觀音義疏 1.46

1.46

Next, explaining the compassion arisen from the bodhisattva's original cultivation of the perfect contemplation: one simply contemplates that a single fire contains the ten dharma realms, and all dharmas enter the gate of the syllable fire. Although within the single fire-gate there is no differentiation, one clearly recognizes all fires of retributive result, fires of karma, fires of affliction, and so on; clearly understanding and penetrating them, compassion without conditions covers all universally. This is entering the king samādhi through the fire-gate. If the fire of the dharma realm arises, the bodhisattva universally responds to sentient beings with original vows, like a magnet drawing iron. Though there is no differentiation, speaking with differentiation: with fifteen samādhis, the fire of retributive result is rescued; with twenty-four samādhis, the fire of cultivated causes is rescued; with twenty-five samādhis, the fire of affliction entering emptiness is comprehensively rescued for the two vehicles, the Shared teaching, the six perfections, the Separate, and the Perfect; again using twenty-five samādhis, the provisional fire of the mountain of the Separate teaching is rescued; and again using twenty-five samādhis, the fire of affliction entering the middle for people of the Perfect teaching is rescued perfectly. Although responding by entering all fires, [the bodhisattva] is not burned by them. The Daji jing says: 'Just as empty space cannot be burned when the disaster of fire arises, the bodhisattva is also like this: with inconceivable compassion universally responding to all, all attain liberation.' The ordinary interpretations of the seven perils only understand the rescue of suffering among humans, missing the suffering in the twenty-four realms of existence and transformational [birth and death]; they only attain a small portion of the illusion-like samādhi, completely losing the vast functioning of the twenty-five samādhis.