Diamond Sutra – Blessings and Wisdom Beyond Compare
How much will you contribute to support yourself? How much more would you contribute to support your family? How much more will you contribute for your community, country and the world? If we contribute 10 dollars, we can buy someone a meal; if we contribute 10 million dollars, we can perhaps build a school; if we contribute 10 billion dollars, maybe we can establish a fund which feeds an organization or a small country. What if we contribute the wealth of the entire world, in all potential worlds and universes? We would imagine that a lot could be done, which leads to infinite merit… Yet, according to the all knowing Buddha (who possesses 5 eyes which penetrate all truths in this universe), the merit of contribute all wealth of all universes, is not even comparable to the merit of studying, following, practicing, and sharing this Sutra. Do you know why? Do you believe?
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福智无比分第二十四
BLESSINGS AND WISDOM BEYOND COMPARE, TWENTY-FOUR
须菩提!若三千大千世界中所有诸须弥山王,如是等七宝聚,有人持用布施;若人以此《般若波罗蜜经》,乃至四句偈等,受持读诵、为他人说,于前福德百分不及一,百千万亿分,乃至算数譬喻所不能及。
“Subhuti, if (on the one hand) a man, in his practice of charity (dana) gives away the seven treasures piled up in a heap as great as all the Mounts Sumeru in the Universe put together, and (on the other hand) another man receives, holds (in mind) reads and recites even a four-line stanza of this Prajna-paramita Sutra, and expounds it to others, the merit resulting from the former’s dana will not be worth one-hundredth, one-thousandth, one-ten-thousandth and one-hundred thousandth part of that obtained by the latter, as no conceivable comparison can be made between the two.”
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