The Sutra of Forty-two Chapters - 8佛說四十二章經 第8章後漢 西域沙門迦葉摩騰 竺法蘭 同譯
Translated jointly by Indian Sramana Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaraksa in the Later Han Dynasty
△ 中文 | 梭罗木木英文 | 弘惠 00 : 29 开始
第8章 塵唾自汙
Reversion of Hostility （2）佛言。惡人害賢者。猶仰天而唾。唾不至天。還從己墮。 The Buddha said: "Evil-doers who denounce the wise resemble a person who spits against the sky; the spittle will never reach the sky, but comes down on himself.
逆風颺（yáng）塵。塵不至彼。還坌（bèn）己身。Evil-doers again resemble a man who stirs the dust against the wind; the dust is never raised without doing him injury. 賢不可毀。禍必滅己。Thus, the wise will never be hurt, but the curse is sure to destroy the evil-doers themselves."
注：汙（wū），污
英文版经文转载自 菩提字幕屋，英译者 D.T. SuzukiEnglish version sourced from Bodhi Fansubs, translated by D.T. Suzuki
△ 英文 | 释宏添 中文 | 梭罗木木 03 : 01 开始
法师讲解：塵唾自汙
Commentary: Reversion of hostility （2）
This chapter has mentioned the wise ones. In Buddhism the wise ones and the sages are two different concepts even though they are often jointly used in Chinese context. Despite the many ways of categorization, the two terms have a very clear line of distinction.
The wise ones are those who cultivate virtues with imperfect wisdom whereas the sages are those who have actualized the holy truths with perfect wisdom.
In the Bodhi path of Mahayana, there are altogether 52 stages of attainment; in sequential order they are the Ten Faiths, Ten Abidings, Ten Practices, Ten Dedications of Merit, Ten Stages of the Sages, Equal Enlightenment, and Marvelous Enlightenment. Those under the Ten Faiths are still ordinary people. From the Ten Abidings to the Ten Dedications of Merit are the domains of the wise ones, and from the Ten Stages of Sages onward all belong to the category of sages.
As for Hinayana, there could be seven stages of the wise ones and seven stages of the sages. The seven stages of the wise ones start from the Five kinds of Meditation for Mind Settling to the Supreme Worldly Dharmas, and the seven stages of the sages include the first degree attainment to the forth degree attainment of Arhatship and the in-between.
In this chapter, it was mentioned that harming a wise one, not to mention a sage, would be serious enough to bring about retribution promptly! There is such a case study in the Zen Buddhism; the story occurred during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (A.D. 520) when the Venerable Master Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen School of Buddhism, arrived in China. Once he was present at a gathering in which Master Hui Ke was teaching the dharma. Master Bodhidharma somehow provoked Hui Ke in a dispute, and his incisors were knocked off by Hui Ke. However Master Bodhidharma didn’t spit the teeth on the ground because he understood that if a sage’s teeth were fallen on the ground, it would cause 3 years of drought to that place. As a result, Master Bodhidharma out of compassion swallowed the teeth. This story then became the origin of the proverb regarding patience, “swallow one’s loose teeth and blood”.
