佛告彌勒菩薩 汝行詣維摩詰問疾 彌勒白佛言 世尊 我不堪任詣彼問疾 所以者何 憶念我昔 爲兜率天王 及其眷屬 說不退轉地之行 時維摩詰來謂我言 彌勒 世尊授仁者記 一生當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提 爲用何生 得受記乎 過去耶 未來耶 現在耶 若過去生 過去生已滅 若未來生 未來生未至 若現在生 現在生無住 如佛所說 比丘汝今卽時 亦生亦老亦死
fó gào mí lè pú sà rǔ xíng yì wéi mó jié wèn jí mí lè bái fó yán shì zūn wǒ bù kān rèn yì bǐ wèn jí suǒ yǐ zhě hé yì niàn wǒ xī wéi dōu shuài tiān wáng jí qí juàn shǔ shuō bù tuì zhuǎn dì zhī xíng shí wéi mó jié lái wèi wǒ yán mí lè shì zūn shòu rén zhě jì yī shēng dāng dé ā nòu duō luó sān miǎo sān pú tí wéi yòng hé shēng dé shòu jì hū guò qù yē wèi lái yē xiàn zài yē ruò guò qù shēng guò qù shēng yǐ miè ruò wèi lái shēng wèi lái shēng wèi zhì ruò xiàn zài shēng xiàn zài shēng wú zhù rú fó suǒ shuō bǐ qiū rǔ jīn jí shí yì shēng yì lǎo yì sǐ
Key Message
Future predictions, past karma, and present states all lack fixed, inherent existence. Practicing with awakened awareness in this very moment, without attachment, is true practice.
▸The 'Chapter on the Bodhisattvas' (菩薩品) describes various bodhisattvas — including Maitreya, Prabhāvyūha-kumāra, Dharaṇīdhara, and Sudhana — declining in turn to go and visit Vimalakīrti.
The 'Chapter on the Bodhisattvas' (菩薩品) describes various bodhisattvas — including Maitreya, Prabhāvyūha-kumāra, Dharaṇīdhara, and Sudhana — declining in turn to go and visit Vimalakīrti. Maitreya's case is representative. When he was expounding the practice of the non-retrogressive stage (不退轉地) in Tuṣita heaven, Vimalakīrti appeared and posed a challenging question: 'The World-Honored One has given you a prediction that in one more lifetime you will attain anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi — in which lifetime is this to be? Past? Future? Present?' If it is a past life, the past life has already ceased. If a future life, the future life has not yet come. If a present life, the present life has no abiding. This argument dissolves any fixed understanding of the concept of 'prediction' or 'penultimate birth' by revealing the unreality of time. Vimalakīrti's dialectic always begins from the domain in which his interlocutor is most confident and proceeds to dismantle that very attachment.