..续本文上一页nfused and mistaken are we in the our ways.

　　When the great Sage enters Nirvana

　　The Buddha-sun shall set upon the land.

　　The Dharma waters will all dry up

　　And we shall surely die.

　　The Tathagata”s parinirvana

　　Is to the sentient beings who are most distressed

　　Just like an elder”s son

　　Who recently attended his mother and father”s funeral.

　　How can we on this day

　　Not be apprehensive

　　The Tathagata going and leaving us

　　Is just like casting away tears.

　　The Tathagata entering Nirvana

　　Is like one who will not return.

　　We and the sentient beings

　　All will be without any aid or protection.

　　With the Tathagata entering Nirvana,

　　Even the animals

　　Are all anxious and fearful.

　　Distressed and pained are their thoughts.

　　Just like when the sun when it first rises

　　It”s light is a brilliant ray blazing

　　And when it is about to return its radiance

　　Again dies and all is darkened,

　　The Tathagata”s spiritual power is a light

　　That can remove our distress.

　　In this place residing among the great congregation He is just like Mount Sumeru.

　　"World Honored One, it is just as a King who sired and raised his children with his countenance upright, his mind proper, and always loving and caring for them. His past instructions to them were talented in technique, which caused them to be commonly blessed. And afterwards he left them, handing over [his rule] to a murderer (candala). World Honored One, on this day we are the Dharma king”s children. Having enjoyed the Buddha”s teachings and instruction, we are now endowed with the right view. We wish that he would not leave us behind, as his departure is, therefore, the same as the King leaving his children. We only wish that he remain for a long time and not enter Nirvana.

　　"World Honored One, it is just as someone who well studies and debates, and who again in these debates is apprehensive. The Tathagata is also so. Penetrating through the Dharmas, [a person] who then is among these Dharmas is apprehensive. If he can cause the Tathagata to remain a long time in the world and speak the sweet dew, its flavor fully complete in everyone, then sentient beings will not again be fearful of descending into the Hells.

　　"World Honored One, it is just as when there is someone who is just beginning to study and make effort. And an official arrests him, putting him into a prison.

　　Another person [in the prison] asks him, “How do you feel

　　” and he replies, “Now, I feel most sorrowful.” If he is later released, then he would be made peaceful and happy. The World Honored one is also so. It is for our sake that he has cultivated the ascetic practices. We now are like that person who had yet to be freed from the distress of birth and death (samsara). How can the Tathagata feel peaceful and happy

　　"World Honored One, it is just as when a healer king who skillfully understood the methods of medicine and imparted it to his children, transforming them by means of esoteric means of teaching, and who did not teach them any other outside fields of study. The Tathagata is also so. He alone with a treasury of the most profound esoterica transforms and teaches Manjusri. To leave us behind and not look back or care, the Tathagata should not have any secret to give to us. Just like that medicine king who transformed and taught his children, who were not taught by any outside teachers who might come along, that healer could not teach everyone. Because he was overcome by emotional beliefs, he was reluctant to impart his secret to them. But the mind of the Tathagata is never overcome. Why does he thus not look to impart his teachings

　　 We only wish that he would remain a long time and not enter parinirvana.

　　"World Honored One, it is just as when a person who was old, small, and suffering illnesses set off on a common dirt road, tra…

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