龍樹菩薩為禪陀迦王說法要偈

King Jentaka should know

Birth and death are suffering and affliction, full of many faults,

Wholly veiled and obstructed by ignorance.

I now, for their sake, raise up benefit.

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

The wise, seeing it, should pay it reverence,

So I, relying on the Tathagata, speak the right Dharma;

The Great King too should believe and accept it deeply.

Though formerly you heard the words of Shakya,

Now if you hear and accept them, you shall gain still further understanding.

Just as a pond of flowers, pure in hue,

Is lit by the moonlight more brightly than by day.

The Buddha taught the six recollections that must be cultivated,

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

Practice the ten good deeds and purify the three karmas,

Forsake liquor, heedlessness, and wrong livelihood,

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

So you should give to the Field of Merit and rescue the poor;

Giving makes one firm and steadfast beyond compare,

It is the foremost and most intimate of companions.

Diligently cultivate pure precepts to remove defiling stains,

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

Just as seeds sown in the great earth,

So do the precepts give birth to all good things.

Cultivate patience, gentleness, and cast off hatred and anger;

The Buddha said this conduct is the most supreme.

Likewise Diligence and Meditation and Wisdom,

With these six practices complete, one passes beyond birth and death.

To be able to dwell at home in filial devotion to father and mother,

This indeed is called the surpassing field of merit;

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

In future lives the merit and reward turn boundless.

Killing, stealing, lust, lying, and the craving for liquor,

High and broad couches and the burning of fragrances,

Singing, dancing, and entertainments, eating at improper times,

Such evils as these must be cast far away.

If for even a little while one cultivates these precepts,

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

Stinginess, greed, and flattering deceit,

Beguilement, perverted views, and indolence,

Such evil and unwholesome dharmas as these,

The Great King must contemplate and swiftly cast away.

Comeliness, lofty rank, and the five desires,

Know them to be perilous and frivolous,

Do not rely upon those unstable dharmas.

Pride and unrestrained license give birth to all sufferings;

If you wish to increase all good and realize the sweet dew,

You must keep far from them as one throws away poison.

If one can diligently cast off pride and conceit,

It is like dispelling the clouds to reveal the autumn moon,

Just like Chudapanthaka and Nanda,

And likewise Kshema and the other sages and saints.

The Tathagata spoke of three kinds of speech:

Words that please the mind, words that are true, and words that are false;

The pleasing are like flowers, the true are like honey,

The false, evil, and base are like dung and filth.

You must cultivate the first two kinds,

And swiftly cut off the kind that is false.

Four kinds of dharmas pass from light into light;

The king must distinguish and ponder them carefully.

The two kinds that enter into light should be cultivated;

If they are dark with delusion, they must be swiftly cast off.

Just as the fruit of the amra ripens into four kinds

That people find hard to distinguish, so it is here too.

You must, with wisdom, contemplate deeply;

If a thing is truly virtuous and good, you should draw near to it.

Though you see a woman of utmost adornment,

You must think of her as a mother or as a servant;

If thoughts of craving and lustful defilement arise,

You must rightly cultivate the contemplation of impurity.

This mind, when restless and agitated, must be restrained,

As one guards one's body and life or precious treasure;

If lustful thoughts arise, you must take fright,

As one fears the sword and blade, the various beasts of prey.

Desire works harm like an enemy's poison;

The Sage, the Muni, spoke such words as these.

The wheel of birth and death surpasses a prison's bonds,

So you must diligently cultivate and seek liberation.

The six entrances, restless, race after their objects;

You must restrain and hold them, not let them run wild.

If one can thus gather in the faculties,

It surpasses even a valiant general who vanquishes a mighty foe.

This body is impure, its nine orifices flowing,

Without end or limit like the rivers and the sea;

The thin skin covers and conceals it, as though it were pure,

Like one who adorns himself with false necklaces of jewels.

Those who have wisdom rightly discern,

And knowing it deceives, they cast it away at once.

Just as a man with a sore scratches it beside a blazing fire,

At first it seems briefly pleasant, but afterward adds suffering,

So too are the thoughts of craving and desire:

At the beginning a little joy, but afterward many troubles.

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

Right there contemplate emptiness, and that there is no self;

If one can cultivate this contemplation,

It is the most unsurpassed among all benefits.

Though one have lineage and have heard much,

If without precepts and wisdom, one is like the birds and beasts;

Though one be in a base and lowly place, having seen and heard little,

If one cultivates precepts and wisdom, one is called a surpassing man.

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

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

The various shramanas and brahmins

Have fathers, mothers, wives, children, and kinfolk;

Do not, for their sake, accept their words

And widely commit unwholesome deeds and practice what is unlawful.

If, for such reasons, one gives rise to the various faults,

In the future the great suffering one alone must bear.

Whoever commits the various evils is not requited at once,

It is not like the sword and blade that wound and harm immediately;

At life's end the marks of one's offenses all appear together,

And afterward one enters the hells to undergo the various sufferings.

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

These seven dharmas are called the Noble Wealth,

True and beyond compare, so the Muni said,

Surpassing all the precious treasures of the world.

If the Great King gathers this surpassing wealth,

Before long he too will realize the fruit of the place of enlightenment.

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

Indolence, license, and evil companions,

Untimeliness, frivolous restlessness, and much disturbance—

These seven dharmas must be kept far away.

Contentment is foremost, surpassing all wealth;

Such words were spoken by the World-Honored One:

He who knows what is enough, though poor, is called rich;

He who has possessions yet has many desires is called poor.

If much wealth and enterprise increase the various sufferings,

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

You must contemplate fine flavors as though they were poison,

And use the water of wisdom to sprinkle them clean.

In order to sustain this body, one must eat,

But do not crave taste and form and thereby increase pride;

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

Regulate this body and make it at ease,

Diligently seek the unsurpassed path of nirvana,

And afterward you should cultivate the fasting precepts.

One night is distinguished into five periods;

During two of these periods one should sleep and rest;

In the first, middle, and last of the night, contemplate birth and death,

And diligently seek deliverance, letting nothing pass in vain.

The four immeasurable concentrations must be cultivated;

These are called opening the road to the Brahma Heaven.

If one binds one's mindfulness to the four meditative minds,

When life ends one is sure to be born in that heaven.

All conditioned things shift and change and are impermanent,

Suffering, empty, decaying, and not firm,

Without self, without joy, and not pure—

Such things are all called the dharmas that counteract.

If anyone contemplates this Dharma-gate deeply,

In future lives he will always dwell in honored and noble station.

Cultivate the five precepts and cut off the five wrongs;

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

Just as a little salt cast into the Ganges

Cannot make its waters taste salty,

So a small and slight evil, if it meets with the various good,

Is dissolved and destroyed in the very same way.

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

The king must extirpate them and not let them increase.

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

These must be cultivated and made to increase.

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

Always use the water of wisdom to pour upon and quench them.

If you wish to seek the joy of the heavens and nirvana,

You must always cultivate right knowledge and view.

Though one have keen intelligence, if one enters a heterodox path,

Subtle and wondrous merit is forever beyond attainment.

The four kinds of perverted views harm all good;

Therefore you must contemplate and not let them arise:

Form is not the self, the self is not form,

Within the self there is no form, in form there is no self;

Concerning form these four kinds of mind arise,

And so it is with the remaining aggregates as well.

These twenty minds are called perverted views;

To be able to remove them is the most supreme.

Dharmas do not arise of themselves; from ignorance they are born,

Not from a Self-Existent God, nor from time, nor are they made by existence;

All arise from ignorance, from karma and craving;

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

Since the Great King has come to know these causes,

You must light the lamp of wisdom and remove the darkness of delusion.

The fetters of self-view, clinging to precepts, and doubt—

These three can obstruct the undefiled path;

If the king demolishes them and makes them dissolve,

The Holy Dharma of liberation will manifest.

Just as a blind man asks about the marks of water,

For a hundred thousand myriad kalpas he cannot know them,

So too with one who longs to seek nirvana:

Only by one's own diligence can one afterward realize it.

Companions of desire and acquaintances—

To meet with them is exceedingly hard to find;

Therefore the Great King must be diligent,

And afterward he will be able to realize quiescent extinction.

Giving, Precepts, Much Learning, and Meditation—

Through these one gradually draws near the four noble truths.

The lord of men should cultivate luminous wisdom;

Practicing these three dharmas, seek liberation.

If one can cultivate this most supreme vehicle,

It surely embraces all other good things.

The Great King must cultivate the Dharma of Mindfulness of the Body;

The World-Honored One called it the pure path.

If one lacks this mindfulness, evil awareness increases;

Therefore one must diligently cultivate it.

Human life is short and does not long endure,

Like foam upon the water that arises and is at once destroyed;

In the span of breathing out, breathing in, and sleeping,

Thought after thought it ever wanes and constantly declines,

And before long one will see it perish utterly.

The skin and flesh rot and decay, utterly fit for disloathing,

Phlegm-green, bloated and ruined, with bruised blood flowing,

Worms and maggots feed and suck until it is dried up and exhausted;

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

The wind blows and the sun scorches, until it is wholly dried away.

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

Heaped up from immeasurable suffering and affliction;

Therefore the sages and saints, those who have wisdom,

All contemplate that fault and cast it away.

Mount Sumeru, the wide ocean, and the long rivers,

When the seven suns shine, all are dissolved and ended;

If even things so firm as these are destroyed,

How much more this body fallen into peril?

When impermanence arrives, there is no rescue or protection,

One cannot rely on affection nor pursue and seek aid.

Therefore the Great King must contemplate carefully,

Swiftly give rise to weariness, depart, and seek the surpassing Dharma.

The human body is hard to gain, and the Dharma hard to hear,

Like the blind turtle meeting the floating hole;

If you have gained this rare body,

You must with diligent mind hear the right Dharma.

To gain a subtle and wondrous body yet commit evil

Is like a precious vessel holding various poisons.

Born in the central kingdom, meeting good friends,

Single-mindedly recollect, give rise to resolve, and raise up right vows.

Long planting merit, complete in all the faculties—

Now the king is fully endowed with these good things;

If you further draw near to people of knowledge and insight,

The Buddha called this the pure Brahma-conduct;

Therefore you must joyfully accord with it,

For by this the Buddhas realized nirvana.

Having met the pure, subtle, and wondrous Dharma,

You must resolutely seek the path that departs from desire.

The perilous calamities of birth and death are immeasurable suffering;

Speaking of them to the end of the kalpa, one could not exhaust them.

I now, for the king, distinguish them in brief;

You must listen attentively and ponder well.

The three realms turn and change without limit;

Father and mother, wife and children become one another in turn;

Foe and kin, love and hate, are places of impermanence—

Like the wheel of fire, how could they ever be exhausted?

In the beginningless births and deaths of this world,

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

If one is not diligent to realize the wisdom of Emptiness,

In the future one will drink again without end.

Rolling through the five paths, passing among gods and men,

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

The tears of grief at parting from loved ones

Are not to be matched even by rivers and seas.

If one were to count one person's fathers and mothers,

They would exceed the world's number of trees and grasses.

Though one enjoys the joy of the five desires in heaven,

In the end one returns and falls into the suffering of the evil destinies;

The gods' lifespan is exceedingly long,

And the joy they receive in that span is hard to declare:

Singing and chanting, dancing, streams of wondrous sound,

Harmonious tones, gentle and refined, very clear and far-reaching,

The Gandharvas of wondrous form, of utmost adornment,

Surrounding and attending, taking joy together,

Feasts of a hundred flavors, all complete,

Coming of themselves according to one's wishes,

Jeweled ponds full of fragrant, pure water,

Wondrous flowers spread and draped everywhere,

Birds of strange hues gathered above,

Singing in harmony and sending forth wondrous sound from afar,

The gods sporting and bathing therein—

Such joy and delight cannot be told.

When the merit is exhausted and life ends, the five signs of decay appear;

Then they sit in suffering, recalling their former joy.

Therefore, though there be the joy of celestial maidens,

The wise, seeing it, have already given rise to weariness.

Though one dwell among precious treasures and ascend the tower-pavilions,

One is sure to decline and fall into the filthy and foul;

Though one be in the Nandana garden of heaven,

One must again enter the forest of swords and blades;

Though one bathe in the Manda pond of the gods,

In the end one is sure to fall into the prison of the ash-river;

Though one hold the station of a Wheel-Turning King,

In the end one becomes a slave, pursued and driven;

Though one receive the desire-free joy of the Brahma Heaven,

One falls again into the burning suffering of Avici;

Though one dwell in a heavenly palace full of light,

Afterward one enters the dark and gloomy hells.

They are called the hells of the Revival, the Black-Rope,

the Burning, the Cutting, the Slashing, the Piercing, and the Avici;

These eight hells ever burn and scorch,

All being the karmic retribution of evil sentient beings.

Some undergo great suffering, pressed like oil,

Some have their bodies ground like fine powder,

Some are torn limb from limb and scattered,

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

Some have molten copper poured into their mouths,

Some have iron claws rip their bodies apart,

Iron dogs contend with one another to devour them,

Iron birds gather together to peck and tear them,

Various poisonous worms all gnaw and bite them,

Or burning copper pillars pierce through their bodies,

Great fires blaze fiercely and rage on every side,

And by reason of their offenses and karma there is no escape.

The cauldron of boiling oil bubbles up high,

And the offenders, in their delusion, leap headlong into it.

Human life in its peril is exceedingly swift,

Like the span of a single breath of the gods.

If anyone, with a life so short as this,

Hears of the sufferings above and is not afraid,

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

Like a diamond hard to break.

If, seeing a painting or hearing people tell of it,

Or following the scriptures, one recalls and reflects,

When one knows it thus, it is already hard to bear—

How much more to pass through it oneself in body?

The great hells do not cease, and there is no rescue;

Therein the various sufferings are without end.

If furthermore someone, in a single day,

Were pierced in the body by three hundred spears,

Compared to one moment's suffering in the Avici hell,

It is not one part in a hundred thousand myriads.

Bearing this great suffering for a whole kalpa,

When the conditions of one's offenses and karma are exhausted, one is again released.

Such affliction—from whom is it born?

It all arises from the three unwholesome karmas.

Though now the Great King has no such calamity,

If he does not cultivate the causes, in the end he falls;

Among the animals the suffering is immeasurable,

Either bound in bondage or beaten with whips.

Because they lack Faith, Precepts, and Much Learning,

With ever-evil minds they devour one another;

Bone, hair, skin, and flesh are harmed and destroyed,

Or for the sake of bright pearls, hair, horns, and teeth

They are yoked and ridden by men, never their own masters,

And constantly suffer the torment of tiles, stones, knives, and clubs.

In the path of the hungry ghosts the suffering is the same too;

The various things they seek do not accord with their wishes.

Hunger and thirst press them; they are tormented by cold and heat;

The sufferings of want and weariness are many and immeasurable.

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

The filth of dung and reeking blood cannot be told.

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

Like a tala tree that has been burned and felled,

At night their mouths are surely burned by great fires,

And the various worms come together to contend to feed and suck.

The defiled filth of dung and urine and all impurities,

For a hundred thousand myriad kalpas they cannot obtain;

And if they should seek and find a little portion,

They again plunder one another, and it all is lost.

The cool moon of the autumn night is to them like a calamity of fire,

The mild and gentle spring day turns to the suffering of cold;

If they come to a garden grove, the fruit is all exhausted;

If they come to a clear stream, it suddenly dries up.

Because of the conditions of their offenses and karma, they endure long,

Passing through ten thousand years and a thousand years,

Bearing the various venomous sufferings without any lack—

All being the karmic retribution of the hungry ghosts.

The Rightly Enlightened One spoke of the cause of this affliction,

Calling it the karma of stinginess, greed, and jealousy.

If one's heavenly merit is exhausted yet a remnant of good remains,

By this one may become a king among men;

Afterward, if one grows indolent and the merit is all spent,

One is sure to fall into the three evil destinies, without the slightest doubt.

Or one is born among the asuras and gives rise to arrogance,

With anger, jealousy, greed, and harm increasing the various afflictions.

Though the gods have the reward of good 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 have come to know fully

That birth and death, with their evil faults, hold many sufferings;

You must diligently cultivate the supramundane good,

As one who thirsts longs to drink, or rescues a burning head.

If you add diligence and cut off the various states of existence,

Among all good things it is the most unsurpassed.

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

Subdue that mind, and seek nirvana.

Nirvana is subtle and wondrous, beyond all marks,

Without the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and sorrowful affliction,

And without rivers, mountains, sun, and moon;

Therefore you must swiftly realize and know it.

If you wish to attain the wisdom of the Teacherless,

You must single-mindedly cultivate the Dharma of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment;

If anyone boards the boat of these factors of enlightenment,

He easily crosses beyond the great ocean of birth and death.

The fourteen dharmas the Buddha did not declare;

Only give rise to a mind of faith, and do not doubt or waver;

You must only with right mindfulness diligently strive,

And resolutely cultivate the various good dharmas.

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

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

Becoming surely conditions birth, and birth conditions death;

If birth and death are ended, the cause and condition cease.

Thus rightly contemplating the twelve links of dependent origination,

This person surely sees the Holy Lion.

If you wish to see in turn the Four Truths,

You must diligently cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.

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

One may yet attain the Holy Path and cut off the various fetters.

This fruit cannot be sought from another;

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

I have spoken of the various sufferings and of nirvana

Because I wish to benefit the Great King;

You must not give rise to a mind of fear,

But only diligently recite and practice, and perform the various good.

The mind is the root and foundation of all dharmas;

If first you subdue it, all things become joyful.

I have spoken the essentials of the Dharma, distinguished in brief;

The king must not give rise to a mind of weariness or satiety.

If a one of great wisdom should expound them more broadly,

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

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

If you broadly hear the Dharma, it will surely bring much benefit.

If you see anyone cultivating the three good karmas,

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

Practicing good oneself and rejoicing in others,

Such merit you should wholly dedicate.

The king must look up to and learn from the sages and saints,

Like the virtuous Avalokiteshvara who delivers sentient beings;

In future lives you will surely attain right enlightenment,

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

If the Great King cultivates the various good things above,

His fair renown will surely spread and be transmitted widely;

Afterward, using this to teach and transform others,

You will cause all everywhere to attain right enlightenment.

The swift river of afflictions sweeps sentient beings away;

Because of deep dread of the blazing fire of suffering,

If you wish to extinguish such defiling toil,

You must cultivate the truth of true liberation.

Forsaking the false and provisional dharmas of the world,

You will surely attain the unmoving and pure.

If there is a wife whose mind is poisonous and harmful,

Such a wife you should keep far away;

But if she is chaste, virtuous, harmonious, loving, and reverent toward her husband,

Humble and diligent like a servant,

Ever mindful as toward a kinsman or a foster-mother,

You should honor and respect her as the deity of the household.

The Dharma I have spoken is thus;

The king should day and night diligently practice it.