..續本文上一頁ans that living beings are attached to an environment composed of the six defiling objects─the objects of the senses─and cannot awaken to their own minds. So they are continually being turned by defiling objects; they race about feeding themselves and are intent upon making a profit up to the moment that their bodies give out. We undergo numerous sufferings as we toss and turn in the bitter sea of birth and death. Myriad agonies well up, and the suffering is unspeakable. This is also what is meant by “how sad and lamentable!”

　　那麼，我們這一般衆生，是不是注定無藥可救呢？注定永遠陷于六道輪回的深淵呢？絕對不是的。過去的，雖然錯了，可是我們還可以寄望于將來，應知「來者可追」。

　　Is it the case that we living beings are beyond salvation

　　 Is it the case that we must wallow in the deep abyss of the turning wheel of the six paths forever

　　 Absolutely not! Although we made mistakes in the past, there is still hope for the future. You should know that you“can certainly rectify what is to come.”

　　在未來的日子裏，我們更不能像以往一樣地背覺合塵，心爲形役了，以前的一切不信因果、不勤修行、造業、殺生等等，都是不對的；而今日的打七、念佛，卻是對的。所以我們應該「覺今是而昨非」，對于善的，便要保留；對于惡的，立刻痛加悔改。古人說：「一寸光陰一寸金」，其實，在我們修行人的眼中，一寸光陰簡直就是我們的一寸命；少了一寸光陰，就等于我們短了一寸命一樣。

　　In the future, we absolutely will not turn our backs on enlightenment and join with the dust, as we did in the past. Nor will we let our minds be a slave to our bodies. Everything we did in the past, such as not believing in cause and effect, not cultivating diligently, and creating the karma of killing and other offenses, was wrong. Now today, we are in this session reciting the Bodhisattva”s name. This is what is right. So we should “awaken to today”s rights and yesterday”s wrongs.” We should carefully protect what is good and immediately and firmly reform of what is bad. An ancient author said, “An inch of time is worth an inch of gold.” Actually, in the eyes of a cultivator, an inch of time is worth an inch of life. For every moment that passes it is just as if our life is shortened by an inch.

　　是日已過，命亦隨減；

　　大衆！當勤精進，如救頭然。

　　This day is already passed,

　　and life is consequently shorter.

　　Everyone should diligently cultivate,

　　as if trying to save his very head.

　　要改惡遷善的，趕快吧！我們「實迷途其未遠」，極樂世界在望了！只要肯努力精進，我們仍是可以「歸去」的！

　　If we wish to change our errors and tend towards the good, we should do so quicky! We “have not actually strayed too far from the path”; we can still reform. The Land of Ultimate Bliss is within sight! We only need persist in our vigor, and we can certainly “go home.”

　　一九五八年六月十四日上午開示

　　A talk given on the morning of June 14, 1958

《極樂世界在眼前 The Land of Ultimate Bliss Is Right Before Our Eyes》全文閱讀結束。