..续本文上一页nt and detestable.” Thereupon he drank it willingly and removed his illness.

　　"Immediately, he promulgating the edict that all in the country from that day on were to go back over to drinking the medicinal elixir. All of the country”s people who heard this became embittered, all saying to one another, “Has our great king now been possessed by a spirit and gone crazy, decieving us again by ordering the drinking of elixirs

　　” All the people felt embittered and gathered together at the king”s palace.

　　"The King told them, “You should not feel bitterness towards me. Just as with [the order] not to drink medicinal exlixirs is [the order] to drink them. All this is the doctor”s instructions and not my fault.”

　　"At that time, the great king and the people danced joyfully and redoubled their respects paid to the doctor, for all those who were ill had drank the medicinal elixir and their illnesses had been removed.

　　"You, bhiksus! You should know that the Tathagata, the Arhat, the completely enlightened, perfect in wisdom and conduct, the Well Gone, the knower of the worldly, unsurpassed, the tamer of men, teacher of men and gods, and the World Honored One is also, again, so. He is a great doctor who has appeared in the world, defeating all of the heretical doctors, who proclaims to those in the four assemblies, saying, “I am the king of doctors!” Because he wishes to supress the heretics he proclaims, “There is no self, no person, sentient beings, soul, cultivation, knowledge, perception, doer, or reciever.”

　　"Bhiksus, you should know that the heretics have said that the self is like the insect who eats wood, mates, and makes offspring merely. This is why the Tathagata proclaims that in the Buddha-dharma there is no self. It is for the sake of taming sentient beings, knowing the time, and that such selflessness has been the cause and condition that he also says that there is a self. He is like that physician who well knew the elixirs that were medicinal and not medicinal. It is not like that self the ordinary man reckons to be his own or the ordinary man who meets someone and reckons that they have a self. Some have said that it is as large as the thumb and finger, some that it is like the mustard seed, some that it is like a grain a dust. The Tathagata says that the self is not like any of these. This is why he says that things (dharmas) are selfless. Really it is not that there is no self. What is the self

　　 If something is the true, the real, the constant, the master, the foundation with a nature that is unchanging, this is called the self. Just as that great doctor well understand the medicinal elixir, the Tathagata is also so. For the sake of sentient beings, in the Dharmas that he speaks there really is a self. You and the four assembles must thus cultivate the Dharma."

　　Here ends fascicle three of the Great Parinirvana Sutra

　　Chapter 6: The Merit of the Title

　　At that time, the Tathagata again addressed Kasyapa, "Good son, you now should well uphold this Sutra”s contents, as they possess merit. If there are good sons and good daughters who hear this Sutra”s title, none of them will be born in any of the the four [lower] destinies. And why

　　 It is thus that this scripture leads them to the cultivation of the infinite and limitless Buddhas. I shall now discuss this attainment of merit."

　　Bodhisattva Kasyapa said to the Buddha, "World Honored One, what shall be the title of this Sutra

　　 How should the bodhisattva-mahasattva recieve and uphold it

　　"

　　The Buddha told Kasyapa, "This Sutra”s title is the Great Parinirvana, which in the beginning is good, in the middle is good, and in the end is also good. Its meaning”s flavor is very profound and its text is also good. It is pure, the complete consummation of the pure ascetic practice, and …

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