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The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra
BLESSINGS AND WISDOM BEYOND COMPARE
CHAPTER 24
Sutra:
“Subhuti, if there were heaps of the seven precious gems equal in amount to all the Sumerus, Kings of Mountains, in three thousand great thousand world systems, and someone gave them as a gift, and if someone else were to take from this Prajna Paramita Sutra as few as four lines of verse, and receive, hold, read, recite, and speak them for others, his blessings and virtue would surpass the previous one’s by more hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of times than either calculation or analogy could express.
Commentary:
Sumeru is a Sanskrit word which means “wonderfully high.” Within three thousand great thousand worlds there are many, many “wonderfully high” mountains. How many of the seven precious gems would it take to match the size of all those Mount Sumerus? And yet, if someone else were to take even so few as four lines of verse from the Prajna Paramita Sutra, the sutra of wisdom arriving at the other shore, receive them in his mind, hold them with his body, read them from the book, recite them from memory, and explain them for others, how would his merit compare with the merit derived from the previous gift of gems? The blessings and virtue obtained by a person who speaks a four-line gatha from the Vajra Sutra for others surpasses the previous blessings and virtue by more than a hundred, thousand, million, billion times. The merit and virtue of this great dharma cannot be reckoned in numbers or alluded to by analogy.
The Vajra Sutra expresses the importance of not attaching to marks. It says not to be attached to the mark of self, of others, of living beings, or of a life. After hearing this sutra, ask yourself, “Is my mark of self empty or not? Is my mark of others, of living beings, and of a life empty or not?”
In general, if you possess a strong sense of self-importance, your Mount Sumeru of “me, myself, and I” has not been leveled. If you have an acute awareness of others, then the Mount Sumeru of “others” has not been flattened. The same is true for the Mount Sumeru of “living beings” and “a life.”
Those who study the Buddhadharma must knock over their Mount Sumerus, and turn them into “dharma which is level and equal, with no high or low; therefore it is called anuttarasamyaksambodhi.” Those who understand the Vajra Sutra should be willing to give up their very bodies and lives – to the point that they do not have anything at all. There is an old Chan saying:
Last year I was poor
But still I had a place for the point of an awl.
This year I am so poor
I do not even have the awl.
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