Eighty-Four Thousand Antidotes for Eighty-Four Thousand Defilements
The hymn continues: those bound by much greed, hatred, and delusion, by pride, stinginess, and the fetter of jealousy, among the eighty-four thousand defilements, each hear the antidote-teaching suited to them. Those who have not yet cultivated pure karma hear the teaching of the ten wholesome ways; those who have already practiced giving and precepts hear of parinirvāṇa. Beings attached and clinging to birth and death, heedless multitudes, hear the teaching of the gate of liberation, extinguishing the suffering of birth and death. Those with few desires and contentment, delighting in dwelling in quiet solitude — such sentient beings as these hear the sound of the two lesser vehicles.
Ten Wholesome Ways, Parinirvāṇa, Liberation, or the Two Lesser Vehicles
「若多貪恚癡， 憍慢慳嫉結，
八萬四千垢， 各聞對治法。
未修淨業者， 聞說十善道，
已修施戒者， 聞說般涅槃。
染著於生死， 懈怠諸群生，
聞說解脫門， 除滅生死苦。
少欲知足者， 樂處於閑靜，
如是等眾生， 聞說二乘音。」
"Those bound by much greed, hatred, and delusion, by pride, stinginess, and the fetter of jealousy,
Among the eighty-four thousand defilements, each hear the antidote-teaching suited to them.
Those who have not yet cultivated pure karma hear the teaching of the ten wholesome ways,
Those who have already practiced giving and precepts hear of parinirvāṇa.
Beings attached and clinging to birth and death, heedless multitudes,
Hear the teaching of the gate of liberation, extinguishing the suffering of birth and death.
Those with few desires and contentment, delighting in dwelling in quiet solitude —
Such sentient beings as these hear the sound of the two lesser vehicles."
"Eighty-four thousand defilements" (八萬四千垢) is a standard traditional figure for the total number of specific afflictions a being may carry, matched precisely by "eighty-four thousand Dharma-gates" or teachings elsewhere in Buddhist literature, so that every defilement has its own designated remedy. Fazang reads the graduated sequence here — ten wholesome ways for beginners, parinirvāṇa taught to those already established in giving and precepts, liberation-teaching for the heedless, and the two lesser vehicles for those content with quiet solitude — as this hymn's own concrete illustration of the "one voice, many understandings" principle just stated: the single voice does not average out into one generic message but resolves, for each hearer, into the exact teaching matched to where they already stand.
Part 446 Complete
This graduated sequence of teachings is now given in full. Part 447 turns to those who cultivate the vast mind and draw near to the buddhas, hearing instead the sound of the Great Vehicle — and to the striking claim that in one world some hear of a single vehicle, while others hear of two, three, four, five, even boundless vehicles.
Continue to Part 447 →