birds and beasts, and the one who takes them to cover his body—this matter is already evident; how then could it be by reason of false karmic conditions? From this one should understand that the world indeed exists in such a way, and that emerging from it is likewise a natural thing—they do not cultivate or create anything.

But the Tathāgata, having understood this clearly, gives rise to the mind of great compassion, with care and concern teaching and transforming beings. He uses radiant wisdom to extinguish that benightedness, gradually causing them to realize and enter all kinds of wisdom. Casting off the wrong views that had taken deep root, and relying upon the Buddha-Dharma, the mind will then attain liberation.

The sūtra says: The Buddha has instructed beings in the way of repenting of faults; therefore he has set forth the various dharmas, enabling them to escape from the cycle of rebirth and to obtain those marvelous joys. One presently sees that sentient beings in the world, whether they create merit or do not create merit, receive the fruit and recompense of joy or sorrow. It is like the Elder Anāthapiṇḍika, who gave rise to a pure mind and used as many as thirty masses of gold, silver, and rare treasures to give in offering to the Tathāgata and his disciples and the Arhats such as Aniruddha and others, in order to establish a vihāra.

This was a great offering, and in the present life he obtained immeasurable merit and reward: his renown spread far and wide; he dwelt in peace and security and wealth, with all manner of precious goods, all of them filling his stores to overflowing; his kinsmen and friends, his servants and helpers, were too many to be reckoned. All was perfectly complete, his enjoyment inexhaustible, his delight boundless. All of this came forth from giving, and so he reaped the recompense of this matter.

Furthermore, the Tathāgatas, with immeasurable loving-kindness toward all sentient beings, are like a skilled physician who uses good medicine to heal the maladies of the world—such as noxious wind, phlegm and rheum, and all manner of diseases—making them subside entirely. The Tathāgata is likewise: he skillfully expounds the medicine of the Dharma, which can cause sentient beings to sever the very root of their afflictions and thereby attain liberation.

Yet those sentient beings, because they have no wholesome seed and also have no strength, cannot grow and flourish; they do not seek liberation, and the three poisons, the root of disease, are that which binds them. For this reason such a person is truly hard to convert and deliver. Therefore the Tathāgata, with a mind of equanimity and great compassion, giving no thought to enemy or kin, dispenses the medicines of the Dharma to make them whole again.

For their sake he expounds giving, the keeping of precepts, and the various practices, that they may receive and uphold them and enter deeply into the scriptures.

Furthermore, the body of such a one is truly hard to obtain—like a blind tortoise meeting a floating piece of wood. Diligently cultivating the ten wholesome deeds and seeking to depart from the sea of suffering, one then once again obtains a human body; yet one is not born in a place where there is the Way, and one's faculties are not complete. Or with respect to the Buddha-Dharma one's mind takes no delight.

Or when born again one does not encounter a world in which there is a Buddha; or, owing to evil karma, one receives the fruit and recompense of being mute and stammering, the mouth being unable to proclaim the right Dharma of the Buddha. Toward the merits of the Buddha one cannot clearly know. Furthermore, those sentient beings who are obscured by folly and deluded by wrong views turn their backs upon good friends and shatter the ship of the right Dharma.

They level the mountain of the right Dharma, fell entirely the forest of wisdom, flee from the city of liberation, fling open the gate to the three evil destinies, are unable to clearly know pure faith, and cannot set up the true banner of the Dharma. Then, by burning down the palaces in the heavens, and amassing the precious wealth of the world, making themselves rich, they give rise to a mind of arrogance and conceit, without wisdom and full of folly; they do not observe well, they do not cultivate giving and wisdom, and neither do they make use of their wealth.

For its sake they are stingy and hold fast to it. They do not understand that this body is ever attended by the sufferings of old age, sickness, and death. When they commit evil deeds they do not trouble to repent.

While young and vigorous and well, their strength is full and their bodily form is robust. Yet once the plumpness has passed, those are but filthy, defiling things; still they give rise to craving and attachment to them. When decline and old age arrive, the body trembles and shakes, the flesh and skin become rough and coarse, and many dark spots appear.

The lips and mouth crack, the breath comes in and out in gasps, the hair grays and gradually falls out, the teeth loosen and then drop away. The body breaks out in sores and boils, the skin is ruined, the faculties grow weary little by little, the sinews contract and stretch, the head and feet draw near to each other, and walking becomes difficult. The whole body is like tangled thread.

Yet desire still arises as if excited; one sings and dances and chants, never reflecting; the fine and savory foods one can no longer eat. Even if one wishes to drink, the throat is no longer smooth. The eyes look upon the written words but cannot understand them clearly.

When desire arises, one's speech is no longer distinct. The breath going out and coming in, if it is no longer continuous, now caught and now lost—thereupon the body becomes foul, the belly swells and bloats, and one moans and cries piteously; only skin and bones remain, lying and sitting upon the bed. The face shows an ashen hue.

Great anxiety arises. At that time the wind then strikes against the four limbs, like needles piercing, the pain unbearable. All the physicians abandon the disease and flee.

Many torments burn the whole body. All the joys and regrets are reserved for that one. All the precious goods, not yet wholly relinquished—as though struck by thunder and lightning—are ruined and remain no more; yet one never knows or perceives it.

Naturally, a whole lifetime changes in an instant, filling one with dread and fear. Father, mother, wife, and children, and the kinfolk within and without, weep sorrowful tears, their hearts aching with grief, crying out without cease: having left this place, where shall one go? Passing into another life, one comes and goes utterly alone; like a young merchant who has no companion whatsoever.

Entering a place of darkness, truly perilous, one falls into a deep pit, sinking and floating in the sea of suffering, with no place of refuge and no place to seek rescue; with no place to rely upon. The messengers of Yama, the Heavenly Mother of the black night, in their wrath gouge out the eyes and teeth—truly to be dreaded—reviling most fiercely. Binding one fast, they carry one away.

That ailment, like wind, conveys one to Yama. Having lived without honoring wholesome deeds, in death one falls again into a place of suffering, where very many swords and blades fall down from above, severing and dividing the body, cutting off the hands and feet, cutting out the heart and cutting off the tongue, blood and flesh mingled together; the hands and feet, the nails and claws, are heaped up into masses; only the bones and skeleton remain, the rest not yet consumed; one undergoes those great sufferings, grief and vexation without surcease.

The wind of karma blows upon one, causing one to be shaken and stirred, undergoing suffering long and enduring; only when the karma is exhausted does one at last escape.

If there are sentient beings who, trusting in the Buddha's words, delight in performing wholesome deeds, benefiting and bringing peace and joy to all sentient beings, accordingly and favorably they attain what is fine and good. As when meeting cold one also meets warmth, as a person scorched by heat then meets coolness. To those who hunger and thirst, one gives water from the spring.

To those afflicted by hunger, one supplies food. To those who would cross a river, one should make boats and rafts. To those who have no dwelling, one gives houses and homes.

To the poor and destitute, one supplies goods and wealth. To those in dispute and litigation, one exhorts them to harmony and concord. To one who travels alone, one becomes a companion for his sake.

To those sick and suffering, one points out good medicine and makes the disease heal. For one bitten by a snake, one applies and upholds the divine dhāraṇī to eliminate the venom. To those who are arrogant and conceited, one should use the knowledge of right view to subdue them.

Each and every one obtains peace, security, and delight. If one is able to act thus, benefiting and gladdening sentient beings, in the present one straightway obtains the merit and reward according to one's wish, and in another life there is only this meritorious karma to be one's companion, to be one's place of return, to be one's place of rescue, to be one's place of refuge.

If there are sentient beings whose karma of greed accumulates more than a field of merit, who cannot give—like the Buddha's disciple Upāli who went to deliver such a one—their minds, on the contrary, take no joy, and they have no faith that the merit of giving can bring about joy. Still accumulating a heap of evil deeds, they will afterward receive the fruit of the cycle of rebirth. Even if they manage to become human, they are born in a lowly and base place.

Whether in the house of a hog-slaughterer, or the trade of a night-soil gatherer, a cart-maker, a hair-worker, a fisherman, a smith at the forge, a farmer, a weaver of cloth, a barber, or a dyer, washing in places that are in no way clean. Their food and drink are scanty and poor; they serve others as menial slaves; their hands and feet are filthy; their sufferings are many and their wants many; they do not see the light of the sun.

Moreover they have many maladies and sufferings, such as: scabies and sores, boils, hemorrhoids, cancerous ulcers, malarial fever, dysentery, madness, chills—diseases such as these torment this body, wasting and shriveling it; the hands and feet are crooked and bent, the lips and mouth are parched and dry, the hair of the head is disheveled, and discharge runs from both eyes. Fallen from dignity and dependent on others, they cast off their clothes and drag one another about, running off, or wandering away, and they also do not know it.

If one should glance at them, their bodily forms are bare and exposed; they lie and sit upon their own filth as though taking pleasure in it; they fondle their own hair, doing things without shame, saying to those who come to visit, "What do you know me for?" Or grasping broken vessels, they fling them all about the house; getting a little leftover food, they use it to nourish their lives. A hundred thousand maggots and worms vie with one another to encroach upon them.

Within and without is filth and defilement; these beings are like foes, gathered together through unwholesome causes. They themselves do evil deeds and also bid others to do them. Such persons, again, suffer afflictions beyond all reckoning.

Therefore the World-Honored One, ever out of great compassion, with pity and tender remembrance toward all, causes them to give rise to the aspiration, resolutely to repent of their faults, soon to attain liberation, and to be free of those wrong and erroneous deeds.

The sūtra says: Only the deeds of cultivating and creating the right practices can enable a person to delight in the fruit and recompense of humans and devas. Therefore, O bhikṣus! Receive and uphold this sūtra and expound it for the sake of others; cultivating in this way, you will then cause both yourself and others to accomplish the canopy of merit and virtue.

At that time the World-Honored One was at the city of Rājagṛha, in the Veṇuvana Garden of Kalandaka. Then Devadatta, in his utmost extreme folly, used a malicious and evil mind to harm the Buddha-Dharma, for which reason he wrought a hundred thousand obstacles beyond measure. Yet he could not move so much as a single hair of the Buddha.

Then, together with King Ajātaśatru, he gave the order that the Buddha was to leave the city, and proclaimed within that city that no single person was permitted to come to the place of the Buddha, even to the matter of food, drink, or offerings, so that Gautama could receive nothing—thus to force him to abandon this place and go to another country. The king, hearing of this matter, took it for truth. At that time, within that city, the upāsakas, having clearly understood this matter, then said: Alas!

Now the king at the city of Rājagṛha cannot be master of himself. Yet the Tathāgata, the one who has transcended the world, is truly hard to encounter, like the Udumbara flower. How can the Great King put faith in such a heterodox teacher, not heeding that we come there to make offerings; not granting his consent to the Tathāgata, and heeding the words of that band?

The Venerable Ānanda, having heard these words, then went and addressed the Buddha, and the Buddha said to him: I have already understood this clearly! Do not be anxious. Within my Dharma there has never yet been a single Śrāvaka disciple who has suffered any deficiency—how much less my own body!

At that time the World-Honored One emitted a great radiance that shone upon the city of Rājagṛha, making all of it pure; and those who met that radiance, their bodies and minds were naturally set at ease. At that time Śakra, seeing the radiance of the Buddha, used his divine eye to observe and clearly understand the reason for it; and so he gave rise to great valor, manifested great majestic virtue, and on behalf of the dānapatis went there to make offerings.

The Sūtra of the Collected Right Practices of the Canopy of Merit

End of Fascicle Two