眾生無邊誓願度
煩惱無盡誓願斷
法門無量誓願學
佛道無上誓願成

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Dharma Teachings

24 Nov 2019    Sunday     4th Teach Total 2057

Excerpt from the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Volume Six

Original text: 云何贼人。假我衣服。裨贩如来。造种种业。皆言佛法。却非出家。具戒比丘。为小乘道。由是疑误。无量众生。堕无间狱。

Explanation: How do those thieves act? They borrow my name to sell out the Tathāgata, declaring that what the Tathāgata did not teach was taught by the Tathāgata, and that what the Tathāgata did teach was not taught by the Tathāgata—proclaiming the Dharma as non-Dharma and the non-Dharma as Dharma—thereby committing all kinds of evil karma. These thieves all claim that the Buddha's Dharma is not to be cultivated by those who have left home, that those who have left home cannot attain buddhahood, that the Buddha's Dharma does not require leaving home to practice, and that those monastics who have received the full precepts are all of the Small Vehicle's spiritual faculties and can only cultivate the Small Vehicle path, unable to attain buddhahood. After the thieves speak in this way, they mislead immeasurable sentient beings, causing immeasurable sentient beings to commit the karmic offense of slandering monastics and the karmic offense of slandering the Buddha, and thus, upon death, they fall into the Avīci hell.

——Master Sheng-Ru's Teachings
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