འཕགས་པ་དྲ་མ་མད་པར་གྲགས་པས་བསྟན་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

Mañjuśrī, despite his own reluctance, is the only bodhisattva to assent to the Buddha’s request, and the fourth and subsequent chapters describe the conversations between him, Vimalakīrti, and a number of other interlocutors from the large assembly accompanying Mañjuśrī to Vimalakīrti’s house in the eager anticipation of hearing the Dharma expressed in the exchange between these two high-level bodhisattvas. Their discussion starts with what is meant by sickness, how a bodhisattva should comfort another bodhisattva who is sick, and how a sick bodhisattva should control his own mind, with most of the dialogue consisting of long passages spoken by Vimalakīrti in response to brief questions by Mañjuśrī. In the fifth chapter, Vimalakīrti performs the miraculous feat of bringing to his house in Vaiśālī millions of enormous thrones belonging to the entourage of a buddha from another, vastly distant universe, the Tathāgata Meru­pradīpa­rāja, and explains how such apparently impossible transformations of time, space, and other phenomena become possible for a bodhisattva who lives in the inconceivable liberation. In the sixth chapter—after a discussion with Mañjuśrī on sentient beings and compassion—he leaves it to a goddess living in his house to demonstrate graphically to the hapless great disciple Śāriputra the dualistic notions he holds on attainment, vehicle, and even gender.