The First Sūtra Brought to China
Traditionally the earliest Buddhist scripture ever translated into Chinese — the text a Han emperor's envoys are said to have carried back from Central Asia in 67 CE, after the emperor dreamed of a golden figure flying through his palace. Modern scholarship doubts the story's details and suspects the text itself is an early Chinese digest of Buddhist sayings rather than a single translated original, but its influence is not in question: for nearly two thousand years, this has been the first text handed to anyone beginning to study Buddhism in China. Forty-two short chapters, none longer than a paragraph, on what a monk actually is, why anger and desire are the two things most worth watching, and a closing testimony in which the Buddha compares his own throne, robes, and even nirvāṇa itself to the most ordinary things imaginable.
Translation Method
The Chinese text is traditionally attributed to Kāśyapa Mātaṅga (迦葉摩騰) and Dharmaratna (竺法蘭), two Indian monks said to have arrived at the Han court in the reign of Emperor Ming, where they were given the White Horse Temple (白馬寺) outside Luoyang — traditionally the first Buddhist monastery on Chinese soil. Modern textual scholarship treats this origin story with real caution: no Sanskrit or other Indic original of this specific text has ever surfaced, its forty-two short sayings read more like a topically arranged digest of aphorisms in the manner of the Āgama and Dhammapada literature than a single continuous sūtra, and several scholars have proposed it took its present shape gradually in China itself over the text's early transmission, rather than arriving complete from India in a single translation event. This site treats the question the same way it treats the comparably disputed authorship of the Awakening of Faith: the traditional account is presented as tradition, the scholarly doubt is stated plainly, and neither uncertainty dims what the text has actually meant to readers for two millennia.
This translation follows the recension of the Song-dynasty monk Shousui (守遂), the base text used by nearly every later commentator, rather than the version preserved in the Taishō canon's own imperial redaction (an annotated edition attributed to Emperor Zhenzong of Song), which differs in wording at several points. Reading notes throughout draw on Daopei (道霈, 1615–1702), a monk of Mount Gu in Fujian who held the Caodong lineage and served as abbot of Fuzhou's Yongquan Monastery; his commentary, the Fozu Sanjing Zhinan (佛祖三經指南, "A Guide to the Three Sūtras of the Buddha and the Patriarchs," X0675), covers this text and the Sūtra of the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching together, plus Guishan's Admonitions, a Chan text this site's collection does not include. Daopei's own preface states his purpose plainly: these are not texts of "lofty and expansive discourse," but "the daily, close-at-hand instruction" every beginning monastic needs before anything else — "as building a mountain nine fathoms high must still begin with a single basket of earth." See also this site's note on translation method.
What Is a Śramaṇa
世尊成道已，作是思惟：離欲寂靜，是最為勝。住大禪定，降諸魔道。於鹿野苑中，轉四諦法輪，度憍陳如等五人，而證道果。復有比丘所說諸疑，求佛進止。世尊教勅，一一開悟，合掌敬諾，而順尊勅。
佛言：辭親出家，識心達本，解無為法，名曰沙門。常行二百五十戒，進止清淨，為四真道行，成阿羅漢。阿羅漢者，能飛行變化，曠劫壽命，住動天地。次為阿那含，阿那含者，壽終靈神，上十九天，證阿羅漢。次為斯陀含，斯陀含者，一上一還，即得阿羅漢。次為須陀洹，須陀洹者，七死七生，便證阿羅漢。愛欲斷者，如四肢斷，不復用之。
Once the World-Honored One had accomplished the way, he reflected thus: to be free of desire and utterly still is the most excellent thing there is. Abiding in great meditative absorption, he subdued every path of Māra. In the Deer Park he turned the wheel of the four noble truths, bringing Kauṇḍinya and four others to liberation and the fruit of the path. There were also monks who, holding doubts of their own, sought the Buddha's own guidance on how to proceed. The World-Honored One instructed them, one by one bringing them to understanding — and they joined their palms in reverent assent, and followed his instruction.
The Buddha said: One who leaves home, taking leave of kin, who knows the mind and penetrates its very root, who understands the unconditioned Dharma — this one is called a śramaṇa. Constantly upholding the two hundred and fifty precepts, pure in every act, one accomplishes the four stages of true practice and becomes an arhat. An arhat is able to fly and transform at will, possesses a lifespan beyond measure, and can shake heaven and earth. Next comes the anāgāmin, "non-returner": at the end of life, the spirit rises to the nineteenth heaven, and there realizes arhatship. Next, the sakṛdāgāmin, "once-returner": rising once and returning once more, one then attains arhatship. Next, the srotāpanna, "stream-enterer": through seven deaths and seven births, one comes at last to realize arhatship. To have cut off craving and desire is like having cut off one's own four limbs — never to make use of them again.
Daopei reads this opening chapter as the text's own foundation stone: everything that follows is, in his words, "the Buddha's instruction, given one by one, in answer to what monks themselves asked" — a text built from real questions rather than a single continuous sermon. He glosses śramaṇa (沙門) as "one who diligently extinguishes" — diligent in the three trainings, extinguishing the three poisons — and reads "knows the mind and penetrates its root" as already, in four characters, the seed of the entire text's teaching: everything from ethical conduct to the final chapter's dismissal of kingship as dust is, on his account, one extended unpacking of what it actually takes to know one's own mind that thoroughly.
The Sudden Path, and a Monk's Plain Life
佛言：出家沙門者，斷欲去愛，識自心源，達佛深理，悟無為法。內無所得，外無所求，心不繫道，亦不結業，無念無作，非修非證，不歷諸位，而自崇最，名之曰道。
佛言：剃除鬚髮而為沙門，受道法者，去世資財，乞求取足，日中一食，樹下一宿，慎勿再矣。使人愚蔽者，愛與欲也。
The Buddha said: A śramaṇa who has left home cuts off craving, sets aside attachment, knows the very source of their own mind, penetrates the Buddha's own profound principle, and awakens to the unconditioned Dharma — attaining nothing within, seeking nothing without, the mind bound to no path, tied to no karma, without thought, without action, neither cultivating nor realizing, passing through no graduated stage, and yet, of itself, supreme above all. This is what is called the Way.
The Buddha said: One who shaves the head and beard to become a śramaṇa, receiving the teaching of the path, sets aside worldly wealth, and, begging for food, takes only enough — one meal at midday, one night's rest beneath a tree, never twice in the same place. What clouds a person in folly is nothing other than craving and desire.
Daopei reads the second chapter as addressed specifically to a practitioner of sharp faculties — a "sudden teaching," in his phrase, for one who can grasp the whole path without passing through its graduated stages one by one — while the third chapter's austere schedule (one meal, one night's lodging, never twice in the same tree's shade) describes the ordinary practice everyone else actually needs. He does not read the two chapters as in tension: a mind still clouded by "craving and desire" has no business skipping straight to the first chapter's non-abiding non-cultivation, and the plain discipline of chapter three is what actually clears the clouding those loftier words describe.
Ten Deeds, Repentance, and Patience Under Provocation
佛言：眾生以十事為善，亦以十事為惡。何等為十？身三、口四、意三。身三者，殺、盜、婬；口四者，兩舌、惡口、妄言、綺語；意三者，嫉、恚、痴。如是十事，不順聖道，名十惡行；是惡若止，名十善行耳。
佛言：人有眾過，而不自悔，頓息其心，罪來赴身，如水歸海，漸成深廣。若人有過，自解知非，改惡行善，罪自消滅，如病得汗，漸有痊損耳。
佛言：惡人聞善，故來撓亂者，汝自禁息，當無瞋責。彼來惡者，而自惡之。
佛言：有人聞吾守道，行大仁慈，故致罵佛，佛默不對。罵止，問曰：子以禮從人，其人不納，禮歸子乎？對曰：歸矣！佛言：今子罵我，我今不納，子自持禍，歸子身矣。猶響應聲，影之隨形，終無免離，慎勿為惡。
佛言：惡人害賢者，猶仰天而唾，唾不至天，還從己墮；逆風揚塵，塵不至彼，還坌己身。賢不可毀，禍必滅己。
The Buddha said: Beings take ten things as wholesome, and the same ten things as unwholesome. What are these ten? Three of the body, four of speech, three of mind. The three of the body: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. The four of speech: divisive speech, harsh speech, false speech, idle speech. The three of mind: envy, hatred, delusion. These ten things, out of keeping with the noble path, are called the ten unwholesome deeds; and this same unwholesomeness, once stopped, is called the ten wholesome deeds.
The Buddha said: When a person has committed many faults, and does not repent of them, but lets the mind simply rest — the offense still comes to settle upon them, the way water flows to the sea and, little by little, grows deep and wide. But when a person has erred, and understands and acknowledges the wrong, changes evil to good, the offense dissolves of itself — as sickness broken by a fever's sweat is, little by little, cured.
The Buddha said: Should an evil person, hearing of goodness, come deliberately to cause disturbance, restrain and still yourself, and hold no anger or reproach toward them. The one who comes with ill will only does harm to themselves.
The Buddha said: There was one who, hearing that I upheld the way and practiced great benevolence and compassion, came deliberately to curse me. The Buddha remained silent and did not answer. Once the cursing had stopped, he asked: "If you offer a gift to someone with proper courtesy, and that person does not accept it, does the gift then return to you?" "It does," the man answered. The Buddha said: "You have now cursed me, and I do not accept it — so this misfortune now returns to your own self. It is exactly like an echo answering a sound, a shadow following a form: in the end, there is no escaping it. Be careful never to do evil."
The Buddha said: An evil person who harms a worthy one is like someone spitting up at the sky — the spittle never reaches the sky, but falls back upon themselves; or like someone throwing dust against the wind — the dust never reaches its target, but is blown back to cover their own body. A worthy one cannot be harmed; the misfortune will surely destroy the one who tried.
On the ten deeds, Daopei is careful to name the underlying logic rather than leave the list as a bare catalogue: "the three realms turn on karma alone, and this same one act of body, speech, and mind either becomes the seed of the three lower destinies' suffering, when indulged as evil, or ripens into the fruit of human and heavenly happiness, when turned to good" — the same three doors, opening onto opposite outcomes depending only on which way they are used. He reads the return-to-sender parables of the cursing man and the spitting fool as making one point from two angles: harm aimed at someone genuinely settled in goodness has, quite literally, nowhere else to land.
Guarding the Way, and the Worth of Generosity
佛言：博聞愛道，道必難會；守志奉道，其道甚大。
佛言：覩人施道，助之歡喜，得福甚大。沙門問曰：此福盡乎？佛言：譬如一炬之火，數千百人，各以炬來分取，熟食除冥，此炬如故，福亦如之。
佛言：飯惡人百，不如飯一善人；飯善人千，不如飯一持五戒者；飯五戒者萬，不如飯一須陀洹；飯百萬須陀洹，不如飯一斯陀含；飯千萬斯陀含，不如飯一阿那含；飯一億阿那含，不如飯一阿羅漢；飯十億阿羅漢，不如飯一辟支佛；飯百億辟支佛，不如飯一三世諸佛；飯千億三世諸佛，不如飯一無念、無住、無修、無證之者。
The Buddha said: One who is widely learned yet merely infatuated with the way will surely find the way hard to grasp; one who holds fast to their own resolve and truly upholds the way will find that way is exceedingly great.
The Buddha said: One who, seeing another give in support of the way, rejoices in it and helps them do so, obtains very great merit. A monk asked: "Is this merit ever exhausted?" The Buddha said: It is like a single torch's flame, from which hundreds or thousands of people each come with their own torch to take a portion of the fire — some to cook their food, some to light the darkness — and yet the first torch burns exactly as it did before. Merit is exactly the same.
The Buddha said: To feed a hundred wicked people is not as good as feeding one good person. To feed a thousand good people is not as good as feeding one who keeps the five precepts. To feed ten thousand who keep the five precepts is not as good as feeding one stream-enterer. To feed a million stream-enterers is not as good as feeding one once-returner. To feed ten million once-returners is not as good as feeding one non-returner. To feed a hundred million non-returners is not as good as feeding one arhat. To feed a billion arhats is not as good as feeding one pratyekabuddha. To feed ten billion pratyekabuddhas is not as good as feeding one buddha of any of the three times. And to feed a hundred billion buddhas of the three times is not as good as feeding one who is without thought, without abiding, without cultivation, and without realization.
The escalating hierarchy of chapter eleven ends, deliberately, past its own logic: after ranking every recognizable rung of the Buddhist path from ordinary precept-keeper up through the buddhas of the three times themselves, the final and highest object of giving is someone who has gone past having any rank to hold — "without thought, without abiding, without cultivation, without realization." Daopei reads this pointedly: "having exhausted every possible field for planting merit, from the wicked person up to the buddhas of the three times, the text still says feeding such a one is not as good — because in that person, every distinction between ordinary and sage has been used up, passing beyond every possible measure, and it is exactly this that makes their merit unmatched." He does not resolve the paradox of how one gives to a person past all category; he leaves it, in his own words, an open question for the reader — "just how, in the end, is such a person to be served at all?"
Twenty Difficulties
佛言：人有二十難：貧窮布施難，豪貴學道難，棄命必死難，得覩佛經難，生值佛世難，忍色忍欲難，見好不求難，被辱不瞋難，有勢不臨難，觸事無心難，廣學博究難，除滅我慢難，不輕未學難，心行平等難，不說是非難，會善知識難，見性學道難，隨化度人難，覩境不動難，善解方便難。
The Buddha said: There are twenty difficulties in human life. It is difficult for the poor to practice giving. It is difficult for the wealthy and noble to study the way. It is difficult to set life itself aside and face certain death. It is difficult to encounter a Buddhist scripture at all. It is difficult to be born into an age when a buddha lives. It is difficult to endure desire for beauty and sensual pleasure. It is difficult, seeing something desirable, not to want it. It is difficult, being insulted, not to grow angry. It is difficult, holding power, not to abuse it. It is difficult to meet every circumstance with a mind that clings to nothing. It is difficult to study broadly and investigate deeply. It is difficult to eliminate one's own pride. It is difficult not to look down on the unlearned. It is difficult to treat every mind and every action with true equanimity. It is difficult never to speak of others' rights and wrongs. It is difficult to meet a genuine spiritual friend. It is difficult to see one's own nature and thereby study the way. It is difficult to guide and liberate others according to their own circumstances. It is difficult, meeting any state of mind, to remain unmoved. It is difficult to skillfully understand and apply the right means.
Daopei reads this chapter's whole point in its own closing purpose rather than in any single item on the list: "the Buddha here briefly names twenty difficult things in human affairs, wishing precisely that people turn what is difficult into what is easy, and thereby turn their ordinary feelings toward the way" — a catalogue meant to be worked through and shortened, not simply admired as an unreachable standard. He pairs several items directly with their own remedy: knowing that poverty leaves nothing extra, one gives by cutting back on one's own food and comfort; knowing that wealth easily breeds arrogance, one humbles one's own intent to study regardless.
Seeing the Way
沙門問佛：以何因緣，得知宿命，會其至道？佛言：淨心守志，可會至道。譬如磨鏡，垢去明存；斷欲無求，當得宿命。
佛言：人懷愛欲，不見道者，譬如澄水，致手攪之，眾人共臨，無有覩其影者。人以愛欲交錯，心中濁興，故不見道。汝等沙門，當捨愛欲；愛欲垢盡，道可見矣。
佛言：夫見道者，譬如持炬，入冥室中，其冥即滅，而明獨存。學道見諦，無明即滅，而明常存矣。
佛言：吾法念無念念，行無行行，言無言言，修無修修。會者近爾，迷者遠乎？言語道斷，非物所拘。差之毫釐，失之須臾。
佛言：觀天地，念非常；觀世界，念非常；觀靈覺，即菩提。如是知識，得道疾矣。
A monk asked the Buddha: "By what cause and condition can one come to know one's own past lives, and meet the ultimate way?" The Buddha said: A mind made pure, a resolve well held — these can meet the ultimate way. It is like polishing a mirror: once the tarnish is gone, its brightness remains of itself. Cut off desire, seek nothing — and knowledge of past lives will follow.
The Buddha said: A person who holds craving and desire in their heart cannot see the way — it is like clear water stirred by a hand: though a whole crowd stand beside it, not one of them can see their own reflection in it. Because a person's craving and desire are tangled together, turbidity arises within the mind, and so the way cannot be seen. You monks should set aside craving and desire; once the stain of craving and desire is exhausted, the way can be seen.
The Buddha said: Seeing the way is like carrying a torch into a darkened room — the darkness vanishes at once, and only the light remains. To study the way and see the truth is exactly this: ignorance vanishes at once, and the light abides forever after.
The Buddha said: In my teaching, thought is the thought of no-thought; action is the action of no-action; speech is the speech of no-speech; cultivation is the cultivation of no-cultivation. Those who grasp it are near; those who are confused by it are far indeed. The path of words is cut off here; it cannot be bound by any thing. A hair's breadth of error, and the whole of it is lost in an instant.
The Buddha said: Contemplate heaven and earth, and hold their impermanence in mind. Contemplate the world, and hold its impermanence in mind. Contemplate the numinous awareness itself, and that very awareness is bodhi. Knowing this, one attains the way swiftly indeed.
On the mirror simile, Daopei is precise about what is and is not being polished away: the tarnish is craving and desire alone, and what emerges once it is removed is not a brightness manufactured by effort but "the mind's own luminous nature, already present, requiring only that thorough cultivation uncover what it already is" — polishing does not create the light, only clears what was covering it. He reads the "thought of no-thought" verse as this same non-duality carried into every remaining register at once: not two separate acts (an ordinary one, and a further "no-" version layered over it) but a single act seen correctly, "arising from no fixed basis, one establishes every dharma upon it" — which is exactly why, in his words, "those who grasp it are near, though the path of words itself is cut off before them; and those confused by it are far, no matter how much they read or discuss it."
The Body, and the Peril of Desire
佛言：當念身中四大，各自有名，都無我者。我既都無，其如幻耳。
佛言：人隨情欲，求於聲名；聲名顯著，身已故矣。貪世常名而不學道，抂功勞形。譬如燒香，雖人聞香，香之燼矣，危身之火，而在其後。
佛言：財色於人，人之不捨。譬如刀刃有蜜，不足一餐之美，小兒舐之，則有割舌之患。
佛言：人繫於妻子舍宅，甚於牢獄。牢獄有散釋之期，妻子無遠離之念。情愛於色，豈憚驅驅？雖有虎口之患，心存甘伏，投泥自溺，故曰凡夫。透得此門，出塵羅漢。
佛言：愛欲莫甚於色。色之為欲，其大無外。賴有一矣，若使二同，普天之人，無能為道者矣。
佛言：愛欲之人，猶如執炬，逆風而行，必有燒手之患。
The Buddha said: Hold in mind that the body's four elements each have their own name alone, and that no self is to be found anywhere among them. And since even this self is nowhere to be found at all, it is nothing more than an illusion.
The Buddha said: A person who, following their own feelings and desires, seeks after fame — once that fame has become manifest, the body itself has already passed away. To crave the world's own lasting name, without studying the way, is to waste one's effort and exhaust the body for nothing. It is like the burning of incense: though people smell its fragrance, the incense itself is consumed in the burning — and the fire that endangers the body follows close behind.
The Buddha said: Wealth and sensual pleasure are things a person cannot bear to give up. It is like honey smeared on the edge of a blade: not enough to make a single satisfying meal, and yet a child who licks it risks cutting their own tongue.
The Buddha said: A person bound to spouse, children, and household is more tightly bound than one in prison. A prison has a fixed term after which one is released; spouse and children carry no thought of ever being left behind at all. Even where the peril is as great as a tiger's own jaws, the heart still willingly submits to it, drowning itself in the mire — this is why such a one is called an ordinary, unawakened being. One who breaks free through this very gate becomes an arhat who has left the dust of the world behind.
The Buddha said: No craving or desire is greater than desire for physical beauty. As an object of desire, it has nothing greater than itself, nothing beyond it. It is fortunate that there is only this one such thing — were there a second thing equal to it, no one in the whole world under heaven could ever practice the way at all.
The Buddha said: A person given to craving and desire is like someone carrying a torch and walking against the wind — they will surely suffer the burning of their own hand.
Daopei reads the four-elements passage as a direct application of the "know the mind, penetrate its root" instruction from the sūtra's very first chapter: earth, water, fire, and wind "each carry only their own name — what is hard is called earth, what is moist is called water, what is warm is called fire, what moves is called wind — so which among them can rightly be called 'I'? If all four together were the self, then the self would be four things at once; if none of the four is the self, then apart from these four, where would the self be found?" The blade-honey simile that follows applies the same searching logic to desire specifically: he reads the child's cut tongue not as an argument that pleasure is fake, but that it is real and genuinely brief, "not enough for a single satisfying meal" — the injury that follows is disproportionate to the taste that preceded it, which is exactly the imbalance a person clouded by craving cannot see clearly enough to weigh for themselves.
Guarding the Mind Against Its Own Temptation
天神獻玉女於佛，欲壞佛意。佛言：革囊眾穢，爾來何為？去，吾不用。天神逾敬，因問道意，佛為解說，即得須陀洹果。
佛言：夫為道者，猶木在水，尋流而行，不觸兩岸，不為人取，不為鬼神所遮，不為洄流所住，亦不腐敗，吾保此木決定入海。學道之人，不為情欲所惑，不為眾邪所嬈，精進無為，吾保此人，必得道矣。
佛言：慎勿信汝意，汝意不可信。慎勿與色會，色會即禍生。得阿羅漢已，乃可信汝意。
佛言：慎勿視女色，亦莫共言語。若與語者，正心思念：我為沙門，處於濁世，當如蓮華，不為泥污。想其老者如母，長者如姊，少者如妹，稚者如子，生度脫心，息滅惡念。
佛言：夫為道者，如被乾草，火來須避；道人見欲，必當遠之。
有人患婬不止，欲自除陰。佛謂之曰：若斷其陰，不如斷心。心如功曹，功曹若止，從者都息。邪心不止，斷陰何益？佛為說偈：欲生於汝意，意以思想生；二心各寂靜，非色亦非行。佛言：此偈是迦葉佛說。
A heavenly spirit once offered the Buddha a jade maiden, hoping to disturb his resolve. The Buddha said: "A leather sack full of filth — what have you brought me this for? Take it away; I have no use for it." The spirit's own reverence only deepened, and he then asked the Buddha about the meaning of the way; the Buddha explained it to him, and he attained at once the fruit of stream-entry.
The Buddha said: One who practices the way is like a log carried by a river, following the current downstream — never striking either bank, never taken up by a person, never obstructed by a spirit, never caught in an eddy, and never rotting away — I can guarantee that such a log will certainly reach the sea. One who studies the way, not confused by their own feelings and desires, not disturbed by every kind of wrong influence, advancing diligently without any fabricated striving — I can guarantee that such a person will certainly attain the way.
The Buddha said: Be careful never to trust your own mind — your own mind cannot be trusted. Be careful never to meet with sensual beauty — meeting it, calamity is born at once. Only once you have attained arhatship may you then trust your own mind.
The Buddha said: Be careful never to gaze upon a woman's beauty, nor to speak together with her. Should you have to speak with her, rectify the mind and reflect: "I am a monk, dwelling in this turbid world; I should be like the lotus, untouched by the mud around it." Regard an older woman as your own mother, one of similar age as your own elder sister, a younger one as your own younger sister, and a child as your own daughter — giving rise to a mind that wishes to liberate them, and thereby extinguishing every unwholesome thought.
The Buddha said: One who practices the way is like dry grass, which fire, once near, must be kept well away from; one who has seen desire for what it is must, in just the same way, keep it at a distance.
There was a man tormented by lust who could not stop it, and wished to remove his own sexual organ. The Buddha said to him: "To cut off the organ is not as good as cutting off the mind. The mind is like the foreman of a work crew; when the foreman stops, every worker under him stops as well. If the deviant mind itself is not stopped, what use is it to cut off the organ?" The Buddha then spoke this verse: "Desire is born from your own mind; the mind itself is born from thought. Once both minds are stilled and quiet, there is neither form, nor any act at all." The Buddha said: this verse was first spoken by Kāśyapa Buddha.
On the log carried downstream, Daopei glosses each of the five obstacles named as a specific way practice actually fails: "striking either bank is a stray thought pulled by desire; being taken up by a person is attachment to something conditioned; being obstructed by a spirit is being led astray by wrong views; caught in an eddy is exhaustion that halts all further progress; and rotting away is falling into a dead stillness with no function left in it" — five distinct failure modes, not one generic warning, each requiring its own specific vigilance. On the verse the Buddha attributes to the previous buddha Kāśyapa, Daopei reads the closing line — "neither form, nor any act at all" — as the same "no-thought thought" logic already given in an earlier chapter, now applied at its most concrete and urgent: desire is not defeated by mutilating the body that seems to house it, since the actual site of the trouble was never physical to begin with.
Effort, Patience, and Moderation
佛言：人從愛欲生憂，從憂生怖。若離於愛，何憂何怖？
佛言：夫為道者，譬如一人與萬人戰，挂鎧出門，意或怯弱，或半路而退，或格鬪而死，或得勝而還。沙門學道，應當堅持其心，精進勇銳，不畏前境，破滅眾魔，而得道果。
沙門夜誦迦葉佛遺教經，其聲悲緊，思悔欲退。佛問之曰：汝昔在家，曾為何業？對曰：愛彈琴。佛言：絃緩如何？對曰：不鳴矣。絃急如何？對曰：聲絕矣。急緩得中如何？對曰：諸音普矣。佛言：沙門學道亦然，心若調適，道可得矣。於道若暴，暴即身疲；其身若疲，意即生惱；意若生惱，行即退矣；其行既退，罪必加矣。但清淨安樂，道不失矣。
The Buddha said: A person gives rise to sorrow because of craving and desire, and to fear because of that same sorrow. Free of craving, what sorrow, what fear, could there possibly be?
The Buddha said: One who practices the way is like a single person going into battle against ten thousand — donning armor and stepping out the gate, some grow timid and weak of heart, some retreat halfway, some fight and die, and some fight on and return victorious. A monk studying the way should hold their mind firm, advance with courage and diligence, fear nothing that lies ahead, and, having destroyed every host of Māra, attain the very fruit of the way.
A monk, reciting the bequeathed teaching of the buddha Kāśyapa in the night, chanted it in a tone so mournful and strained that he began to regret his own path and think of giving it up. The Buddha asked him: "In your household life, before you left it, what work did you do?" "I loved playing the lute," he answered. The Buddha said: "And when the strings were too slack, what happened?" "It would not sound." "And when they were too taut?" "The sound would break." "And when tension and slackness were exactly balanced?" "Then every note rang true." The Buddha said: A monk's study of the way is exactly the same. When the mind is well attuned, the way can be attained. Approach the way too violently, and the body itself grows exhausted; once the body is exhausted, the mind gives rise to distress; once the mind gives rise to distress, one's practice falls back; and once practice has fallen back, faults are certain to follow. Simply remain pure and at ease, and the way will never be lost.
The lute-string parable is, on Daopei's own account, this text's answer to a mistake he thinks any earnest student is more likely to make than laziness: overexertion. "Everyone knows that idleness cannot advance the way, but few know that excessive zeal, too, carries its own danger of losing it" — and he traces the specific causal chain the Buddha names (violence toward oneself leads to bodily exhaustion, exhaustion to mental distress, distress to a practice that falls back, and a fallen-back practice to real fault) as a single continuous slide, not four separate risks. He cites, in support, a Tang-dynasty Chan teacher's own maxim on the very same point: "true cultivation is neither forced nor forgotten — forcing it tips into attachment, forgetting it collapses into ignorance" — the taut string and the slack string named again, in a different master's own words, eight centuries later.
Purifying the Mind, and Nine Difficulties
佛言：如人鍛鐵，去滓成器，器即精好。學道之人，去心垢染，行即清淨矣。
佛言：人離惡道，得為人難；既得為人，去女即男難；既得為男，六根完具難；六根既具，生中國難；既得中國，值佛世難；既值佛世，遇道者難；既得遇道，興信心難；既興信心，發菩提心難；既發菩提心，無修無證難。
佛言：佛子！離吾數千里，憶念吾戒，必得道果；在吾左右，雖常見吾，不順吾戒，終不得道。
佛問沙門：人命在幾間？對曰：數日間。佛言：子未知道。復問一沙門：人命在幾間？對曰：飯食間。佛言：子未知道。復問一沙門：人命在幾間？對曰：呼吸間。佛言：善哉！子知道矣。
The Buddha said: It is like a person forging iron — removing the dross, a fine vessel is made, and that vessel is then excellent indeed. One who studies the way, removing the mind's own stains and defilements, finds that practice itself becomes pure.
The Buddha said: Having escaped the evil destinies, it is difficult even to attain a human birth. Having attained human birth, it is difficult to be born male rather than female. Having attained a male body, it is difficult to have all six faculties complete. Having the six faculties complete, it is difficult to be born in a civilized land. Having been born in a civilized land, it is difficult to be born in an age when a buddha lives. Having been born in a buddha's own age, it is difficult to encounter one who holds the way. Having encountered one who holds the way, it is difficult to give rise to faith. Having given rise to faith, it is difficult to arouse bodhicitta. And having aroused bodhicitta, it is difficult to reach a state of no cultivation and no realization at all.
The Buddha said: Child of the Buddha — one who, though a thousand leagues away from me, holds my precepts in mind, will certainly attain the fruit of the way. One who remains constantly at my very side, seeing me always, yet does not follow my precepts, will in the end never attain the way at all.
The Buddha asked a monk: "How long does a human life last?" "A matter of some days," the monk answered. "You do not yet know the way," said the Buddha. He asked a second monk the same question. "The space of a single meal," the monk answered. "You do not yet know the way," said the Buddha. He asked a third monk. "The space of a single breath," the monk answered. "Excellent!" said the Buddha. "Now you know the way."
Daopei reads the nine-fold catalogue of difficulty (human birth, then male body, then complete faculties, and on through arousing bodhicitta itself) as a single ladder each rung of which most beings never actually climb past — "listing this in reverse, to make plain to the person who has already climbed several of these rungs at once, without having noticed it, exactly how much has already been given to them" — a chapter meant less to discourage than to make gratitude specific rather than vague. On the closing exchange about the length of a human life, he is blunt about why only the third monk's answer satisfies the Buddha: the first two answers still measure life in units long enough to plan around; only "the space of a single breath" locates impermanence in the present moment itself, where a practitioner actually has to meet it, "for it is only when a person has genuinely seen life as fragile as a single breath that the urgency to practice becomes real, rather than a fact filed away for some later day."
The Ox, and the Buddha's Own Closing Testimony
佛言：學佛道者，佛所言說，皆應信順。譬如食蜜，中邊皆甜，吾經亦爾。
佛言：沙門行道，無如磨牛，身雖行道，心道不行；心道若行，何用行道？
佛言：夫為道者，如牛負重，行深泥中，疲極不敢左右顧視，出離污泥，乃可蘇息。沙門當觀情欲，甚於污泥，直心念道，可免苦矣。
佛言：吾視王侯之位，如過隙塵；視金玉之寶，如瓦礫；視紈素之服，如敝帛；視大千界，如一訶子；視阿耨池水，如塗足油；視方便門，如化寶聚；視無上乘，如夢金帛；視佛道，如眼前花；視禪定，如須彌柱；視涅槃，如晝夕寤；視倒正，如六龍舞；視平等，如一真地；視興化，如四時木。
The Buddha said: One who studies the Buddha's own way should trust and follow everything the Buddha has taught, without exception. It is like eating honey — sweet at the center and sweet at every edge alike. My teaching is exactly the same, throughout.
The Buddha said: A monk's practice of the way, done wrongly, is no different from an ox turning a millstone — the body walks the path, but the mind does not walk it at all. If the mind's own path is truly walked, what further need is there of the body walking anywhere?
The Buddha said: One who practices the way is like an ox carrying a heavy load through deep mud — utterly exhausted, not daring even to glance left or right, until it has come free of the mire, and only then can it finally rest. A monk should regard sensual desire as worse than that mire, and, with a single-minded, undivided intent, hold the way in mind — and thereby be freed of suffering.
The Buddha said: I regard the throne of kings and lords as no more than a mote of dust passing through a crack in a wall. I regard treasures of gold and jade as no more than broken tile and rubble. I regard robes of the finest silk as no more than worn-out rags. I regard the whole great trichiliocosm as no larger than a single myrobalan fruit. I regard the waters of Lake Anavatapta as no more than oil used to anoint the feet. I regard the whole gateway of skillful means as no more than a conjured heap of treasure. I regard the unsurpassed vehicle itself as no more than a dream of gold and silk. I regard the buddha's own path as no more than a flower appearing before the eyes. I regard meditative absorption as no more than a pillar holding up Mount Sumeru. I regard nirvāṇa as no more than waking, morning and night, from a dream. I regard what is inverted and what is upright as no more than six dragons dancing, each in turn rising and falling with no fixed position of its own. I regard true equality as no more than a single, undivided ground of reality. And I regard the flourishing of the teaching as no more than trees through the four seasons, rising and falling with no fixed mind behind any of it.
On the closing chapter's cascade of comparisons, Daopei reads each pairing as chosen with exact precision rather than as interchangeable examples of "the Buddha doesn't care about worldly things": a throne is dust because it is powerful yet fleeting; gold and jade are rubble because they are precious yet lifeless; the whole trichiliocosm shrinks to a single fruit not because it is unreal but because a mind that has genuinely realized the boundlessness of reality finds even the largest measurable thing small by comparison. He singles out the final image — the flourishing of the teaching compared to trees moving through the four seasons — as the chapter's own quiet answer to a question a reader might otherwise be left with after thirty-nine chapters of renunciation: if the Buddha regards his own throne, robes, and even nirvāṇa this lightly, what is left to actually care about? "Trees leaf out and lose their leaves season after season, and heaven itself speaks not a single word through any of it," Daopei writes — the Buddha's own teaching spreading through the world exactly the same way, arising and passing without the anxious, self-referential mind wanted a "point" to justify it, and this, on his reading, is precisely why it can be trusted.
Sūtra of Forty-Two Chapters. Complete.