释迦牟尼佛在往昔时，曾经“三祇修福慧，百劫种相好”。所以才成就三十二相、八十种好，庄严其身，无有等伦。

我们修道人，必须修福慧。如何修法？多做功德事，凡是对众生有利益的事，尽力而为之，这是修福。读诵经典，研究佛理，所谓“深入经藏，智慧如海”，这是修慧。浅言之，多立功德，就有福报；听经说法，就有智慧，这是自然的道理。

In the past, Shakyamuni Buddha “cultivated blessings and wisdom for three asamkhyeyas of eons, and planted the seeds for good appearance for a hundred kalpas.” And so he attained the Thirty-two Hallmarks and Eighty Subsidiary Characteristics as peerless physical adornments. Cultivators must cultivate blessing and wisdom. How? By doing meritorious works. We should do our best to do any and every deed that brings benefit to living beings. This is cultivating blessings. When we study and recite Sutras and investigate the principles of the Buddhadharma, “deeply entering the Sutra Treasury to attain wisdom like the sea,” we are cultivating wisdom. To put it simply, if we do a lot of meritorious deeds, we’ll have blessings; if we listen to Sutra lectures and speak the Dharma, we’ll have wisdom. It’s a very natural principle.

福慧是栽培而来的，若不栽培，始终没有福慧。修道人，不要以为福小而不为，更不能以为恶小而为之。若能天天惜福、修福、种福，将来定有大福报。否则，福从何来？慧由何生？想福想慧，如同痴人说梦，妄想中之妄想，永远不能成事实。所谓“缘木求鱼”，这是痴人的思想，无有是处！

Blessings and wisdom come from cultivation. If you don’t cultivate, you’ll never have any blessings or wisdom. Cultivators shouldn’t feel that they can get away with an evil deed, however slight it may be; nor should they neglect doing a good deed even if it is small. If you can cherish, cultivate, and plant blessings day after day, you’ll certainly have great blessings in the future. If you don’t do that, where could blessings and wisdom come from? If you merely wish for blessings and wisdom without doing anything, you’re just foolishly indulging in idle fantasies that will never come true. It’s like looking for fish in trees－something that could never be.

一九八一年六月四日开示