..续本文上一页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!”

　　那么，我们这一般众生，是不是注定无药可救呢？注定永远陷于六道轮回的深渊呢？绝对不是的。过去的，虽然错了，可是我们还可以寄望于将来，应知「来者可追」。

　　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.”

　　在未来的日子里，我们更不能像以往一样地背觉合尘，心为形役了，以前的一切不信因果、不勤修行、造业、杀生等等，都是不对的；而今日的打七、念佛，却是对的。所以我们应该「觉今是而昨非」，对于善的，便要保留；对于恶的，立刻痛加悔改。古人说：「一寸光阴一寸金」，其实，在我们修行人的眼中，一寸光阴简直就是我们的一寸命；少了一寸光阴，就等于我们短了一寸命一样。

　　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.

　　是日已过，命亦随减；

　　大众！当勤精进，如救头然。

　　This day is already passed,

　　and life is consequently shorter.

　　Everyone should diligently cultivate,

　　as if trying to save his very head.

　　要改恶迁善的，赶快吧！我们「实迷途其未远」，极乐世界在望了！只要肯努力精进，我们仍是可以「归去」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开示

　　A talk given on the morning of June 14, 1958

《极乐世界在眼前 The Land of Ultimate Bliss Is Right Before Our Eyes》全文阅读结束。