Segment 24 / The Boundless Fortune and Wisdom

The Buddha said to Subhūti: “Subhūti，if in three thousand great thousand worlds, all the Mount King of Sumeru are  gathered togethered, and someone were to use them for almsgiving, if someone elss accepts, practices, and explains even a four-line verse from this Prajna Paramita Sutra. The merits gained from former’s almsgiving will not be worth one-hundredth, or even one-hundred millionth part of that obtained by the latter, as no conceivable comparison can be made between the two.”

The general idea of this Segment is that the Buddha says, “Subhuti, suppose there are as many treasures as all the Mount Sumerus in the three thousand great thousand worlds gathered together, and someone uses them for almsgiving. If there is another person who accept, practice, reads, recites, and explains even just a four-lines verse from this sutra for others, compared with the former’s merit, the merit of the former is not even one hundredth, not even one hundred millionth, and even cannot be compared with the latter in terms of arithmetic numbers.” 

In this Segment, the Buddha extols the profound and immeasurable merit embedded in the Prajna Paramita teachings of this sutra. He hopes that those who accept, practice, read and recite this sutra will pay great attention to this sutra and to the wisdom of Prajna Paramita.

Note: This text is organized from Teacher Yang Ning’s spontaneous dharma teaching videos. If there are discrepancies, please defer to the video.