Nothing Too Small to Give
This is the longest chapter in the entire Sutra on Upasaka Precepts — so long in Dharmakṣema's fifth-century translation that it spills across two fascicles, opening in fascicle four and closing in fascicle five under the heading "The Remainder of the Chapter of Miscellaneous Teachings." Shansheng's question — what can a bodhisattva who has mastered the six perfections actually do for other beings? — opens onto the sutra's most exhaustive teaching on giving: who should give, how, to whom, in what state of mind, and what actually connects an act of giving in one life to a fruit received in another. Grand Master Taixu singled out its middle section, on how karmic result can cross from one life's five aggregates to a different life's five aggregates without either a permanent self or a broken thread of causation, as a place where this sutra says something no other scripture says so thoroughly.
1. Milestone: The Question That Opens the Chapter — Rescuing Beings from an Ocean of Suffering
The chapter opens with Shansheng pressing the Buddha on a practical question: once a bodhisattva has actually mastered the six perfections, what concrete good can he do for other beings? Everything that follows — the entire, sprawling teaching on giving — is offered as the answer.
善生言：「世尊！菩薩已修六波羅蜜，能為眾生作何等事？」「善男子！如是菩薩能拔沈沒苦海眾生。
Shansheng said: "World-Honored One, once a bodhisattva has practiced the six pāramitās, what can he do for other beings?" "Good son, such a bodhisattva is able to pull beings up out of the ocean of suffering in which they are sinking.
Taixu reads "the ocean of suffering" as the three realms of existence themselves, in which every one of the six destinies of rebirth is submerged — the raw suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death; the subtler suffering of decay, in which even the pleasures of the human and heavenly realms eventually spoil; and the suffering of formations, the constant unrest of simply being impermanent. Beings sink in it the way a horse sinks in mud, unable to pull itself free. Human beings alone possess enough intelligence to notice the problem, he observes, yet even they are submerged by the five desires — wealth, sensual form, fame, food, and sleep — and when they do try to struggle free, they often fall instead into the grip of a heterodox teacher who binds them just as tightly in a different net. It takes a bodhisattva who has actually completed the six perfections, he says, to reach into that water and pull another being out.
2. Milestone: What Giving Actually Is — Body, Speech, and Mind Together
Before cataloguing types of giving, the sutra insists on a definition: giving is not a private mental event but an act that only counts as complete once body, speech, and mind are all genuinely engaged in it — and stinginess, left unaddressed, is said to condemn a person to ignorance and poverty across countless future lives.
善男子！若有於財、法、食生慳，當知是人於無量世得癡、貧報，是故菩薩修行布施波羅蜜時，要作自利及利益他。善男子！若人樂施，一切怨讎悉生親想、不自在者皆得自在，信施因果，信戒因果，是人則得成就施果。善男子！有人說言：「施即是意。所以者何？意是施根故。」是義不然！何以故？施即五陰。所以者何？由身、口、意具足施故。布施若為自利、他利及自他利，則具五陰，如是布施，即能莊嚴菩提之道。遠離煩惱，多財巨富，名施正果；壽命、色、力、安樂、辯才，名施餘果。施果三種：有勝財故獲得勝果；有田勝故獲得勝果；施主勝故獲得勝果。向須陀洹至後身菩薩乃至成佛，是名勝田，施如是田，故得勝果。若有施物，具足妙好色、香、味、觸，是名財勝，以是物施，故得勝果。若有施主信心淳濃，施、戒、聞、慧，則得勝果。
Good son, if a person is stingy with wealth, with the Dharma, or with food, know that this person will reap the fruit of ignorance and poverty for measureless ages to come. This is why, when a bodhisattva practices the perfection of giving, he must act so as to benefit both himself and others. Good son, when a person delights in giving, every enemy comes to seem like a friend, and whoever was constrained gains freedom; believing in the causal working of giving and the causal working of moral discipline, such a person genuinely brings the fruit of giving to completion.
Good son, some say: "Giving is really just a matter of intention — intention is the root of giving." This is not correct. Why not? Because giving belongs to the five aggregates. Why? Because giving is only complete when body, speech, and mind all take part in it. Whenever giving is done to benefit oneself, to benefit others, or to benefit both together, all five aggregates are engaged, and giving of this kind adorns the path to bodhi.
Being free of the afflictions and possessing great wealth are called the true fruit of giving; long life, fine bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence are called its secondary fruits. There are three kinds of superior fruit: superior fruit obtained through a superior gift, through a superior field, and through a superior donor. From a stream-enterer up through a bodhisattva in his final body, and on to a buddha — these are superior fields, and giving to such a field brings a superior fruit. A gift complete with fine color, fragrance, taste, and texture is a superior gift, and giving it brings a superior fruit. And a donor whose faith is deep and sincere, rich in giving, discipline, learning, and wisdom, likewise brings a superior fruit.
Taixu points out that this entire sutra is addressed to the householder bodhisattva, for whom giving is the perfection most readily practiced in ordinary life — which is exactly why it receives such disproportionate treatment here, filling almost this entire chapter. He glosses the five aggregates plainly as form, sensation, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness, all of which are genuinely engaged the moment a person actually gives something away — the body doing it, the mouth speaking of it, the mind willing it. Stinginess, he adds, is treated here as the root affliction; breaking it in this life is what directly produces wealth in the next, while the "secondary fruits" of long life, bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence round out the reward. He identifies "the bodhisattva in the final body" as what the tradition calls a one-life-away bodhisattva — Maitreya, presently in the Tuṣita Heaven, is the standard example — who has only to descend once more into the human world before attaining buddhahood.
3. Milestone: Five Ways to Give, Five Kinds of Fruit
The sutra now works through a first taxonomy: five distinct manners of giving, each compounding its own particular reward on top of the basic fruit of giving already described.
「善男子！有智之人，施有五種：一者、至心施，二者、自手施，三者、信心施，四者、時節施，五者、如法求物施。善男子！至心施者，得何等果？若至心施者，是人則得多財饒寶——金銀、琉璃、車渠、馬瑙、真珠、珊瑚，象、馬、牛、羊，田宅、奴婢——多饒眷屬。至心施者，得如是果。自手施者，得何等果？自手施已，所得果報，如上所說；得已能用，自手施者得如是報。信心施者，得何等果？信心施已，所得果報，如上所說；常為父母、兄弟、宗親、一切眾生之所愛念，信心施者，加如是報。時節施者，得何等果？時節施者，所得果報，如上所說；所須之物隨時而得，時節施者，兼如是果。如法財施，得何等果？如法財施所得果報，如先所說；得是財已，王、賊、水、火所不能侵。
"Good son, the wise practice giving in five ways: giving with utmost sincerity of heart; giving with one's own hand; giving with faith; giving at the right season; and giving of goods rightfully obtained.
"What fruit does giving with utmost sincerity bring? Such a person comes to possess great wealth and abundant treasure — gold, silver, lapis lazuli, coral, agate, pearls, elephants, horses, cattle, sheep, fields, houses, and servants — together with a large and flourishing household. That is the fruit of giving with utmost sincerity.
"What fruit does giving with one's own hand bring? It brings the fruits already described, and beyond this the giver gains the ability to make full use of what he later receives.
"What fruit does giving with faith bring? It brings the fruits already described, and beyond this such a person is always cherished by parents, brothers, kinsmen, and all beings.
"What fruit does giving at the right season bring? It brings the fruits already described, and beyond this, whatever this person needs comes to him at just the right time.
"What fruit does rightfully obtained giving bring? It brings the fruits already described, and beyond this, once such wealth is gained, no king, thief, flood, or fire can ever take it away."
Taixu treats this passage simply, as a straightforward correspondence table: each of the five manners of giving layers its own distinctive reward on top of the shared, basic fruit of giving already laid out. He does not read any hierarchy of "better" or "worse" among the five — a person may give with a combination of all five qualities at once, and the rewards simply accumulate together.
4. Milestone: Giving Color, Scent, Taste, and Touch
The sutra turns from the manner of giving to the sensory character of the gift itself, and then confronts a natural objection: how can giving to a stupa or an image — something with no one there to actually receive it — bring any reward at all?
「若好色施，以是因緣，是人獲得微妙上色；若以香施，是人因是名稱遠聞；若以味施，是人因是眾樂見聞，既見聞已生愛重心；若好觸施，是人因是得上妙觸；受者受已，則能獲得壽命、色、力、安樂、辯才。善男子！有人說言『施於塔、像，不得壽命、色、力、安、辯，無受者故』，是義不然！何以故？有信心故，施主信心而行布施，是故應得如是五報。善男子！譬如比丘修集慈心，如是慈心實無受者，而亦獲得無量果報；施塔、像等亦應如是，得五果報。善男子！如人種穀，終不生苽；施於塔、像，亦復如是，以福田故，得種種果，是故我說田得果報，物得果報，主得果報。
"If one gives a fine physical form, one comes to possess a wondrous, superior appearance; if one gives fragrance, one's reputation carries far and wide; if one gives good flavor, people delight in seeing and hearing of one, and come to cherish and honor one; if one gives what is pleasant to the touch, one obtains a superior sense of touch. Once a recipient has received such a gift, he obtains long life, fine bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence.
"Good son, some say: 'Giving to a stupa or an image brings no such fruit, because there is no one there to receive it.' This is not correct. Why not? Because it is precisely by reason of faith — the donor gives out of a heart of faith, and so obtains these same five rewards regardless. Good son, it is like a monk who cultivates loving-kindness: that loving-kindness truly has no one who 'receives' it, and yet it still brings immeasurable fruit. Giving to a stupa or an image works the same way. Good son, just as a person who plants grain will never harvest melons, giving to a stupa or an image is exactly the same — because it is a field of merit, one obtains fruits of many kinds. This is why I say the field yields fruit, the gift yields fruit, and the donor yields fruit, each in its own right."
Taixu notes that the five rewards named here — long life, fine bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence — recur as the chapter's basic vocabulary for what giving yields, and that this passage's real argument is aimed at a skeptic who thinks merit requires a conscious party on the receiving end. The refutation works by analogy to a monk's meditation on loving-kindness, which plainly generates real spiritual fruit with no discrete "recipient" of the feeling at all — proof, on this reading, that it is the donor's own faith and intention that generates merit, not the metaphysical status of whatever stands on the other side of the gift.
5. Milestone: Two Kinds of Giving, Three Kinds of Giving
Two overlapping classification schemes follow: giving sorted into Dharma and wealth, and then a finer three-part scheme that separates out the giving of fearlessness — protection from actual physical danger — as its own distinct category.
「善男子！施有二種：一者、法施，二者、財施。法施則得財、法二報，財施唯還得財寶報。菩薩修行如是二施，為二事故：一、令眾生遠離苦惱，二、令眾生心得調伏。
"Good son, there are two kinds of giving: the giving of the Dharma, and the giving of wealth. Dharma-giving brings a double reward — both wealth and Dharma — while giving of wealth brings back only the reward of material wealth. A bodhisattva practices these two kinds of giving for two purposes: so that beings may be freed from suffering and affliction, and so that beings' minds may be tamed and made pliant.
「善男子！復有三施：一、以法施，二、無畏施，三、財物施。以法施者，教他受戒、出家、修道、白四羯磨；為壞邪見說於正法，能分別說實、非實等，宣說四倒及不放逸，是名法施。若有眾生怖畏王者、師子、虎、狼、水、火、盜賊，菩薩見已，能為救濟，名無畏施。自於財寶破慳不悋，若好若醜，若多若少，牛、羊、象、馬，房舍、臥具、樹林、泉井，奴婢、僕使，水牛、駝、驢，車乘、輦輿，瓶盆、釜鑊，繩床、坐具，銅、鐵、瓦器，衣服、瓔珞，燈明、香、花，扇、蓋、帽、履，机杖、繩索，犁、鎒、斧、鑿，草、木、水、石，如是等物，稱求者意，隨所須與，是名財施。若起僧坊及起別房，如上施與出家之人，唯除象、馬。
"Good son, there are also three kinds of giving: giving of the Dharma, giving of fearlessness, and giving of material goods. Dharma-giving means teaching others to receive the precepts, to leave the household life, to cultivate the path, and to undergo the formal procedure of ordination; refuting wrong views by expounding the true Dharma; being able to distinguish clearly between what is real and what is not; and proclaiming the four inversions and the need for diligence — this is called Dharma-giving. If beings are terrified of kings, lions, tigers, wolves, floods, fires, or bandits, and a bodhisattva sees this and is able to rescue and protect them, this is called the giving of fearlessness. Breaking one's own stinginess and begrudging nothing — whether fine or coarse, much or little: cattle, sheep, elephants, horses; houses, bedding, groves, springs and wells; servants; water buffalo, camels, donkeys; carts and palanquins; jars, basins, and cauldrons; beds and cushions; vessels of bronze, iron, and clay; clothing and ornaments; lamps, incense, and flowers; fans, canopies, hats, and shoes; staffs and ropes; ploughs, hoes, axes, and chisels; grass, wood, water, and stone — giving all such things exactly as the one who asks desires: this is material giving. Building a monastery hall or a separate dwelling and giving it, along with the goods listed above, to those who have left the household life — except for elephants and horses — is likewise material giving."
Taixu glosses Dharma-giving as using true teaching to establish others in right view, right mindfulness, right faith, right conduct, and right wisdom. The "four inversions" are the four basic distortions the Buddhist path exists to correct — mistaking what is impermanent for permanent, what is impure for pure, what is suffering for pleasure, and what has no fixed self for a self. "The formal procedure of ordination" refers to the technical monastic rite of proposing and confirming full ordination before the assembly. What stands out to him in the material-giving list is its sheer, almost bureaucratic concreteness — carts, cauldrons, rope, axes — which he takes as the sutra's own way of insisting that giving is not a devotional abstraction but something that happens through actual, named objects changing hands.
6. Milestone: The Four Burdens on Giving, and What "Giving in Every Respect" Means
Having classified giving by type, the sutra now turns to what corrupts it and what perfects it — the four besetting burdens that weigh giving down, and then a list of ten qualifying conditions that define what it calls "giving in every respect," a phrase about the completeness of the intention behind a gift rather than the size of the gift itself.
「善男子！施有四累：一、慳貪心，二、不修施，三、輕小物，四、求世報。如是四累，二法能壞：一、修無我，二、修無常。「善男子！若欲樂施，當破五事：一者、瞋心，二者、慳心，三者、妬心，四者、惜身命，五者、不信因果。破是五事，常樂布施。樂施之人，獲得五事：一者、終不遠離一切聖人，二者、一切眾生樂見、樂聞，三者、入大眾時不生怖畏，四者、得好名稱，五者、莊嚴菩提。
"Good son, giving has four besetting burdens: a stingy and greedy mind; failing to actually practice giving; disdaining small gifts; and seeking a worldly reward. These four burdens can be broken by two contemplations: cultivating no-self, and cultivating impermanence.
"Good son, if one wishes to delight in giving, one must break through five things: anger, stinginess, envy, attachment to one's own body and life, and disbelief in cause and effect. Once these five are broken, one delights in giving continually. A person who delights in giving obtains five things: he is never far from the sages; all beings delight to see him and hear him; he feels no fear entering a large assembly; he gains a good reputation; and he adorns the path to bodhi.
「善男子！菩薩之人名一切施，云何名為一切施也？善男子！菩薩摩訶薩如法求物，持以布施，名一切施；恒以淨心施於受者，名一切施；少物能施，名一切施；所愛之物，破慳能捨，名一切施；施不求報，名一切施；施時不觀田以非田，名一切施；怨親等施，名一切施。菩薩施財，凡有二種——一者、眾生，二者、非眾生——於是二中乃至自身都不悋惜，名一切施；菩薩布施，由憐愍心，名一切施；欲施、施時、施已不悔，名一切施。
"Good son, a bodhisattva is called one of 'giving in every respect.' What does this mean? A bodhisattva-mahāsattva who rightfully obtains goods and gives them is giving in every respect; one who always gives with a pure mind is giving in every respect; one who can give even a small thing is giving in every respect; one who can let go of what he loves is giving in every respect; one who gives without seeking any reward is giving in every respect; one who does not judge whether the recipient is or is not a worthy field is giving in every respect; one who gives equally to enemy and friend is giving in every respect. What a bodhisattva gives falls into two kinds — sentient beings and non-sentient things — and if he begrudges nothing between the two, not even his own body, this is giving in every respect; giving that arises from a heart of compassion is giving in every respect; and giving without regret before, during, or after is giving in every respect.
「或時設以不淨物施，為令前人生喜心故，酒、毒、刀、杖、枷鎖等物，若得自在、若不自在，終不以施；不施病人不淨食藥；不劫他物乃至一錢持以布施。菩薩施時雖得自在，終不罵打令諸僕使生瞋苦惱。如法財施，不求現在後世果報。施已常觀煩惱罪過，深觀涅槃功德微妙，除菩提已更無所求。施貧窮時，起悲愍心；施福田時，生喜敬心；施親友時，不生放捨心。若見乞者，則知所須，隨相給與，不令發言。何以故？不待求施，得無量果。
"There are times, however, when giving an impure thing merely to please the person in front of one is not true giving: wine, poison, knives, staves, and shackles should never be given, whether or not one is free to give them; one should never give a sick person food or medicine that will harm him; one should never take even a single coin from another and pass it off as one's own gift. Though a bodhisattva may have full authority over his servants when he gives, he never scolds or beats them so as to make them angry or distressed. Giving wealth rightfully obtained, he seeks no reward in this life or lives to come. Having given, he constantly contemplates the faults of the afflictions and the subtle excellence of nirvāṇa, seeking nothing once bodhi itself is his aim. Giving to the poor, he raises a heart of compassion; giving to a field of merit, he raises a heart of joy and reverence; giving to family and friends, he never wants to let go of them. Seeing a beggar, he knows at once what is needed and provides it without making the person even ask — for giving that does not wait to be asked for brings immeasurable fruit."
Taixu's brief comment on this section is simply that it explains how the four obstacles to giving are dismantled and what full, all-encompassing giving actually consists in. What is worth drawing out is the shape of the ten-fold definition of "giving in every respect": nine of its ten clauses concern the quality of the giver's mind — purity, willingness to let go, absence of regret, indifference to the worthiness of the field — rather than the scale of what is given, which is precisely why even a beggar with only a coin's worth of goods can practice it as fully as a wealthy donor. The prohibitions that follow are a necessary corrective in the other direction: generosity is never license to give something that will actually harm the recipient, nor an excuse to mistreat one's own dependents in the name of a larger act of charity.
7. Milestone: Lower, Middle, and Upper Donors
The sutra now sketches the psychology of giving through a repeated three-way contrast — lower, middle, and upper donor — applied across one criterion after another: belief in karma, visible respect for the asker, underlying motive, and even how a person with nothing at all still responds to being asked.
◎「善男子！施主有三，謂下、中、上。不信業果，深著慳悋，恐財有盡，見來求者生瞋礙想，是名為下。雖信業果，於財生慳，恐有空竭，見來求者生於捨心，是名為中。深信業果，於財物所不生慳悋，觀諸財物是無常想，見來求者，有與則喜、無與則惱，以身質物而用與之，是名為上。
"Good son, there are three grades of donor: lower, middle, and upper. One who does not believe in the working of karma, clings deeply to stinginess, fears his wealth will run out, and on seeing someone come to ask feels anger and resistance — this is the lower donor. One who does believe in the working of karma, yet is still stingy about wealth and fears it will be exhausted, and on seeing someone come to ask only reluctantly lets go of it — this is the middle donor. One who deeply believes in the working of karma, feels no stinginess about wealth at all, regards all wealth as impermanent, and on seeing someone come to ask feels joy if he can give and distress if he cannot — even pledging his own body as security in order to have something to give — this is the upper donor.
「復有下者，見來求者，側面不看，惡罵毀辱。復有中者，雖復施與，輕賤不敬。復有上者，未求便施，敬心而與。「復有下者，為現報施；復有中者，為後報施；復有上者，憐愍故施。「復有下者，為報恩施；復有中者，為業故施；復有上者，為法藏施。「復有下者，畏勝故施；復有中者，等己故施；復有上者，不擇怨親。
"Again: the lower donor, seeing someone come to ask, turns his face away and refuses to look, scolding and reviling him. The middle donor, though he does give, gives with contempt and no real respect. The upper donor gives before he is even asked, and gives with a reverent heart.
"Again: the lower donor gives for a reward in this present life; the middle donor gives for a reward in a future life; the upper donor gives simply out of compassion.
"Again: the lower donor gives to repay a debt of gratitude; the middle donor gives because he feels he must, out of a sense of obligation; the upper donor gives in order to preserve and transmit the treasury of the Dharma.
"Again: the lower donor gives out of fear of someone more powerful than himself; the middle donor gives to someone he considers his equal; the upper donor makes no distinction at all between friend and foe.
「又復下者，有財言無；又復中者，多財言少；又復上者，少索多與。「施者無財，亦復三種：最下之人，見來求者，惡心瞋責；中品之人，見來求者，直言無物；上品之人，見來求者，自鄙無物，心生愁惱。善男子！又復下者，常為聖賢之所呵責；又復中者，常為賢聖之所憐愍；又復上者，賢聖見已心生歡喜。
"Again: the lower donor, though he has wealth, claims he has none; the middle donor, though he has much, says he has little; the upper donor, asked for little, gives much.
"Even a donor who genuinely has nothing still falls into three grades. The lowest, seeing someone come to ask, responds with anger and reproach. The middling sort simply tells him plainly he has nothing. The best, seeing someone come to ask, is ashamed at having nothing to give, and grieves on the asker's behalf. Good son, the lower donor is constantly reproached by the sages and worthies; the middle donor is constantly pitied by them; and at the sight of the upper donor, the sages and worthies feel their hearts fill with joy."
Taixu treats this whole cascading series of triads as a single extended character study, run across seven separate axes at once — belief, visible respect, timing of motive, the nature of the obligation felt, the standing of the person asked, honesty about one's own means, and finally the disposition of someone who genuinely has nothing. What he draws attention to is the final triad: even total poverty does not erase moral difference, since the lower donor still responds with hostility, the middle with plain honesty, and the upper with genuine grief at his own inability to help — showing that the sutra locates virtue in the quality of one's inner response to a request, not merely in the material outcome of it.
8. Milestone: The Reasoning Behind True Giving
Moving from psychological types to the actual mental discipline behind ideal giving, the sutra describes a donor who treats every beggar as a benefactor — the very occasion of his own liberation from stinginess — and whose steadiness resembles Mount Sumeru standing unmoved by the wind.
「善男子！智人行施，為自他利，知財寶物是無常故，為令眾生生喜心故，為憐愍故，為壞慳故，為不求索後果報故，為欲莊嚴菩提道故。是故菩薩一切施已，不生悔心，不慮財盡，不輕財物，不輕自身，不觀時節，不觀求者，常念乞者如飢思食。親近善友，諮受正教，見來求者，心生歡喜，如失火家得出財物，歡喜讚歎，說財多過。施已生喜，如寄善人；復語乞者：「汝今真是我功德因！我今遠離慳貪之心，皆由於汝來乞因緣。」即於求者生親愛心。既施與已，復教乞者如法守護，勤修供養佛、法、僧寶。菩薩如是樂行施已，則得遠離一切放逸，雖以身分施於乞者，終不生於一念惡心，因是更增慈、悲、喜、捨。不輕受者，亦不自高，自慶有財稱求者意，增長信心，不疑業果。
"Good son, when the wise give, they do so to benefit both themselves and others: knowing that wealth is impermanent, wishing to bring joy to beings, moved by compassion, wishing to break through stinginess, seeking no reward to come, and wishing to adorn the path to bodhi. This is why, once a bodhisattva has given anything at all, he never feels regret, never worries his wealth will run out, never disdains his possessions or himself, pays no attention to timing or to who is asking — he holds the one who begs constantly in mind, the way a starving man thinks of food.
"He draws close to good friends and takes proper instruction from them. Seeing someone come to ask, his heart fills with joy, as though he were pulling his own possessions out of a burning house — joyful, full of praise, speaking of the many faults of wealth. Having given, he is glad, as though he had entrusted something to a trustworthy person; he even says to the one who asked: 'You are truly the cause of my merit! It is entirely because you came to ask that I have been able to leave stinginess and greed behind' — and a heart of real affection for the asker arises in him. Having given, he further instructs the recipient in how to safeguard the gift and to make offerings to the Three Jewels.
"When a bodhisattva delights in giving in this way, he becomes free of every kind of heedlessness. Even giving a part of his own body to a beggar, not one evil thought arises in him — his loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity only grow the greater for it. He does not look down on the recipient, nor think himself superior; he simply rejoices that he has the means to meet the need, and his faith deepens, free of doubt about the working of karma.
「善男子！若能觀財是無常相，觀諸眾生作一子想，是人乃能施於乞者。善男子！是人不為慳結所動，如須彌山風不能動。如是之人，能為眾生而作歸依，是人能具檀波羅蜜。
"Good son, only one who can regard wealth as impermanent, and regard every being as if each were his only child, is truly able to give to a beggar. Good son, such a person is not moved by the knot of stinginess, no more than Mount Sumeru is moved by the wind. A person of this kind can become a true refuge for beings — this is the person able to bring the perfection of giving, dāna-pāramitā, to genuine completion."
Taixu reads this passage as the chapter's account of giving performed "with contemplation" — the moment where mere generosity becomes the completed perfection of dāna-pāramitā rather than an ordinary good deed. What he singles out is the striking reversal at the passage's center: rather than the donor being thanked, it is the donor who thanks the beggar, since the encounter is precisely what dissolves his own stinginess. The Sumeru image, for Taixu, captures the entire point of the "perfection" in pāramitā — not simply giving once, but reaching a settledness that no future request, however large, could ever unsettle.
9. Milestone: Why the Wise Delight in Giving
The sutra now lists the deliberate reasons the wise choose to give, defines giving itself as essentially a mind free of greed, and traces the practical rewards — visible in this very life, and even softening the torments of an unfortunate rebirth still to come.
「善男子！有智之人，為四事故，樂行惠施：一者、因施能破煩惱，二者、因施發種種願，三者、因施得受安樂，四者、因施多饒財寶。善男子！無貪之心，名之為施。云何無貪？施即是業，物即是作，為業、為作具足布施，名為無貪。因於布施破煩惱者，既行惠施，破慳貪、嫉妬、瞋恚、愚癡。云何因施發種種願？因是施已，能發種種善惡等願，因善惡願得善惡果。何以故？誓願力故。云何因施得受安樂？因是施故，受人、天樂至無上樂。云何因施多饒財寶？因是施故，所求金、銀乃至畜生，如意即得。
"Good son, the wise delight in giving for four reasons: because giving breaks through the afflictions; because giving gives rise to all kinds of vows; because giving brings ease and happiness; and because giving brings abundant wealth. Good son, a mind free of greed is what is called giving. What does 'free of greed' mean? Giving is the karmic act itself, and the object given is what the act is done with; when act and intention together bring giving to full completion, this is being free of greed. Giving breaks through the afflictions because the very practice of it breaks through stinginess, envy, anger, and delusion. Giving gives rise to vows because, through giving, one is able to make vows of every kind, and by the sheer force of a vow one obtains a result to match it. Giving brings ease and happiness because, through it, one experiences the happiness of humans and gods, up to the supreme happiness. And giving brings abundant wealth because, through it, whatever one seeks comes to one just as one wishes.
「善男子！若人樂施，是人即壞五弊惡法：一者、邪見，二者、無信，三者、放逸，四者、慳悋，五者、瞋礙。離是惡已，心生歡喜，因歡喜故，乃至獲得真正解脫。是人現在得四果報：一者、一切樂見乃至怨家，二者、善名流布遍於四方，三者、入大眾時心無怖畏，四者、一切善人樂來親附。善男子！修行施已，其心無悔。是人若以客塵煩惱故墮於地獄，雖處惡處，不飢不渴，以是因緣離二種苦：一、鐵丸苦，二、鐵漿苦。若畜生身，所須易得，無所匱乏。若餓鬼身，不受飢渴，常得飽滿。若得人身，壽命、色、力、安樂、辯才及信、戒、施、多聞、智慧，勝於一切；雖處惡世，不為惡事，惡法生時，終不隨受；於怖畏處不生恐怖。若受天身，十事殊勝。
"Good son, if a person delights in giving, he thereby destroys five corrupting states: wrong view, lack of faith, heedlessness, stinginess, and anger-bound resistance. Once these are left behind, the heart fills with joy, and through that joy one may in time attain genuine liberation. Such a person obtains four rewards in this very life: everyone delights to see him, even his enemies; his good name spreads in every direction; he feels no fear entering a large assembly; and every good person delights to draw near him.
"Good son, once a person has practiced giving, his heart holds no regret. Even should this same person, through adventitious afflictions, fall into hell, though he dwells in that wretched place he feels neither hunger nor thirst, and escapes two of its sufferings: swallowing burning iron balls, and drinking molten iron. If he takes an animal's body, whatever he needs comes easily. If a hungry ghost's body, he is always full and satisfied. If he obtains a human body, his long life, bearing, strength, ease, eloquence, faith, discipline, generosity, learning, and wisdom all surpass others'; though he lives in an evil age, he does no evil, and in places of terror feels no fear. And if he receives a god's body, he excels in ten distinct respects.
「善男子！有智之人，為二事故，能行布施：一者、調伏自心，二者、壞怨瞋心。如來因是，名無上尊。善男子！智者施已，不求受者愛念之心，不求名稱免於怖畏，不求善人來見親附，亦不求望天、人果報；觀於二事：一者、以不堅財易於堅財，二者、終不隨順慳悋之心。何以故？如是財物，我若終沒，不隨我去，是故應當自手施與，我今不應隨失生惱，應當隨施生於歡喜。善男子！施者先當自試其心，以外物施；知心調已，次施內物。因是二施，獲得二法：一者、永離諸有，二者、得正解脫。善男子！如人遠行，身荷重擔疲苦勞極，捨之則樂；行施之人，見來求者，捨財與之心生喜樂，亦復如是。
"Good son, the wise practice giving for two reasons: to tame their own mind, and to break through the mind of hostility. It is precisely for this reason that the Tathāgata is called the Unsurpassed and Honored One. Good son, the wise, having given, seek nothing from the recipient — not his affection, not a reputation that shields them from fear, not the approach of good people, nor any reward among gods or humans. They contemplate only two things: exchanging impermanent wealth for imperishable wealth, and never yielding to a stingy heart. Why? Because when I myself finally pass away, none of this wealth will go with me — so I should give it away with my own hand while I can, feeling joy at the giving rather than distress at the eventual loss.
"Good son, the giver should first test his own mind by giving external things; once his mind is well-tamed, he should go on to give what belongs to his own body. Through these two kinds of giving he obtains two things: permanent freedom from the realms of existence, and genuine liberation. Good son, it is like a man on a long journey, worn out from carrying a heavy burden — setting it down brings him relief. In just the same way, when one who practices giving sees someone come to ask, and lets go of his wealth for him, his heart fills with just such relief and joy."
Taixu notes that "adventitious afflictions" refers to habitual patterns of mind stirred up by circumstance rather than chosen outright — the kind of karma that might still, on rare occasion, land even a habitual giver in an unhappy rebirth. What strikes him about this whole stretch is that giving is presented as protective even there: a generous person who somehow ends up in hell is still spared its two worst tortures, and the same logic of mitigation carries through every possible destiny, human and animal and divine alike. He reads the final image — a heavy burden finally set down — as this section's real thesis in miniature: what looks, from outside, like a sacrifice is described from inside, by the sutra, as unambiguous relief.
10. Milestone: No One Is Too Poor to Give
Addressing a very practical worry, the sutra now insists that literal destitution never actually excuses a person from giving — dishwater poured out for an ant, a single thread, a fingertip's worth of lamp oil, or simply rejoicing at another's gift from a distance, all count, and count equally.
「善男子！智者常作如是思惟：『欲令此物隨逐我身至後世者，莫先於施。』復當深觀貧窮之苦、豪貴快樂，是故繫心常樂行施。善男子！若人有財，見有求者，言無言懅。當知是人已說來世貧窮薄德，如是之人名為放逸。
"Good son, the wise are always thinking in this way: 'If I want anything to follow me into the next life, nothing accomplishes that better than giving.' They also contemplate deeply the suffering of poverty and the pleasures of wealth, and for this reason keep their minds fixed on delighting always in giving. Good son, if a person has wealth, but tells someone who comes to ask that he has none, or hesitates and stalls, know that this person has already declared his own future poverty and lack of virtue — a person like this is called heedless.
「善男子！無財之人，自說無財，是義不然。何以故？一切水草，人無不有，雖是國主，不必能施，雖是貧窮，非不能施。何以故？貧窮之人亦有食分，食已洗器，棄蕩滌汁，施應食者，亦得福德。若以塵施於蟻子，亦得無量福德果報。天下極貧，誰當無此塵許也？誰有一日食三揣命不全者？是故諸人應以食半施於乞者。善男子！極貧之人，誰有赤裸無衣服者？若有衣服，豈無一綖施人繫瘡、一指許財作燈炷耶？善男子！天下之人，誰有貧窮當無身者？如其有身，見他作福，身應往助，歡喜無厭，亦名施主，亦得福德或時有分、或有與等、或有勝者。以是因緣，我受波斯匿王食時，亦呪願王及貧窮人所得福德等無差別。善男子！如人買香——塗香、末香、散香、燒香——如是四香，有人觸者、買者、量者，等聞無異而是諸香不失毫釐。修施之德，亦復如是：若多若少，若麁若細，若隨喜心身往佐助，若遙見聞心生歡喜，其心等故，所得果報無有差別。
"Good son, for a person to claim he is too poor to give is simply not correct. Why not? Because there is no one on earth entirely without water or wild grass; even a ruler is not always able to give, and even the poor are not thereby unable to give. Why? Because even a poor person has his own portion of food: after eating, when he washes his bowl, he can pour out the rinse water for whatever creatures will eat it, and even this brings merit. If one gives even a speck of dust to an ant, this too brings immeasurable merit. Is there anyone so utterly poor as to lack even this much dust? Is there anyone who cannot survive without eating three full mouthfuls a day? This is why everyone should be willing to give half of even a single meal to a beggar.
"Good son, among the very poorest, who is there so bare as to have no clothing at all? And if one has any clothing, is there not a single thread to spare to bind up a wound, or a finger's worth of cloth for a lamp-wick? Good son, who among all people on earth is so poor as to have no body at all? If one has a body, then seeing another perform an act of merit, one should go and lend a hand, rejoicing without ever tiring of it — this too makes one a donor, and this too brings merit, whether a lesser, equal, or even greater share than the other's own. It was for this reason that, when I received King Prasenajit's offering of food, I pronounced the very same blessing over both the king and the poor, with no difference at all in the merit each received.
"Good son, it is like a person buying incense — ointment, powder, loose, or incense for burning. Whether one merely touches it, buys it, or measures it out, all who come near smell the same fragrance, and not the least particle of its quality is lost. The virtue of giving works exactly the same way: whether much or little, coarse or fine, whether one goes in person to lend a hand, or simply rejoices from afar upon seeing or hearing of another's giving — because the heart is the same, the fruit obtained is exactly the same, with no difference at all.
「善男子！若無財物，見他施已心不喜、信，疑於福田，是名貧窮；若多財寶，自在無礙，有良福田，內無信心，不能奉施，亦名貧窮。是故智者，隨有多少，任力施與，除布施已，無有能得人、天之樂至無上樂。是故我於契經中說：『智者自觀餘一揣食，自食則生，施他則死，猶應施與，況復多耶？』善男子！智者當觀財是無常，是無常故，於無量世失壞秏減，不得利益；雖是無常，而能施作無量利益，云何慳惜不布施也？智者復觀世間，若有持戒、多聞，持戒、多聞因緣力故，乃至獲得阿羅漢果；雖得是果，不能遮斷飢渴等苦——若阿羅漢難得房舍、衣服、飲食、臥具、病藥，皆由先世不施因緣——破戒之人若樂行施，是人雖墮餓鬼、畜生，常得飽滿，無所乏少。善男子！除布施已，不得二果：一者、自在，二者、解脫。若持戒人，雖得生天，不修施故，不得上食、微妙瓔珞。若人欲求世間之樂及無上樂，應當樂施。智者當觀生死無邊，受樂亦爾，是故應為斷生死施，不求受樂，復作是觀：雖復富有四天下地，受無量樂，猶不知足，是故我應為無上樂而行布施，不為人、天。何以故？無常故，有邊故。
"Good son, a person without material wealth who, seeing another give, feels no joy and no faith, and remains doubtful about the field of merit — this is what is truly called poverty. And a person of great wealth who is free and unconstrained, who has a good field of merit before him, yet has no faith within and cannot bring himself to give — this too is truly called poverty. This is why the wise give according to whatever means they have; apart from giving, there is no way at all to obtain the happiness of humans and gods, let alone the supreme happiness. This is why I said in the sūtras: 'Let the wise consider: even one remaining mouthful of food — if I eat it myself I live, if I give it to another I may die — and still I should give it away.' How much more so, then, when one has more than this?
"Good son, the wise should contemplate that wealth is impermanent: precisely because it is impermanent, it is lost and worn away over measureless lifetimes without ever truly benefiting one — and yet it can still accomplish immeasurable benefit through giving, so why cling to it in stinginess? The wise further observe that even someone who keeps the precepts and has great learning, and who through that very power attains the fruit of arhatship, still cannot escape sufferings such as hunger and thirst — even an arhat may struggle to obtain lodging, clothing, food, bedding, and medicine, entirely because he failed to practice giving in a former life. Whereas a person who has broken the precepts but delights in giving — even should he fall among hungry ghosts or animals — is always full and satisfied, lacking nothing.
"Good son, apart from giving, two fruits cannot be obtained: freedom, and liberation. A person who keeps the precepts may be reborn among the gods, and yet, not having cultivated giving, will not obtain the finest food or the most exquisite ornaments. If a person wishes to seek worldly happiness, and the supreme happiness as well, he should delight in giving. The wise contemplate that saṃsāra is without limit, and its pleasures equally so — and so give in order to put an end to saṃsāra itself, not to obtain pleasant experience. They reflect further: even one who possessed the wealth of all four continents, enjoying immeasurable pleasure, would still never feel satisfied — and so I should practice giving for the sake of the supreme happiness, not for the happiness of gods or humans. Why? Because that happiness, too, is impermanent, and has its limit."
Taixu treats this entire passage as showing that even those who are genuinely without material means still have a real path of giving open to them. What he draws out especially is the incense simile: touching, buying, and measuring a fragrance all yield the same experience of it without diminishing it in the slightest, and giving works identically — a person who merely rejoices at a distance over someone else's generosity, with no material contribution of his own at all, receives exactly the same merit as if his heart, not his hand, had done the giving. The section closes, he notes, by relocating "poverty" itself: it is not the absence of money but the absence of faith and joy in another's giving that the sutra actually calls poverty, which is why a wealthy person who cannot bring himself to give is, by this definition, no less poor than someone with empty hands.
11. Milestone: Giver, Gift, and Receiver Are All Five Aggregates
The sutra now turns philosophical, opening what Taixu calls one of this scripture's genuinely distinctive contributions: a sustained defense of how giving and its karmic result can be real and continuous without requiring a fixed, permanent self to carry them from one moment — or one lifetime — to the next.
「善男子！若有說言：施主、受者及受樂者皆是五陰，如是五陰即是無常，捨施五陰，誰於彼受？雖無受者，善果不滅，是故無有施者、受者。應反問言『有施、受不？』若言『施即是施，受即我』者，復應語言『我亦如是，施即是施，我即五陰』。
"Good son, suppose someone objects: 'The donor, the recipient, and the one who experiences the resulting happiness are all nothing but the five aggregates, and these five aggregates are impermanent — so once the aggregates that did the giving have perished, who is left to receive the result?' Even though there is, in that sense, no fixed 'receiver,' the good fruit is not thereby destroyed — but neither, in that same sense, is there any fixed 'giver' or 'receiver' to begin with. One should turn the question back and ask: 'Is there giving, is there receiving, at all?' If he says, 'Giving is simply giving, but the self is what receives,' one should answer: 'It is exactly the same for me — giving is simply giving, and the self is simply the five aggregates.'"
Taixu calls this whole four-part discussion — spanning this and the next three sections — one of the places where this particular sutra genuinely excels others he knows, precisely because so few scriptures work through the actual mechanics of karmic continuity in this much technical depth. He frames the underlying question plainly: if there is no fixed, permanent self, and the aggregates that perform an action are already gone by the time its result ripens, in what sense can that result be said to belong to anyone at all? The opening move, he notes, is simply to turn the challenge back on the objector — whatever answer the objector gives about a fixed "self" receiving the fruit can be restated, without loss, in terms of the five aggregates alone.
12. Milestone: The Aggregates Act, the Aggregates Receive — the Seed and the Sprout
The debate deepens through an extended agricultural analogy — does a sprout already exist, hidden, inside its seed, or does it come newly into being? — before the sutra applies the same logic directly to the five aggregates themselves, refuting an imagined opponent's claim that a fixed "self" is what does the acting and receiving.
「若言施陰，此處無常，誰於彼受？諦聽！諦聽！當為汝說。種子常耶？是無常乎？若言常者，云何子滅而生於芽？若見是過，復言無常，復當語言『若無常者，子時與糞、水、土等功，云何而令芽得增長？』若言『子雖無常，以功業故而得芽果』，應言五陰亦復如是。若言『子中先已有芽，人、功、水、糞為作了因』，是義不然！何以故？了因所了，物無增減，多則多住，少則少住。而今水、糞、芽則增長，是故本無今有。若言『了因二種：一、多，二、少。多則見大，少則見小；猶如然燈，明多見大，明少見小』，是義不然。何以故？猶如一種，多與水、糞，不能一時一日增長人等、過人。若言『了因雖有二種，要待時節，物少了少，物多了多，是故我言了因不增』，是義不然！何以故？汝法時常，是故不應作如是說。
"Suppose he presses further: 'If the aggregates that gave are impermanent, and have already ceased, who receives the result?' Listen carefully — I will explain. Is a seed permanent, or impermanent? If permanent, then how does the seed cease and a sprout arise in its place? Seeing this difficulty, suppose you say it is impermanent — one must then ask: 'Why, then, does the sprout grow larger only when the seed is given manure, water, and soil?' If you answer, 'Although the seed is impermanent, it is through these conditions that the sprout and its fruit are obtained,' the same must be said of the five aggregates.
"If you say instead, 'The sprout already existed, latent, within the seed, and the labor, water, and manure merely revealed it,' this is not correct. Why not? Because a revealing cause only reveals what already exists in full — it neither adds nor takes away: more of the cause reveals more of what is already present, less reveals less. But here, water and manure actually cause the sprout to grow larger — which shows it did not exist before and only now comes to exist. And if you say the revealing cause is itself of two strengths, greater and lesser, like a brighter or dimmer lamp — this too fails, because giving one and the same seed more water and manure does not make it grow, in a single day, to the size of a grown person. And if you say the cause must also await the proper season — this too fails, for on your own account such a cause would have to be constant and unchanging, and you cannot then speak of it needing to 'wait' at all.
善男子！子異、芽異，雖作得異，相似不斷，五陰亦爾。善男子！如子業增芽，芽業增莖，莖業增葉，葉業增花，花業增果；一道五陰，增五道陰，亦復如是。若言如是異作異受，是義汝有，非我所說。何以故？如汝法中，作者是我，受者是身，而復不說異作異受；受不殺戒，即是我也，以是因緣身得妙色，是故汝法受者無因，作者無果，有如是過。若言『我作身受，我亦如是，此作彼受。』復應問言『汝身、我異，身受飲食、被服、瓔珞，妙食因緣得好色力，惡食因緣得弊色力，是好、惡色若屬因緣，我何所得？』若言『我得憂愁歡喜』，云何不是異作異受？譬如有人為力服酥，是人久服身得大力、上妙好色；有人羸瘦，見之心喜，是人即得大色力不？若言不得，我亦如是：身所作事，我云何得？何以故？不相似故。我法不爾，陰作陰受，相似不斷。
"Good son, the seed is one thing and the sprout another; though what results differs from what acted, they form an unbroken continuity of resemblance — and the five aggregates are exactly the same. Just as the seed's own activity brings forth the sprout, the sprout's activity the stalk, the stalk's the leaf, the leaf's the flower, and the flower's the fruit, so too does the five aggregates of one destiny give rise, through its own activity, to the five aggregates of another.
"If you say this amounts to 'one thing acting, a different thing receiving,' that is your own formulation, not mine. Why? Because in your own system it is the 'self' that acts and the 'body' that receives, and yet you do not call this 'different acting, different receiving' — you say it is the self that keeps the precept against killing, and by this cause the body gains a fine appearance; but on your own account, then, the receiver has no cause, and the actor gets no fruit. Suppose you say instead, 'It is the self that acts, the body that receives, and I hold this to be one and the same' — then one should ask: 'Your body and your self are different — the body receives food and clothing, gaining good or poor color and strength according to what it eats; if this belongs entirely to bodily conditions, what does the self itself gain?' If you answer, 'The self gains sorrow or joy in response,' how is this not itself a case of one thing acting and a different thing receiving? It is like a man who takes clarified butter for strength and, after a long while, gains great strength and a fine appearance; if a second, thin man merely sees him and feels glad at the sight, does that second man thereby gain the same strength? If not, then I ask the same of your 'self': whatever the body does, how does the self come to possess it? Because they are not of the same continuum. My own teaching is not like this: in my teaching, it is the aggregates that act, and the aggregates that receive, as an unbroken continuity of resemblance."
Taixu identifies the imagined opponent here with the Sāṃkhya school, whose "revealing cause" language he says presupposes an eternal, unchanging substrate — exactly the kind of fixed self or soul the sutra's whole argument is built to dismantle. His own illustration for "a revealing cause neither adds nor subtracts" is a row of flower vases in a hall: however bright or dim the light falling on them, the vases themselves neither grow nor shrink — which is precisely why growth that responds to water and manure cannot be explained as mere revelation of something already complete. The chain he draws out — seed to sprout to stalk to leaf to flower to fruit — becomes the template for how one rebirth's aggregates give rise to the next destiny's aggregates: not the same thing persisting, and not something unrelated either, but an unbroken continuity of resemblance, which is the sutra's own technical term for the middle path between a permanent self and no continuity at all.
13. Milestone: Acting in One Life, Receiving in Another
Having established the principle in the abstract, the sutra now works through a remarkable run of concrete analogies — spreading wildfire, a wagered torch, a river's shifting banks, a cursed man's shackled foot, a lamp's oil, a half-forgotten dialect, and a distant heir's inheritance — each demonstrating how something can be genuinely continuous without being simply identical from one moment to the next.
「善男子！若言五陰無常，此不至彼而得受報，是義不然！何以故？我法或有即作即受，或有異作異受，無作無受。即作即受者，陰作陰受；異作異受者，人作天受；無作無受者，作業因緣和合而有，本無自性，何有作受？汝意若謂『異作異受，云何復言相續不斷？』是義不然！何以故？譬如置毒乳中，至醍醐時故能殺人，乳時異故，醍醐亦異，雖復有異，次第而生，相似不斷，故能害人；五陰亦爾，雖復有異，次第而生，相似不斷，是故可言『異作異受，即作即受、無作無受』者。若離五陰者，無我、我所。一切眾生顛倒覆心，或說色即是我，乃至識即是我；或有說言『色即是我，其餘四陰即是我所』，乃至識亦如是。若有說言『離五陰已別有我』者，無有是處。何以故？我佛法中色非我也。所以者何？無常、無作、不自在故，是故四陰不名我所；乃至識亦如是。眾緣和合，異法出生，故名為作，實無異作；眾緣和合，異法出生，名為受者，實無異受；是故名為無作無受。
"Good son, if you say the five aggregates are impermanent, so what happens here can never reach there to receive its result — this too is not correct. Why not? Because in my system there are results received by the very aggregates that acted, results received by different aggregates from those that acted, and yet, in another sense, neither a fixed actor nor a fixed receiver at all. When the very same aggregates act and receive, this is 'the aggregates act, the aggregates receive.' When different aggregates act and receive — as when a person acts and a god receives — this is 'one acts, another receives.' And when the karmic act arises simply from causes and conditions coming together, having no fixed nature of its own, then there is, in that sense, truly no fixed actor and no fixed receiver.
"You might object: 'If one thing acts and a different thing receives, how can you still speak of unbroken continuity?' Consider: if poison is placed in milk, then by the time that milk has been refined into ghee, the ghee can still kill — the milk-stage differs from the ghee-stage, and yet they arise in unbroken sequence, one continuous with the last, and so the ghee still causes harm. The five aggregates work the same way: though they differ moment to moment, they arise in unbroken succession — which is why one may rightly say 'one thing acts, another receives,' and also 'the same thing acts and receives,' and also 'neither acts nor receives,' all at once, without contradiction.
"Apart from the five aggregates, there is no self and nothing belonging to a self. All beings, minds overturned by delusion, say either that form itself is the self, and so on up to consciousness; or that form is the self and the other four aggregates belong to it. But to claim some separate self apart from the five aggregates altogether has no basis at all — in the Buddhadharma, form is not the self, because it is impermanent, has no independent activity, and is not free; and the same holds for the remaining aggregates, consciousness included. Whenever causes and conditions come together and something different arises, this is called 'acting,' though in truth there is no separately existing actor apart from that arising; and likewise for 'receiving.' This is exactly what is meant by 'neither acting nor receiving.'"
「若汝意謂『異作異受，何故此人作業不彼人受？俱有五陰？』是義不然！何以故？異有二種：一者、身異，二者、名異。一者、『佛得』，二者、『天得』。『佛得』、『天得』，身、名各異，是因緣故身、口應異；身、口異故造業亦異；造業異故壽命、色、力、安、辯亦異，是故不得『佛得』作業，『天得』受果。雖俱五陰，色、名是一，受、想、行異。何以故？『佛得』受樂，『天得』受苦，『佛得』生貪，『天得』生瞋，是故不得名為相似。色、名雖一，其實有異，或有『佛得』白色，『天得』黑色。若以名同為一義者，一人生時應一切生，一人死時應一切死。汝若不欲然此義者，是故不得異作異受。汝意若謂『汝亦異作異受，我亦如是異作異受；若異作異受，應同我過，何故不見自過而責我』者，是義不然。何以故？我異二種：一、次第生亦次第滅，二者、次第生不次第滅。是生異故，滅亦復異，是故我言『異作異受，此作此受』不同汝過。
"You might ask: 'If one thing acts and a different thing receives, why does this person's karma not simply pass to be received by that other person, given that both alike consist of five aggregates?' This too is not correct. Why not? Because 'difference' is of two kinds: difference of body, and difference of name. Take, for instance, one called 'Buddha-attainer' and another called 'God-attainer.' Since they differ in body and name, their bodily and verbal actions differ; because these differ, the karma each creates differs; and because that differs, their resulting lifespan, complexion, strength, ease, and eloquence differ — which is why the karma created by 'Buddha-attainer' cannot be received as the fruit of 'God-attainer.' Though both consist of five aggregates, and their form and name might in some sense be called one, their feeling, perception, and volitional formations differ: 'Buddha-attainer' experiences happiness, 'God-attainer' suffering; one gives rise to craving, the other to anger — and so they cannot be called the same continuum. Even where form and name seem the same, they truly differ; if mere sameness of name made two things one and the same, then when one person is born, all people everywhere should be born at that moment, and when one dies, all should die — a consequence you surely do not accept.
"You might say: 'By your own account too, one thing acts and a different thing receives — so my position shares your difficulty; why blame me and not yourself?' This too is not correct. Why not? Because 'difference,' in my system, is of two kinds: arising and ceasing in the same sequential order, and arising and ceasing not in the same order. Because the manner of arising differs, the manner of ceasing differs accordingly — which is why I can say 'one thing acts, a different thing receives, and yet this very thing acts and this very thing receives,' without falling into the difficulty that besets your position."
「譬如有人欲燒聚落，於乾草中放一粒火，是火次第生因緣故，能燒百里至二百里。村主求得，即便問之：『汝弊惡人，何因緣故燒是大村？』彼人答言：『實非我燒。何以故？我所放火，尋已滅盡，所燒之處一把草耳。我今當還償汝二把，其餘之物我不應償。』是時村主復作是言：『癡人！因汝小火，次第生火，遂燒百里至二百里。辜由於汝，云何不償？』雖知是火異作異燒，相續不斷，故彼得罪。善惡五陰亦復如是：受報時陰雖言不作，以其次第相續而生，是故受報。譬如有人與他共賭，執炬遠行至百里外，若不至者當輸罰負，如其到者汝當輸我。執炬之人至百里已，即從責物，他言：『汝炬發跡已滅，云何於此從我索物？』執炬者言：『彼火雖滅，次第相續生來至此。』如是二人，說俱得理。何以故？如是義者，亦即亦異，是故二人俱無過失。若有說言『五陰亦爾，即作即受，異作異受』，俱無過失。
"It is like a man who wishes to burn down a village: he drops a single spark into dry grass, and because that fire spreads on, moment giving rise to the next, it goes on to burn a hundred, even two hundred, square miles. The village headman, catching the man, demands: 'You wretch — why did you burn down this whole village?' He answers: 'I truly did not burn it. The fire I actually set went out almost at once — what I burned was no more than a handful of grass. I owe you no more than two handfuls in return.' The headman replies: 'Fool! It was your small fire that gave rise, moment by moment, to fire after fire, until it burned two hundred miles. The fault is entirely yours!' Even though the fire that finally did the burning was, strictly, different from the spark first set, because it arose in unbroken succession from it, the man is still held guilty. Good and evil karma carried by the five aggregates works the same way: the aggregates receiving the result may no longer, strictly, be the very ones that first acted — and yet, because they arise in unbroken succession, the result is still rightly received.
"Or again: two men wager that one of them will carry a lit torch a hundred miles; if he fails, he forfeits the bet, but if he arrives, the other must pay. Reaching the hundred-mile mark, he demands his winnings. The other objects: 'The torch you set out with went out long ago — by what right do you demand payment?' He answers: 'That flame, though it went out, gave rise to flame after flame in unbroken succession, all the way to this spot.' Both men, in fact, have a point — the truth of the matter is both 'the same' and 'different' at once, so neither is wrong. One may say the same of the five aggregates: both that the very aggregates act and receive, and that one acts while a different one receives, and be correct either way."
「譬如此彼二岸、中流，總名恒河，夏時二岸相去甚遠，秋時二岸相去則近，無常定相，或大或小，雖復增減，人皆謂河。或有說言『此不是河，智人亦說有異、不異；五陰亦爾，智人亦說即作即受，異作異受』。汝意若謂『二岸是土，中流是水，河神是河』，是義不然！何以故？若神是河，何故復言河清、河濁，有此岸、彼岸、中流深淺，到於大海，可度、不度？譬如有樹，則有神居，若無樹者，神何所居？河之與神，亦應如是。是故彼此二岸、中流，次第不斷，總名為河。是故可言即之與異，五陰亦爾。
"Consider, too, the two banks of a river and the current between them, which together we simply call 'the Ganges.' In summer the two banks stand far apart; in autumn they draw near; the river has no fixed form, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller — and yet, for all this change, everyone still calls it the same river. Some might object that, strictly, this is not really the same river — but the wise say it both is and is not the same. The five aggregates are just the same: the wise say both that the aggregates act and receive, and that one acts while a different one receives.
"You might suppose the two banks are simply earth, the current simply water, and it is the river-spirit alone that is truly 'the river.' This too is not correct — for if the spirit alone were the river, why would we still speak of the river as clear or turbid, of near and far banks, of shallows and depths, of it finally reaching the sea, of it being fordable or not? It is like a tree with a spirit dwelling within it: without the tree, where would the spirit dwell? The relation of river to spirit is the same — neither simply identical nor simply separate. And so the near bank, the far bank, and the current between them, continuous and unbroken, together are simply called 'the river.' In just this sense, one may speak of the five aggregates as both 'the same' and 'different.'"
「譬如有人罵辱貴勝，因惡口故，脚被鎖械，是脚實無惡口之罪而被鎖械，是故不得決定說言『異作異受，即作即受』，唯有智者可得說言『即作即受，異作異受』。譬如器、油、炷火、人護，眾緣和合乃名燈明。汝意若謂『燈明增減』，是義不然！何以故？滅故不增，來故無減，以次第生故，言燈增減。汝意若謂『燈是無常，油即是常，油多明多，油少明少者』，是義不然！何以故？油無常故，有盡、有燒。如其常者，應二念住；若二念住，誰能燒盡？是故智人亦復說言『燈明即異，五陰亦爾，明即六入，油即是業，油業因緣故令五陰有增有減，有彼有此』。
"It is like a man who insults someone of high rank, and because of his abusive speech, his feet are placed in shackles — though, strictly, it was not his feet that spoke the abuse, and yet it is his feet that bear the shackles. This shows one cannot insist absolutely on either 'one acts, a different one receives' or 'the very same one acts and receives' — only the wise can rightly say both, as the case requires.
"It is like a lamp: a vessel, oil, a wick, a flame, and someone tending it — only when all these come together is there something we call 'lamplight.' You might suppose the lamplight itself grows or shrinks — this is not correct, since what has ceased does not increase and what newly comes does not diminish; it is only because the light arises moment after moment, in unbroken succession, that we speak loosely of it 'growing' or 'shrinking.' You might further suppose the oil itself is constant, and that more oil simply means more light — this too fails, because the oil, too, is impermanent: it is used up and consumed by burning. If it were truly constant, it would have to remain unchanged for at least two consecutive moments — but then what could ever burn it away entirely? This is why the wise likewise say: the lamplight itself is ever-changing, and the five aggregates are exactly the same — the 'light' corresponds to the six sense faculties, and the 'oil' to karma; it is the coming-together of oil and karma as causes and conditions that makes the five aggregates grow and diminish, and be this or be that, in turn."
「如有人說阿坻耶語，是阿坻耶久已過去，不在今日，世人相傳，次第不滅，故得稱為阿坻耶語。智者亦說是阿坻耶語，非阿坻耶語，雖復是、非，俱不失理；五陰亦爾：亦可說言即作即受，異作異受。有人巨富，繼嗣中斷，身復喪沒，財當入官。有人言曰：『如是財物，應當屬我。』官人語言：『是財云何異作異屬？』是人復言：『我是亡者第七世孫，次第不斷，云何是財不屬我耶？』官人即言：『如是如是，如汝所說。』智者說言『五陰亦爾，即作即受，異作異受』。」
"It is like the way people still speak of 'the language of the Ajiya,' though the Ajiya people themselves vanished long ago and are no longer present today — the term has simply been handed down, generation to generation, in unbroken transmission, and so is still called by their name. The wise, in the same way, say it both is and is not truly their language, and neither way of speaking violates the underlying truth of the matter. The five aggregates are exactly the same: one may equally say the very aggregates act and receive, or that one acts while a different one receives.
"There was once a very wealthy man whose family line came to an end, and who himself then died, so his estate was due to pass to the crown. Someone came forward and said, 'This wealth ought to belong to me.' The magistrate asked: 'How can wealth belonging to one person come to belong to someone different?' The man replied: 'I am the seventh-generation descendant of the deceased, and the family line, though it passed through many generations, was never truly broken — so how could this wealth not belong to me?' The magistrate said: 'Just so, just so — exactly as you say.' The wise say of the five aggregates exactly what was said here: that the very aggregates act and receive, and also that one acts while a different one receives."
Taixu treats each analogy in this run as demonstrating the same single point from a different angle: that "same" and "different" are not, in fact, opposites here, but two descriptions of one and the same unbroken continuity, true together rather than in competition. The fire and torch similes show how an effect can rightly be attributed to an original cause even though nothing in the effect is, strictly, the original spark; the river and the shackled foot show how ordinary language already accepts this kind of loose, functional identity without anyone finding it paradoxical; the lamp glosses "light" as the six sense faculties — eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind — and "oil" as karma, so that the increase and decrease of experience across a lifetime becomes simply the working of karmic fuel; and the half-remembered language and the distant heir show that continuity of this kind is exactly how inheritance, whether of speech or of property, already works in the world everyone actually lives in. He reads the "Buddha-attainer, God-attainer" argument as the section's real target: it refutes anyone who thinks that "different aggregates receive the result" must mean karma could leak from one being to some unrelated other, by showing that body and name individuate a being's karmic stream precisely enough to prevent that.
14. Milestone: Karmic Result Waits for Its Season
The philosophical sequence closes with a final worry — if the aggregates that acted have already perished, where has the karma actually been "waiting" all this time? — answered through the ripening of a sour citron, the delayed action of medicine, and a memory from earliest childhood that resurfaces a lifetime later.
汝意若謂『五陰作業，成已便過，是身猶在，業無所依，業若無依，便是無業，捨是身已，云何得報？』是義不然。何以故？一切過業待體、待時。譬如橘子因橘而生，從酢而甜。人為橘故種殖是子，是子、根、莖、葉、花、生果，皆悉不酢，時到果熟酢味則發。如是酢味非本無今有，亦非無緣，乃是過去本果因緣；身、口、意業，亦復如是。若言是業住何處者，是業住於過去世中，待時、待器，得受果報。如人服藥，經於時節，藥雖銷滅，時到則發好力、好色；身、口、意業，亦復如是，雖復過滅，時到則受。譬如小兒初所學事，雖念念滅，無有住處，然至百年亦不亡失；是過去業亦復如是，雖無住處，時到自受。是故言：非陰作陰受，亦復不得非陰受也。若能了了通達是事，是人則能獲無上果。」◎
"You might object once more: 'Once an act performed by the five aggregates is complete, it has already passed away. This body may still remain, but the karmic act has nowhere to reside — and if it has nowhere to reside, then in effect there is no karma at all. So once even this body is given up, how could any result ever be received?' This too is not correct. Why not? Because every karmic act that has passed still depends on some substrate, and awaits its proper season.
"Consider the citron: it is born from the citron tree, yet its sourness turns, in time, to sweetness. A man plants the seed for the sake of the fruit; the seed, root, stalk, leaf, flower, and even the young fruit itself are none of them sour — only when the season comes and the fruit ripens does its distinctive tartness appear. This tartness does not spring from nothing, nor arise without any cause — it is the working of a cause laid down in the past, now finally bearing its fruit. The karma of body, speech, and mind works exactly the same way. If you ask where, in the meantime, this karma has been residing, the answer is: it resides in the past itself, awaiting the right season and the right vessel, until it finally comes to be received as its result.
"It is like a person who takes medicine: after time has passed, the medicine may have long since dissolved away, and yet, when its proper time comes, it still brings forth good strength and healthy color. The karma of body, speech, and mind is exactly the same: though it too has long since passed, when its proper time comes, its result is still received.
"It is like the way a small child first learns something: though each moment of that learning perishes as soon as it arises, leaving no fixed place where it resides, still, even a hundred years later, what was learned is not lost. Past karma is exactly the same: though it has no fixed place of residence, when its proper time arrives, its result is spontaneously received.
"This is why it must be said: it is not simply that the very aggregates that acted are the ones that receive the result — but neither can it be said that the aggregates do not receive it at all. Whoever is able to see through and thoroughly grasp this matter is capable of attaining the unsurpassed fruit."
Taixu identifies this as the doctrine of karmic ripening across time, distance, and even a change of underlying kind — what the later tradition would formalize as "differently timed, differently destined, differently transformed" maturation. He notes that a full technical account of exactly how a dormant karmic act is actually "stored" belongs to the doctrine of the storehouse consciousness worked out at length in later Yogācāra treatises, but that this sutra passage already contains the essential seed of that later theory, without yet using its developed vocabulary. He reads the child's-memory analogy as the most intuitive of the three, and closes by noting that this whole four-part discussion — from the aggregates as giver and receiver through to this final teaching on ripening in time — could rightly be called, on its own, "a treatise establishing the reality of giving and its result," since between them these four sections make a case for the reality of karmic fruit that is genuinely rare to find worked out at this length anywhere else in the sutra literature.
15. Milestone: Leaving Impure Giving Behind
At this point the Chinese text itself crosses a fascicle boundary — Dharmakṣema's translation divides here between fascicle four and fascicle five, and the chapter resumes under the heading "The Remainder of the Chapter of Miscellaneous Teachings." The sutra now turns from the metaphysics of karma back to practical ethics, opening with a detailed anatomy of stinginess and the motives that must never underlie true giving.
◎善男子！若復有人於身、命、財慳悋不施，是名為慳。護惜慳人不施之心不生憐愍，留待福田，求覓福田，既得求過，觀財難得，為之受苦；或說無果、無施、無受；護惜妻子眷屬等心，積財求名，見多生喜，觀財是常，是名慳垢。是垢能污諸眾生心，以是因緣，於他物中尚不能施，況出自物？智人行施，不為報恩，不為求事，不為護惜慳貪之人，不為生天人中受樂，不為善名流布於外，不為畏怖三惡道苦，不為他求，不為勝他，不為失財，不以多有，不為不用，不為家法，不為親近。智人行施，為憐愍故，為欲令他得安樂故，為令他人生施心故，為諸聖人本行道故，為欲破壞諸煩惱故，為入涅槃斷於有故。
Good son, if a person is stingy and unwilling to give of his own body, life, or wealth, this is called stinginess. When such a person guards his stingy, ungiving heart, he feels no compassion; he searches endlessly for a "worthy field" to give to, and once he has found one, still finds fault with it; he regards wealth as hard to come by, and suffers on its account; he may even claim there is no such thing as karmic fruit, no giving, and no receiving; he guards his concern for wife, children, and kin; he hoards wealth in pursuit of reputation, rejoices at seeing his holdings grow, and regards wealth as though it were permanent — all of this is what is called the defilement of stinginess. This defilement contaminates the minds of beings, and because of it, a person cannot even bring himself to give away what belongs to someone else, much less what belongs to himself.
The wise practice giving not to repay a debt, not to gain advantage, not to spare a stingy person embarrassment, not to be reborn among gods or humans for pleasure, not to spread a reputation abroad, not out of fear of the three evil destinies, not because someone demanded it, not to outdo another, not out of fear of losing wealth, not because they have so much of it, not because they have no use for it, not as family custom, and not to win anyone's favor. The wise practice giving out of compassion; wishing to bring others ease; wishing to plant in others a heart that delights in giving; because giving is the very path the sages themselves walk; wishing to break through the afflictions; and in order to enter nirvāṇa and put an end to the realms of existence altogether.
「善男子！菩薩布施，遠離四惡：一者、破戒，二者、疑網，三者、邪見，四者、慳悋。復離五法：一者、施時不選有德無德，二者、施時不說善惡，三者、施時不擇種姓，四者、施時不輕求者，五者、施時不惡口罵。復有三事，施已不得勝妙果報：一者、先多發心後則少與，二者、擇選惡物持以施人，三者、既行施已心生悔恨。善男子！復有八事，施已不得成就上果：一者、施已見受者過，二者、施時心不平施，三者、施已求受者作，四者、施已喜自讚歎，五者、說無後乃與之，六者、施已惡口罵詈，七者、施已求還二倍，八者、施已生於疑心。如是施主，則不能得親近諸佛賢聖之人。
"Good son, in giving, a bodhisattva keeps far from four evils: breaking the precepts, being caught in the net of doubt, holding wrong views, and stinginess. He also keeps free of five faults: not choosing between the virtuous and the unworthy; not commenting on whether the recipient is good or bad; not discriminating by caste or lineage; not looking down on the one who asks; and not scolding with harsh words.
"There are, further, three things that keep a gift from bearing its finest fruit: resolving at the outset to give a great deal and then giving only a little; deliberately choosing something inferior to give away; and feeling regret after the giving is done.
"Good son, there are, further, eight things that keep a gift from achieving its highest fruit: finding fault with the recipient after giving; giving without an even, impartial heart; demanding the recipient do something in return; boasting of one's own gift; claiming to have nothing and only then giving; scolding the recipient with harsh words after giving; demanding the gift be repaid twofold; and harboring doubt after having given. A donor who gives in any of these ways will never be able to draw close to the buddhas and the sages and worthies."
Taixu's own note here is characteristically brief — this section, he says, simply lays out what must be avoided for giving to remain impure giving. What is worth noticing across all four of its lists — the four evils, the five faults, the three regret-causing habits, and the final eight obstructions — is how few of them concern the object given at all; nearly every one names an attitude in the giver's own mind, before, during, or after the act, confirming once again that this chapter locates the value of a gift almost entirely in the state of the person giving it.
16. Milestone: What Makes Giving Genuinely Pure
Against that catalogue of faults, the sutra now offers a positive definition of pure giving — one that culminates in a striking image: merit that follows a true donor the way a calf, unbidden, simply follows its mother.
若以具足色、香、味、觸施於彼者，是名淨施；若能如法得財施者，是名淨施；觀財無常不可久保而行布施，是名淨施；為破煩惱故行布施，是名淨施；為淨自心因緣故施，是名淨施；若觀誰施，誰是受者，施何等物，何緣故施，是施因緣得何等果——如是布施即十二入，受者、施主、因緣、果報皆十二入，能如是觀行於施者，是名淨施。若行施時，於福田所生歡喜心，如諸福田所求功德，我亦如是求之不息，施於妻子、眷屬、僕使，生憐愍心，施於貧窮，為壞苦惱；施時不求世間果報，破憍慢施，柔濡心施，離諸有施，為求無上解脫故施，深觀生死多過罪施，不觀福田非福田施：若能如是行布施者，報逐是人，如犢隨母。
Giving what is complete with fine color, fragrance, taste, and texture is pure giving. Giving wealth rightfully obtained is pure giving. Giving while contemplating that wealth is impermanent and cannot be kept for long is pure giving. Giving to break through the afflictions is pure giving. Giving to purify one's own mind is pure giving. And giving while contemplating who gives, who receives, what is given, why it is given, and what fruit will come of it — recognizing that giver, gift, receiver, cause, and fruit alike are nothing but the twelve sense-bases — one who practices giving while observing it this way practices pure giving.
Giving while feeling joy over the recipient as a field of merit, seeking for oneself the very virtues that field itself pursues, without ever growing weary; giving to one's own spouse, children, kin, and servants with compassion; giving to the poor to break through their suffering; giving without seeking any worldly reward; giving in a way that breaks through arrogance; giving with a soft and yielding heart; giving in a way that frees one from the realms of existence; giving for the sake of unsurpassed liberation; giving while contemplating deeply the many faults of saṃsāra; giving without pausing to judge whether the recipient is or is not truly a field of merit — whoever gives in this way finds that its reward follows him the way a calf follows its mother.
Taixu glosses "the twelve" here as the twelve sense-bases — the six sense faculties together with their six corresponding objects — and reads the instruction to see giver, gift, receiver, and result all as instances of this same twelvefold analysis as the sutra's own quiet way of extending the no-self argument of the previous sections into the actual practice of giving itself, so that "pure giving" turns out to mean giving performed with genuine insight into emptiness, not merely giving performed with a nice-sounding motive. The calf-and-mother image, he notes, is deliberately unforced — the calf does not have to search for its mother or strategize about following her, and merit, similarly, simply accompanies genuinely pure giving without the donor needing to chase after it.
17. Milestone: Weighing the Merit of Different Gifts
The sutra now offers something closer to an actual scale, ranking the merit of an identical gift according to who receives it — climbing from an animal all the way to a buddha — before immediately qualifying that scale with a story about the Buddha and his disciple Śāriputra that complicates any simple reading of it.
若求果施，市易無異。如為身命耕田種作，隨其種子獲其果實；施主施已，亦復如是，隨其所施獲其福報。如受施者，受已得命、色、力、安、辯，施主亦得如是五報；若施畜生得百倍報，施破戒者得千倍報，施持戒者得十萬報，施外道離欲得百萬報，施向道者得千億報，施須陀洹得無量報，向斯陀含亦無量報，乃至成佛亦無量報。◎
Giving that is done seeking a return is no different from an ordinary trade in the marketplace. It is like tilling a field to sustain one's own life — one reaps exactly the fruit of whatever seed was sown; giving works the same way, and the donor reaps precisely the merit corresponding to what he gave. Just as the recipient, once he receives the gift, gains life, fine bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence, the donor gains these same five rewards in turn. Giving to an animal brings a hundredfold reward; to one who has broken the precepts, a thousandfold; to one who keeps the precepts, a hundred-thousandfold; to a non-Buddhist practitioner free of desire, a millionfold; to one advancing toward the path, a hundred-billionfold; to a stream-enterer, an immeasurable reward; to one advancing toward once-returner status, likewise immeasurable; and giving all the way up to a buddha, immeasurable as well.
「善男子！我今為汝分別諸福田故，作如是說得百倍報至無量報。若能至心生大憐愍，施於畜生，專心恭敬施於諸佛，其福正等無有差別。言百倍者，如以壽命、色、力、安、辯施於彼者，施主後得壽命、色、力、安樂、辯才各各百倍；乃至無量，亦復如是。是故我於契經中說：我施舍利弗，舍利弗亦施於我，然我得多，非舍利弗得福多也。
"Good son, I say this — that the reward ranges from a hundredfold up to the immeasurable — precisely in order to help you distinguish the different fields of merit from one another. But if a person can give to an animal with utmost sincerity and profound compassion, this and giving to a buddha with wholehearted reverence bring exactly the same merit, with no difference between them at all. What I mean by 'a hundredfold' reward is this: if one gives life, bearing, strength, ease, and eloquence to another, the donor afterward obtains these same qualities a hundred times over, and it is the same at every further multiple, up to the immeasurable. This is why I said in the sūtras: 'I gave to Śāriputra, and Śāriputra likewise gave to me — and yet I obtained far more merit from it than Śāriputra did.'"
Taixu glosses "one advancing toward the path" as a technical reference to the seven preparatory stages of practice leading up to stream-entry — the cultivation of mindfulness on the body and the other foundations, on up through the "supreme worldly dharma" stage — and reads the scale from stream-enterer through arhat and pratyekabuddha as covering every rank of realization the sutra elsewhere names. But he treats the Buddha-and-Śāriputra story as the passage's real punchline, undercutting the whole apparent hierarchy: the Buddha's own compassion regards every being with the same boundless, impartial love a parent has for an only child, and it is the vastness of that regard — not Śāriputra's comparatively narrower rank — that accounts for why the Buddha's own act of giving outweighs his disciple's, even though both gave the very same thing to each other.
18. Milestone: Why the Donor Never Reaps a Bad Result
Anticipating a natural objection — that giving to someone who later does evil might taint the giver — the sutra methodically refutes it, insisting that the donor's own good result is entirely secured by his own intention at the moment of giving, regardless of what the recipient later does with the gift.
或有人說『受者作惡，罪及施主』，是義不然！何以故？施主施時，為破彼苦，非為作罪，是故施主應得善果；受者作惡，罪自鍾之，不及施主。施主若以淨妙物施，後得好色，人所樂見，善名流布，所求如意，生上種姓，是不名惡，云何說言施主得罪？施主施已，歡喜不悔，親近善人，財富自在，生上族家，得人、天樂至無上樂，能離一切煩惱結縛，施主乃得如是妙果，云何說言得惡果報？
Some claim: "If the recipient goes on to do evil, the fault falls upon the donor as well." This is not correct. Why not? Because when the donor gives, he does so to relieve the recipient's suffering, not to create wrongdoing — so the donor still deserves only a good result. If the recipient goes on to do evil, that fault belongs to him alone, and does not touch the donor. If the donor gives something pure and fine, and later obtains a fine appearance, is delighted in by others, gains a good reputation, has his wishes fulfilled, and is born into a high family, none of this can be called evil — so how could anyone say the donor incurs wrongdoing? If, having given, the donor feels joyful and free of regret, draws close to good people, has wealth and freedom, is born into a distinguished family, experiences the happiness of gods and humans up to the supreme happiness, and is freed from every bond of affliction — how could anyone say he obtains an evil result?
施主若能自手施已，生上姓家，遇善知識，多財饒寶，眷屬成就，能用能施，一切眾生喜樂見之，見已恭敬、尊重、讚歎，施主受報得如是事，云何說言得惡果報？施主若已淨物施已，以是因緣多饒財寶，生上種姓，眷屬無量，身無病苦，心無憂怖，所有財物王、賊、水、火所不能侵，設失財物不生愁惱，無量世中身心安樂，云何說言受惡果報？若未施時生於信心，施時歡喜，施已安樂，求時、守時、用時不苦，若以衣施得上妙色，若以食施得無上力，若以燈施得淨妙眼，若以乘施身受安樂，若以舍施所須無乏，施主乃得如是善報，云何說言得惡果也？
If a donor gives with his own hand and, as a result, is born into a distinguished family, meets good spiritual friends, possesses abundant wealth, has a flourishing household, is able both to use and to give away his wealth, and is loved and praised wherever he is seen, how could anyone say he obtains an evil result? If a donor gives something pure, and gains abundant wealth, a high lineage, countless kin, freedom from illness and anxiety, and wealth no king, thief, flood, or fire can touch — feeling no distress even should he lose it — how could anyone say he receives an evil result? If, before giving, his heart is already full of faith; if, while giving, he feels joy; if, having given, he feels at ease; and if, whether seeking, guarding, or using his wealth, he feels no distress at any stage — and if giving clothing brings a fine appearance, giving food brings unsurpassed strength, giving a lamp brings clear and beautiful eyes, giving a vehicle brings bodily ease, and giving a dwelling brings freedom from want — the donor obtains good results exactly like these. How, then, could anyone say that giving brings an evil result at all?
Taixu reads this whole passage as directly aimed at a specific excuse: the worry that giving to an "unworthy" recipient — someone who might misuse the gift or go on to do harm — somehow implicates the giver in that harm, and can therefore be used to justify withholding help. The sutra's answer, he notes, rests entirely on separating intention from consequence: because the donor's own act was aimed only at relieving suffering, the recipient's subsequent choices belong to the recipient's own karmic stream and cannot travel backward to contaminate the donor's. He treats the accumulating list of good results — fine appearance, wealth immune to king and thief and flood and fire, freedom from anxiety — less as a literal inventory to expect and more as a rhetorical wall built up specifically to make the "giving causes bad results" argument impossible to sustain.
19. Milestone: What Actually Determines the Difference in Results
Turning from whether giving ever produces a bad result to what actually shapes how good a result it produces, the sutra distinguishes merit generated by the act of giving itself from merit generated by the recipient's later use of the gift, then works through a long list of specific circumstances — from a daily vow to fast until others are fed, to plundering someone else's property in order to give it away — that either enlarge or diminish what a gift finally yields.
復次，施主若施佛已，用與不用，果報已定。施人及僧，有二種福：一、從用生，二、從受生。何以故？施主施時，自破慳悋，受者用時，破他慳悋，是故說言從用生福。又復從用人能轉用、僧能增長，施已不求世之果報，不以能起煩惱因施，是故能得無上淨果，名曰涅槃。若有人能日日立要，先施他食，然後自食，若違此要，誓輸佛物，犯則生愧；如其不違，即是微妙智慧因緣，如是施者，諸施中最，是人亦得名上施主。若能隨順求者意施，是人於後無量世中所求如意。若有淨心、財物、福田悉清淨者，是人則得無量果報。若給妻子、奴婢衣食，恒以憐愍歡喜心與，未來則得無量福德。復觀田倉多有鼠雀，犯暴穀米，恒生憐愍；復作是念：「如是鼠雀，因我得活。」念已歡喜，無觸惱想，當知是人得福無量。若為自身造作衣服、瓔珞、環玔嚴身之具，種種器物，作已歡喜，自未服用，持以施人，是人未來得如意樹。
Furthermore, once a donor has given something to a Buddha, whether it is put to use or not, its result is already fixed. But giving to ordinary people or to the Sangha produces two kinds of merit: merit arising from the giving itself, and merit arising from the recipient's actual use of the gift — because at the moment of giving the donor breaks through his own stinginess, and when the recipient makes use of the gift, he breaks through his own stinginess in turn. And moreover, whoever uses the gift may pass it on again, and the Sangha as a whole causes it to increase further; giving without seeking any worldly reward and without stirring up the afflictions can bring the unsurpassed, pure fruit called nirvāṇa.
If a person makes it his fixed daily rule to give food to another before eating himself — vowing to forfeit an equal offering to the Buddha should he ever break it — then, breaking it, he feels genuine shame, and keeping it becomes itself a cause of subtle wisdom; giving of this kind is the finest of all, and such a person may rightly be called a supreme donor. Whoever gives exactly as the one asking actually wants will find his own wishes, too, fulfilled without fail across measureless future lives. Whoever gives with a pure mind, pure wealth, and toward a pure field of merit obtains an immeasurable result. Whoever provides food and clothing to spouse, children, and servants, always with compassion and joy, will obtain immeasurable merit in the future. And whoever, seeing rats and sparrows spoiling his own granary, still feels only compassion, thinking, "At least these creatures live because of me," and rejoices without resentment, gains immeasurable merit. And whoever makes fine clothing or ornaments for his own use, and then, delighted with the finished work, gives it away without ever having used it himself, will in the future obtain a wish-fulfilling tree.
「若有說言『離於布施得善果』者，無有是處；『離財得施，離受有施，不離慳惜成布施』者，亦無是處。若不求施，若乏時施、少求多施、求惡施好、教他索施、自往行施，當知是人未來之世多獲寶藏，非寶之物悉變成寶。為戲笑施、非福田施、不信因果施，如是布施不名為施。若人偏為良福田施，不樂常施，是人未來得果報時不樂惠施。若人施已生於悔心，若劫他物持以布施，是人未來雖得財物，常秏不集。若惱眷屬得物以施，是人未來雖得大報，身常病苦。若先不能供養父母，惱其妻子、奴婢，困苦而布施者，是名惡人，是假名施，不名義施；如是施者，名無憐愍，不知恩報，是人未來雖得財寶，常失不集，不能出用，身多病苦。若人如法以財布施，是人未來得無量福，有財能用；若有不以如法財施，是人未來雖得果報，恒賴他得，他若喪沒，尋便貧窮。有智之人，深觀人、天、轉輪王樂雖復微妙，皆是無常，是故施時不為人、天。
If someone claims a good result can be obtained apart from actual giving, there is no such thing; nor can giving exist apart from wealth, receiving exist apart from a receiver, or giving be accomplished without ever letting go of stinginess. If a person gives without being asked; gives even in scarcity; asked for little, gives much; asked for something poor, gives something fine; encourages others to ask on his behalf; or goes in person to give — such a person will, in future lives, gain abundant treasure, and even what is not treasure will turn to treasure in his hands. Giving done merely in jest, giving not directed to any true field of merit, and giving done without belief in cause and effect do not deserve to be called giving at all.
If a person gives only to an excellent field of merit but takes no delight in giving as a constant practice, he too will find himself reluctant to give when he comes to reap his own reward. If a person feels regret after giving, or plunders another's property in order to give it away, he may obtain wealth in the future, but it will constantly leak away and never accumulate. If a person distresses his own family in order to obtain something to give, he may obtain a great reward, but his body will be constantly afflicted with illness. If a person cannot even support his own parents, and instead torments his spouse and servants and then gives out of what remains, this is an evil person whose giving is giving in name only — such a giver is without compassion and does not know how to repay kindness; though he may obtain wealth, it will slip away and fail to accumulate, and his body will suffer much illness. If a person gives wealth rightfully obtained, he will obtain immeasurable merit he is actually able to use; but if he gives wealth not rightfully obtained, he will always be dependent on others for whatever he later gains, and should they perish, he will soon fall into poverty. The wise contemplate deeply that even the happiness of gods, humans, and a wheel-turning king, exquisite as it is, is entirely impermanent — and this is why, when they give, they do not give for the sake of becoming a god or a human being.
Taixu treats this whole section as sorting out the different sources of merit — donor, gift, and recipient — that together determine any particular result. He points to the daily-vow practice of forfeiting one's own meal until another has eaten as a genuinely advanced skillful means, precisely because it converts an ordinary meal into a standing occasion for either shame or subtle wisdom, depending only on whether the vow is kept. Most of the rest of the section, he suggests, reads plainly enough on its own: it is, in effect, a working arithmetic of merit, in which the same act of giving yields sharply different fruit depending on whether it grew out of compassion or out of guilt, resentment, or theft.
20. Milestone: Giving of Wealth, Giving of the Dharma
Returning to the two-fold scheme introduced earlier in the chapter, the sutra now argues at length for the superiority of Dharma-giving over material giving, tracing a direct causal chain from what a listener hears taught to the specific bodily and material rewards the donor himself later receives.
善男子！施有二種：一者、財施，二者、法施。財施名下，法施名上。云何法施？若有比丘、比丘尼、優婆塞、優婆夷，能教他人具信、戒、施、多聞、智慧，若以紙墨令人書寫、若自書寫如來正典，然後施人令得讀誦，是名法施。如是施者，未來無量得好上色。何以故？眾生聞法斷除瞋心，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中得成上色。眾生聞法慈心不殺，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中得壽命長。眾生聞法不盜他財，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中多饒財寶。眾生聞已開心樂施，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中身得大力。眾生聞法斷諸放逸，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中身得安樂。眾生聞法斷除癡心，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中得無礙辯。眾生聞法生信無疑，以是因緣，施主未來無量世中信心明了；戒、施、聞、慧，亦復如是。是故法施勝於財施。
Good son, there are two kinds of giving: giving of wealth, and giving of the Dharma. Giving of wealth is the lesser; giving of the Dharma is the greater. What is Dharma-giving? If a monk, a nun, a layman, or a laywoman is able to teach others to be complete in faith, moral discipline, generosity, learning, and wisdom; or provides paper and ink so others may copy out the Tathāgata's true scriptures, or copies them out himself and gives them to others to read and recite — this is called Dharma-giving. One who gives in this way will obtain, in measureless lives to come, a beautiful and superior appearance. Why? Because when beings hear the Dharma, they cut off anger, and by this cause the donor obtains a superior appearance across measureless future lives. When beings hear the Dharma, their loving-kindness grows and they cease from killing — by this cause, the donor obtains a long life. When beings hear the Dharma, they cease from stealing — by this cause, the donor obtains abundant wealth. When beings hear the Dharma, their hearts open to delight in giving — by this cause, the donor obtains great physical strength. When beings hear the Dharma, they cut off heedlessness — by this cause, the donor obtains bodily ease. When beings hear the Dharma, they cut off delusion — by this cause, the donor obtains unobstructed eloquence. When beings hear the Dharma, faith arises in them free of doubt — by this cause, the donor's own faith becomes clear and certain, and the same holds for discipline, generosity, learning, and wisdom as well. This is why Dharma-giving surpasses the giving of material wealth.
Taixu notes that the mechanism described here is not arbitrary reward but a kind of moral mirroring: the donor's own future qualities are said to echo, one for one, the specific virtue that his teaching actually planted in someone else's mind — long life mirrors the listener's newfound restraint from killing, wealth mirrors restraint from stealing, and so on straight down the list. He adds a practical, almost contemporary observation of his own: printing or copying out a sutra for others to read counts, in his reading, as both material giving and Dharma-giving performed in a single act, since real paper and ink change hands even as the deeper gift being transmitted is the teaching itself.
21. Milestone: Giving to the Dead and to Spirits
Addressing a question every reader of the sutra's own time would have actually asked — can merit performed by a living child ever reach a dead parent? — the sutra gives a carefully qualified answer, explains why only certain destinies can actually receive dedicated merit, and firmly refuses to treat killing an animal as any kind of legitimate offering.
或有說言『子修善法，父作不善，因子修善，令父不墮三惡道』者，是義不然！何以故？身、口、意業，各別異故。若父喪已墮餓鬼中，子為追福，當知即得；若生天中，都不思念人中之物。何以故？天上成就勝妙寶故。若入地獄，身受苦惱，不暇思念，是故不得；畜生、人中，亦復如是。若謂餓鬼何緣獨得？以其本有愛貪慳悋，故墮餓鬼；既為餓鬼，常悔本過，思念欲得，是故得之。若所為者生餘道中，其餘眷屬墮餓鬼者，皆悉得之。是故，智者應為餓鬼勤作福德。若以衣食、房舍、臥具資生所須，施於沙門、婆羅門等貧窮，乞士為其呪願，令其得福，以是施願因緣力故，墮餓鬼者得大勢力，隨施隨得。何以故？生處爾故。諸餓鬼等所食不同——或有食膿，或有食糞，或食血污、嘔吐、涕唾——得是施已，一切變成上妙色味。雖以不淨蕩滌汁等施應食者，然有遮護，竟不得食；如是施主，亦得福德。何以故？以施主心慈憐愍故。
Some claim: "If the son cultivates good and the father has done evil, the son's cultivation of good can keep the father from falling into the three evil destinies." This is not correct. Why not? Because the karma of body, speech, and mind belongs separately to each individual. If the father has already died and fallen among the hungry ghosts, and the son performs merit on his behalf, know that the father does receive it. But if he has instead been reborn among the gods, he gives no thought at all to anything in the human realm, since he already possesses wonders far surpassing it there. If he has fallen into hell, he is too overwhelmed by suffering to think of it at all; and it is the same if he has been reborn as an animal or a human being. You might ask why only the hungry ghost can actually receive it — it is because he fell into that state precisely on account of craving and stinginess to begin with, and now, as a hungry ghost, he constantly regrets his past faults and longs for what he lacks, which is why he is able to receive it. And if the deceased has been reborn elsewhere, any of his surviving kin who have themselves fallen among the hungry ghosts will still receive the benefit in his place.
For this reason, the wise should diligently perform meritorious deeds on behalf of the hungry ghosts. If one gives clothing, food, housing, bedding, and other necessities to poor mendicant monks or brahmins, and they pronounce a blessing so that merit is dedicated, then by the power of this giving a hungry ghost connected to it gains great strength, receiving benefit in direct proportion to what was given — because it is simply the nature of that realm. Hungry ghosts feed on different things, some on pus, some on excrement, some on blood or vomit, but once they receive a dedicated offering, all of it is transformed for them into food of the finest color and flavor. Even when one merely pours out unclean rinse-water for creatures that will eat it, though some obstruction may keep a particular hungry ghost from actually receiving it, the donor still gains merit regardless, simply because his heart was moved by compassion.
若有祀祠，誰是受者？隨其祠處而為受者：若近樹林則樹神受，舍河、泉井、山林、堆阜，亦復如是。是人祀已，亦得福德。何以故？令彼受者生喜心故。是祀福德，能護身財。若說殺生祀祠得福，是義不然！何以故？不見世人種伊蘭子生栴檀樹、斷眾生命而得福德！若欲祀者，應用香、花、乳、酪、酥、藥。為亡追福，則有三時：春時二月，夏時五月，秋時九月。
When it comes to ancestral and shrine offerings, who is the actual recipient? Whoever corresponds to the place of the offering: if made near a grove, the tree-spirit receives it; and the same holds for offerings made to the spirits of a house, a river, a spring or well, a mountain forest, or a mound of earth. Making such offerings does bring merit, because it brings joy to whatever being receives it, and that merit protects both body and wealth. But if anyone claims that killing living beings as part of such an offering brings merit, this is not correct — no one has ever seen a person plant the seed of a poisonous ilan tree and have it grow into fragrant sandalwood, and taking a life can no more produce merit than that. If one wishes to make such an offering, one should use incense, flowers, milk, curds, ghee, and medicine instead. And for dedicating merit to the deceased, there are three proper seasons: the second month of spring, the fifth month of summer, and the ninth month of autumn.
Taixu explains that the underlying mechanism here is not that merit travels directly from one person's karmic stream into another's, but that dedicated merit is only ever actually received by a being still capable of consciously longing for it — which is why only the hungry ghost, and the transitional "in-between" state a being passes through before its next rebirth, can genuinely receive what a living relative dedicates on their behalf; a hungry ghost's own faint clairvoyance of past lives is precisely what lets it recognize and long for the offering in the first place. He connects the standard monastic practice of the evening "mengshan" food-offering rite directly to this passage, and adds a pointed contemporary observation of his own: temple traditions in places like Guangdong and Southeast Asia that offer Guanyin a slaughtered pig, judged by the very principle laid out here, produce no merit at all — the poisonous seed cannot become sandalwood no matter how devout the intention behind planting it.
22. Milestone: Further Points on the Nature of Giving
The sutra now works through a further miscellany: how long a gift's merit actually continues to accrue, an unusual category of "inconceivable giving," the three basic roots underlying all giving whatsoever, and a small arithmetic of merit for cases where several people give together in unequal proportions.
若人以房舍、臥具、湯藥、園林、池井、牛、羊、象、馬種種資生布施於他，施已命終，是人福德隨所施物任用久近，福德常生，是福追人，如影隨形。或有說言『終已便失』，是義不然！何以故？物壞不用，二時中失，非命盡失。若出家人效在家人歲節之日喜飲食者，隨世法故，非真實也；亦信世法、出世法故。若能隨家所有，好惡常樂施者，名一切施。若以身分及以妻子、所重之物施於人者，是則名為不思議施。若有惡人、毀戒、怨家、不知恩義、不信因果、強乞索者、大勢力人、健罵詈者、得已瞋恚、詐現好相、大富貴者，施如是等十一種人名不思議。善男子！一切布施，有三根本：施於貧窮，以憐愍故；施於怨家，不求報故；施福德人，心喜敬故。
If a person gives away houses, bedding, medicine, gardens, groves, ponds and wells, cattle, sheep, elephants, or horses, and then dies, his merit continues to arise for exactly as long as those given things remain in use, following him just as a shadow follows a form. Some claim this merit is simply lost once the giver dies — this is not correct; such merit is only lost when the thing given itself is destroyed or falls out of use, never merely because the giver's own life has ended. If a monastic imitates the lay custom of feasting joyfully on holidays, this is merely a concession to worldly custom, not something genuinely true, though he may still believe in both worldly and world-transcending principle at once.
Whoever is willing to give happily and constantly from whatever his household actually has, fine or coarse, practices giving in every respect. Whoever gives away a part of his own body, or his own spouse and children, or whatever he holds most dear, practices what is called inconceivable giving. Giving to any of the following eleven kinds of person is likewise called inconceivable giving: an evil person; one who has broken the precepts; an enemy; one who does not know gratitude; one without faith in cause and effect; one who demands forcefully; a person of great power; one who curses harshly; one who grows angry even after receiving the gift; one who feigns a pleasant manner deceptively; and one of great wealth and rank. Good son, all giving has three roots: giving to the poor, out of compassion; giving to one's enemy, without seeking anything in return; and giving to a person of merit, with a heart of joyful reverence.
「善男子！若人多財，無量歲中供養三寶，雖得無量福德果報，不如勸人共和合作。若人輕於少物、惡物，羞不肯施，是人增長來世貧苦。若人共施，財物、福田、施心俱等，是二得果無有差別；有財、心俱等，福田勝者，得果報勝；有田、心俱下，財物勝者，得果則勝；有田、財俱下，施心勝者，得果亦勝；有田、財俱勝，施心下者，得果不如。
"Good son, if a person of great wealth makes offerings to the Three Jewels for countless years, though he obtains immeasurable merit, this still does not equal persuading others to join together and make the offering with him. If a person is ashamed of a small or inferior gift and so refuses to give it at all, he only increases his own poverty and suffering in lives to come. When several people give together, if their wealth, field of merit, and intention are all equal, the merit each obtains is exactly the same. If wealth and intention are equal but the field of merit is superior, the resulting merit is greater. If the field of merit and the intention are both inferior but the wealth given is superior, the resulting merit is still greater. If the field of merit and the wealth are both inferior but the intention is superior, the resulting merit is still greater as well. And if the field of merit and the wealth are both superior but the intention is inferior, the resulting merit falls short even so."
Taixu's own note treats most of this section as self-explanatory as written. What he does draw attention to is the four-variable calculus at its close, which makes explicit something implicit throughout the chapter: wealth, field, and intention are three genuinely separate variables in determining a gift's merit, and any one of the three, when strong enough, can outweigh the other two being weak — including, notably, the case where superior wealth and a superior field of merit still cannot make up for an inferior intention behind the giving.
23. Milestone: Giving That Reaches the Far Shore
The sutra now distinguishes ordinary giving from giving that actually rises to the level of a pāramitā — a "perfection" — locating the difference not in the size of the gift but in whether the donor gives without regret at any of the three times, understands the psychology of regret well enough to forestall it, and can tell a true field of merit from a false one.
善男子！智者施時不為果報。何以故？定知此因必得果故。若人無慈，不知恩義，不貪聖人所有功德，惜財、身命，貪著心重，如是之人不能布施。智者深觀一切眾生求財物時，不惜身命，既得財物，能捨施人，當知是人能捨身命。若人慳悋不能捨財，當知是人亦惜身命。若捨身命求得財物以布施者，當知是人是大施主。若人得財貪惜不施，當知即是未來世中貧窮種子。是故我於契經中說：四天下中，閻浮提人有三事勝，一者、勇健，二者、念心，三者、行淨。不見果報，能預作因，不惜身命，求得財已，能壞慳悋，捨已思施，既捨施已，心不生悔，復能分別福田、非福田，是名勇健。
Good son, the wise give without expecting a reward, because they know with certainty that this cause will surely bring its fruit, and so need not chase after it. If a person lacks loving-kindness, does not know gratitude, has no admiration for the virtues the sages possess, and clings tightly to his wealth and his own life, such a person is incapable of giving. The wise observe closely how, when beings go in search of wealth, they do not spare their own bodies or lives to get it — and so, once they have obtained that wealth, if they are still able to let go of it and give it away, know that such a person is truly able to let go even of body and life itself. If a person is too stingy to let go of his wealth, know that he is equally unwilling to let go of his own body and life. But if a person is willing to risk body and life to obtain wealth, and then gives that wealth away, know that this is a truly great donor. If a person obtains wealth and clings to it greedily without giving, know that this is precisely the seed of poverty in lives to come. This is why I said in the sūtras: among the people of the four continents, the people of Jambudvīpa excel in three respects — courage, mindfulness, and purity of conduct. Acting as a cause before ever seeing its result; sparing neither body nor life; and, once wealth is obtained, being able to break through stinginess, resolve to give it away, feel no regret afterward, and still be able to distinguish a true field of merit from a false one — this is what is called courage.
「善男子！施已生悔，因於三事：一者、於財貪愛，二者、諮承邪見，三者、見受者過。復有三事：一者、畏他呵責，二者、畏財盡受苦，三者、見他施已受諸衰惱。善男子！智人三時不生悔心，復有三事：一者、明信因果，二者、親近善友，三者、不貪著財。信因果者，復有二事：一者、從他聞法，二者、內自思惟。親近善友，復有二事：一者、深信，二者、智慧。不貪著財，復有二事：一、觀無常，二、不自在。善男子！施主若能如是觀察，如是行施，當知是人能具足行檀波羅蜜。是故我先說：有布施非波羅蜜，有波羅蜜非是布施，有亦布施亦波羅蜜，有非布施非波羅蜜。
"Good son, feeling regret after giving comes from three causes: attachment to the wealth itself; having been swayed by some wrong view; or noticing some fault in the recipient. There are, further, three other causes: fear of being reproached by others; fear of suffering once one's wealth runs out; and having seen someone else suffer misfortune after giving. Good son, the wise feel no regret at any of the three times — before, during, or after giving — for three further reasons: clear faith in cause and effect; keeping close to good friends; and freedom from attachment to wealth. Faith in cause and effect itself rests on two things: hearing the Dharma from others, and reflecting on it inwardly. Keeping close to good friends rests on two things: deep faith, and wisdom. And freedom from attachment to wealth rests on two things: contemplating its impermanence, and recognizing it is never truly within one's own control. Good son, if a donor is able to observe things this way, and to practice giving this way, know that he is capable of bringing the perfection of giving, dāna-pāramitā, to complete fulfillment. This is why I said earlier: there is giving that is not a pāramitā; there is a pāramitā that is not mere giving; there is what is both giving and a pāramitā at once; and there is what is neither."
Taixu explains that "the wise give without expecting a reward" here does not mean the wise disbelieve in karmic reward — quite the opposite: their confidence in the working of cause and effect is so complete that chasing after the result becomes simply unnecessary, in the spirit of tending the field diligently without fretting over the harvest. He treats the closing fourfold distinction — giving that is not a pāramitā, a pāramitā that is not giving, both together, and neither — as the technical payoff of the whole section: an act can look identical from the outside and still differ entirely in whether it counts as the completed "perfection," depending purely on the inner qualities of intention, freedom from regret, and discernment worked out here.
24. Milestone: Teach First, Then Give
The sutra now fuses material and Dharma giving into a single method, describing a donor who meets each person exactly where they are — offering the refuges and precepts to those ready for them, and a graduated series of teachings on impermanence, no-self, and emptiness to those not yet ready — before ever handing over material help.
善男子！智有三種：一者、能捨外物，二者、捨內外物，三者、施內外已兼化眾生。云何教化？見貧窮者，先當語言：『汝能歸依於三寶不？受齋戒不？』若言能者，先授三歸及以齋戒，後則施物；若言不能，復應語言：『若不能者，汝能隨我說一切法無常、無我、涅槃寂滅不？』若言能者，復當教之，教已便施；若言『我今能說二事，唯不能說諸法無我』，復應語言：『汝若不能說諸法無我，能說諸法是無性不？』若言能者，教已便施。若能如是先教後施，名大施主。善男子！若能如是教化眾生及諸怨親，無所選擇，名大施主。善男子！智者若有財寶物時，應當如是修行布施；如其無財，復當轉教餘有財者，令作是施；若餘施主先知此法不須教者，應以身力往佐助之。
Good son, there are three grades of wisdom in giving: being able to give away external possessions; being able to give away both external possessions and one's own body; and giving away both while also converting other beings to the Dharma. What does it mean to convert others in this way? Seeing someone poor, one should first say: "Can you take refuge in the Three Jewels? Can you accept the fasting precepts?" If he can, one should confer the three refuges and the fasting precepts first, and only then give material help. If he cannot, one should say further: "If not, can you at least repeat after me that all phenomena are impermanent, that there is no self, and that nirvāṇa is quiescent peace?" If he can, one should teach him this, and only then give. If he says, "I can affirm these two, but not that phenomena are without self," one should say further: "If you cannot affirm that phenomena are without self, can you affirm that phenomena have no fixed nature of their own?" If he can, one should teach him this, and only then give.
One who can teach first and give afterward in this way is called a great donor. Good son, whoever can convert beings in this way, making no distinction between friend and enemy, is called a great donor. Good son, when the wise have wealth, they should practice giving in exactly this manner; and if they lack wealth themselves, they should urge others who do have wealth to practice this kind of giving — and if another donor already knows this method and needs no teaching, one should still go and lend him physical help all the same.
Taixu reads the graduated ladder of questions here — refuge and precepts, then impermanence and no-self and nirvāṇa, then, failing that, the more basic claim that phenomena simply lack any fixed nature of their own — as a deliberately realistic teaching method, calibrated to whatever level of understanding the person in front of the donor can actually meet. Material help is always the final step, never withheld as a bargaining chip, but offered only once whatever teaching that person can absorb has genuinely been offered first. He notes that this combined approach — material giving joined to Dharma giving, given without any distinction between friend and enemy — is what elevates an ordinary donor into what the sutra calls "a great donor."
25. Milestone: Giving Medicine and Care to the Sick
The sutra now turns to a specific, sustained act of giving that anyone, rich or poor, is urged to master: nursing the sick, learning basic medicine, and knowing how to speak honestly, and compassionately, with someone who is dying.
若窮無物，應誦醫方、種種呪術，求賤湯藥，須者施之，至心瞻病，將養療治，勸有財者和合諸藥：若丸、若散、若種種湯。既了醫方，遍行看病，案方診視，知病所在，隨其病處而為療治。療治病時，善知方便，雖處不淨，不生厭心，病增知增，損時知損；復能善知如是食、藥能增病苦，知如是食、藥能除病苦。病者若求增病食藥，應當方便隨宜喻語，不得言無；若言無者，或增苦劇。若知定死，亦不言死，但當教令歸依三寶，念佛、法、僧，勤修供養；為說病苦皆是往世不善因緣獲是苦報，今當懺悔。病者聞已，或生瞋恚，惡口罵詈，默不報之，亦不捨棄；雖復瞻養，慎無責恩，差已猶看，恐後勞復。若見平復如本健時，心應生喜，不求恩報；如其死已，當為殯葬，說法慰喻知識、眷屬。無以增病食、藥施人，若病差已，喜心施物便可受之，受已轉施餘窮乏者。若能如是瞻養治病，當知是人是大施主，真求無上菩提之道。
If one is poor and has nothing else to give, one should learn medical texts and various healing arts, seek out inexpensive remedies, and give them to whoever needs them; one should tend to the sick with utmost sincerity, and encourage those with means to compound medicines together, whether pills, powders, or decoctions. Having mastered medical knowledge, one should go about visiting the sick widely, examining each properly, and treating each according to the location of the illness. In treating the sick, one should be skilled in appropriate means: even amid filth, one should feel no revulsion; one should recognize when an illness is worsening or improving; and one should know well which foods and medicines will worsen it, and which will relieve it. If a sick person asks for something that would worsen his condition, one should use gentle persuasion rather than a flat refusal, which may only intensify his distress. If one knows for certain the patient will die, one should still not say so directly, but should guide him to take refuge in the Three Jewels, to be mindful of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and to make offerings — explaining that his suffering is the ripened fruit of unwholesome causes from past lives, which he should now repent of. If, hearing this, the sick person grows angry and curses, one should remain silent rather than answer back, and should never abandon him. Even while caring for him, one should never remind him of the debt he owes for this care; and even once recovered, one should keep looking in on him, in case of relapse. Seeing him restored to health, one's heart should fill with joy, without seeking repayment; and should he instead die, one should see to his burial and console his family with the Dharma. One should never give a recovering patient anything that would worsen his condition; but once he has fully recovered, if he wishes, out of gratitude, to give something in return, it may be accepted, and, once accepted, passed on again to someone else in need. Whoever can nurse and treat the sick in this way is a true great donor, genuinely seeking the unsurpassed path to bodhi.
「善男子！有智之人求菩提時，設多財寶，亦當讀誦如是醫方，作瞻病舍，具病所須飲食、湯藥，以供給之。
"Good son, when a wise person seeking bodhi happens to have great wealth, he should also study such medical texts, establish a shelter for the care of the sick, and furnish it with whatever food, medicine, and other necessities the sick require."
Taixu stresses that this instruction to learn medicine applies equally to rich and poor donors — the poor because knowledge of remedies costs nothing but effort, and the wealthy because their means allow them to also build and staff an actual shelter for the sick. What he draws particular attention to is the sutra's careful middle path in speaking with the dying: never lying about a terminal diagnosis, since dishonesty would waste a person's last chance to prepare, but also never bluntly announcing death, since that could shatter someone unprepared to hear it — the compassionate alternative offered instead is to redirect the dying person's attention toward taking refuge, remembering the Three Jewels, and genuine repentance.
26. Milestone: The Full Range of a Pure Donor's Work
In the chapter's single longest catalogue, the sutra enumerates an entire program of public infrastructure and everyday hospitality — roads, wells, bridges, guest houses, sanitation, first aid, even scratching-sticks and ear-picks — as concrete expressions of what it calls pure giving.
道路凹迮，平治令寬，除去刺石、糞穢、不淨，嶮處所須——若板、若梯、若椽、若索——悉皆施之。曠路作井，種果樹林，修治泉潢，無樹木處，為畜竪柱，負擔息處，為作基埵。造立客舍，具諸所須瓶盆、燭燈、床臥、敷具。臭穢流處，為作橋隥，津濟渡頭，施橋船栰，不能渡者，自往渡之，老小羸瘦、無筋力者，自手携將而令得過。路次作塔，種花果樹。
Where a road dips or narrows, one should level and widen it; one should clear away thorns, stones, and filth; and wherever the terrain is difficult, one should provide whatever is needed — planks, ladders, rafters, or ropes. Along a stretch of open road with no water, one should dig a well; one should plant fruit trees and groves, and maintain springs and pools. Where there are no trees, one should set up posts for tethering livestock; where travelers set down their loads to rest, one should build a raised platform. One should build guest lodges, furnished with jars and basins, lamps, beds, and bedding. Where filthy water collects, one should build a bridge or raised walkway; at river crossings and ferry landings, one should provide bridges, boats, or rafts, and for those unable to cross on their own, one should personally see them across, taking the old, the young, and the frail by the hand and helping them over. Beside the road, one should build stupas and plant flowering and fruit trees.
見怖畏者，輒為救藏，以物、善語，誘喻捕者。若見行者次至嶮處，輒前扶接，令得過嶮；若見失土破亡之人，隨宜給與，善言慰喻。遠行疲極，當為洗浴，按摩手足，施以床座；若無床座，以草為敷。熱時以扇、衣裳作蔭，寒時施火、衣服溫暖，若自為之，若教人為。販賣市易，教令依平，無貪小利，共相中欺。見行路者，示道、非道——道者，所謂多饒水草，無有賊盜——宣說非道，多諸患難。見人鞾履、衣裳、鉢盂朽故壞者，即為縫補、浣染、熏治；有患鼠、蛇、壁蝨、毒虫，能為除遣。施人如意、摘抓、耳鉤，縫治、浣濯招提僧物，謂坐臥具。廁上安置淨水、澡豆、淨灰土等。若自造作衣服、鉢器，先奉上佛，并令父母、師長、和上，先一受用，然後自服；若上佛者，以花、香贖。凡所食噉，要先施於沙門、梵志，然後自食。見遠至者，濡言問訊，施以淨水洗浴身體，與油塗足——香花、楊枝、澡豆、灰土、香油、香水、蜜、毘鉢羅舍勒、小衣，作塗油者。
Seeing someone in terror, one should at once give him shelter, and use gifts and gentle words to persuade whoever is pursuing him to relent. Seeing a traveler approaching a difficult stretch of road, one should come forward and support him past the danger; seeing someone who has lost his land or been ruined, one should give him what is fitting, and comfort him with kind words. When someone arrives exhausted from a long journey, one should bathe him, massage his hands and feet, and offer him a seat, or, lacking one, spread grass for him. In hot weather, one should provide shade with a fan or cloth; in cold weather, fire and warm clothing — doing this oneself, or teaching others to do it. In buying and selling, one should teach fair dealing, free of greed for small profit and mutual deceit. Seeing a traveler, one should point out the true path from the false — the true path being rich in water and grass and free of bandits — and warn clearly of the dangers along the false one. Seeing someone's shoes, clothing, or begging bowl worn out, one should mend, wash, or repair it; where there is trouble with rats, snakes, lice, or venomous insects, one should help drive them away. One should give people what they need — scratching-sticks, ear-picks — and mend and wash the bedding belonging to the communal Sangha. In the latrine, one should set out clean water, bean-powder, and clean ash or earth. If one makes clothing or a bowl for one's own use, one should first offer it to the Buddha, and let one's parents, teachers, and preceptors use it before oneself, redeeming what was offered to the Buddha back with flowers and incense. Whatever food one is about to eat, one should first offer to renunciants and brahmins before eating it oneself. Seeing someone arrive from far away, one should greet him with gentle words, offer clean water to bathe him, and oil to anoint his feet — fragrant flowers, willow twigs for the teeth, bean-powder, ash, fragrant oil, scented water, honey, and a fragrant embrocation whose exact identity even Taixu could no longer trace, together with a small cloth for applying the oil.
洗已，復以種種香花、丸藥、散藥、飲食、漿水隨所須施；復施剃刀、漉水囊等，針縷、衣納、紙、筆、墨等。若不能常，隨齋日施。若見盲者，自前捉手，施杖示道；若見有苦、亡失財物、父母喪沒，當以財給，善語說法，慰喻勸諫，善說煩惱、福德二果。善男子！若能修集如是施者，名淨施主。
Once he has bathed, one should further offer whatever he needs — fragrant flowers, pills and powders of medicine, food, and drink; one should also give razors, water-straining bags, needles and thread, patched robes, paper, brush, and ink. If one cannot do this at all times, one should at least do it on the fasting days. Seeing a blind person, one should come forward, take his hand, give him a staff, and guide him on his way. Seeing someone in distress — having lost his wealth, or his parents — one should give him material support, comfort him with kind words and the Dharma, and skillfully explain to him both the affliction that suffering brings and the merit that patient acceptance can bring in turn. Good son, whoever is able to cultivate and carry out such acts of giving as these is called a pure donor.
Taixu draws a direct historical parallel here to King Aśoka, who across India built wells, planted trees, dug pools, and set up rest houses and bridges wherever his authority reached — a concrete precedent, for Taixu, of exactly the kind of large-scale, publicly useful giving this passage describes, and evidence that a person of wealth or power is simply in an especially good position to practice it at scale. But he uses the passage to make a sharper, more pointed argument about his own contemporaries: he criticizes a strain of Buddhist practice that treats faith as a private retreat into personal peace, leaves practical public welfare entirely to secular people, and imagines that renunciation from the world is itself the whole of Buddhist teaching, rather than recognizing that public works of exactly this concrete, unglamorous kind — roads, wells, sanitation, care for travelers — are themselves an authentic expression of the bodhisattva path, not a lesser distraction from it. A great lay donor, he concludes, born in a position of wealth and influence, is naturally positioned to become something like a leader in both religious and civic life at once — a role this passage's sheer scope of civic detail is clearly written to prepare such a person for.
27. Milestone: Why Giving Is Harder for the Householder
The chapter closes where its entire argument has quietly been heading: a direct comparison between the monastic and the householder bodhisattva, which explains why this scripture has spent an entire chapter — the longest in the whole sutra — walking a householder through exactly how to give.
善男子！菩薩二種：一者、在家，二者、出家。出家菩薩為淨施主，是不為難；在家菩薩為淨施主，是乃為難。何以故？在家之人多惡因緣所纏繞故。」
Good son, there are two kinds of bodhisattva: the monastic and the householder. For a monastic bodhisattva to become a pure donor is not difficult. For a householder bodhisattva to become a pure donor is truly difficult. Why? Because a person living at home is entangled by so many adverse conditions.
Taixu treats this closing line as the key to the entire chapter's disproportionate length: a monastic has already renounced family, property, and worldly obligation, so pure giving costs him comparatively little to practice; a householder, entangled in the genuine competing claims of family, livelihood, and social position, has to work much harder — and needs correspondingly more detailed instruction — to give purely at all. Read this way, the whole exhaustive sweep of the chapter, from the psychology of donor and beggar through the metaphysics of karma across lifetimes to the last item on a public-works list, is addressed to exactly the person this closing line names: the lay bodhisattva trying to practice a perfection that comes far less naturally to someone still living fully in the world.