..续本文上一页re, good son, it is as when someone watches the moon for six months and sees it eaten once, yet above in the heavens it is watched for but a moment and the moon is eclipsed. And why
Because a day in heaven to ancient beings is brief. Good son, the Tathaagata is also so. Gods and men all say that the Tathaagata”s lifespan is brief, like that God who for a moment watches and the moon is eclipsed. The Tathaagata also is among them for but a moment, showing Nirvana to the hundreds of thousands of nayutas of kotis [of beings]. He ends the mara of affliction, the mara of skandhas, and the mara of death. This is why the hundreds of thousands of nayutas of kotis of heavenly maras all know that the Tathaagata has entered Parinirvana. And also that he appears due to hundreds of thousands of former karmic causes and conditions. Because he conforms to the various dispositions of the worldly, he displays thusly the infinite, limitless, and inconceivable. This is why the Tathaagata is eternally abiding and unchanging.
"Furthermore, good son, it is just as the moonlight is enjoyable for sentient beings to see. This why they commend the moon, calling it enjoyable to see. If the sentient beings are greedy, angry, foolish, or deluded; then, they would not be able to commend it as being enjoyable to see. The Tathaagata thus has a nature which is harmonious, good, pure, and undefiled. This is quite commendable and enjoyable to see. Enjoying the Dharma, the sentient beings look upon him without repulsion. People of wicked minds, however, are not gladdened when they look upon him. What does that mean
This is why it is said that the Tathaagata is like the light of the moon.
"Furthermore, good son, it is just as how the day has three periods that are different [in length]. The winter days are brief, the spring days are average, and the summer days are the very longest. The Tathaagata is also so. In this trichiliocosm his lifspan is brief, and the voice hearer”s display also a brief lifespan. These having been seen, all say that the Tathagata”s lifespan is brief, like the winter day. The bodhisattvas show average-length lifespans, whether for a kalpa or a partial kalpa, like the spring day. Only the Buddha sees the Buddha”s own lifespan to be infinite, just like the summer day. Good son, the Tathaagata has said that the methods of the Mahayana teaching are subtle and esoteric. It appears in the world, raining the great Dharma rain. In future lives, if a person is able to protect and uphold the canon, to them will be revealed and discerned the blessing to sentient beings. It should be known that this comrade is a true bodhisattva. Just like the abundance of the summer, the heavens give up the sweet rain. If there are shravakas or pratyeka-buddhas who hear the Buddha”s, the Tathaagata”s, subtle and esoteric teaching, then it would be just as during the winter days are numerously encountered ice and illnesses. If a bodhisattva hears thus the subtle and esoteric teaching and is instructed that the Tathaagata is of a constantly abiding nature and unchanging, it would be as during the spring days that antlers [658b] sprout and spread out. Yet the Tathaagata”s nature is really neither long nor short. It is for the worldly that it appears thus. This then is Buddhas” true underlying reality (dharmata).
"Furthermore, good son, it is just as when the myriad stars at noontime do not appear. And so people say that at noontime the stars perish and disapear. But really, though, they do not disapear. It is because the sunlight conceals them that they do not appear. The Tathaagata is also so. The shravaka and pratyeka-buddha are unable to see him, just as the worldly person cannot see the stars at noon.
"Furthermore, good son, it is just like when the overcast sky c…
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