大方廣佛華嚴經隨疏演義鈔 4.43

4.43

Regarding the Commentary's statement: 'Or where it is said that [Vai]rocana sits on a thousand-petaled flower, this is spoken in terms of gathering the second stage': this is the third, resolving sūtras such as the Brahmajāla. That text says: 'I am now Rocana, sitting on a lotus pedestal. Surrounding me upon a thousand petals, a thousand Śākyas again appear. On each petal are ten billion realms, with one Śākya in each realm,' and so forth. Taking the one on the lotus pedestal as the primal Rocana, the Śākyas on the thousand petals are great transformations, and the one Śākya further having ten billion [emanations] are small transformations. This also does not say that his body pervades all worlds. Samantabhadra's lotus has ineffable petals, its measure pervading the dharmadhātu. The flowers of the bodhisattvas of the ten stages are already equal in measure to a million trichiliocosms, so how much more so the Tathāgata? We clearly know that this is also a sambhogakāya for others' enjoyment gathering the second stage. Because the second stage fulfills the perfection of morality, he expounds the precepts for them. Because on the first stage one transforms a hundred Buddha lands, there is a flower of a hundred petals; on the second stage one transforms a thousand Buddha lands, so the flower has a thousand petals; if arriving at the third stage, one should see ten thousand petals; on the fourth stage, a hundred million petals; on the fifth stage, one thousand billion; on the sixth stage, one hundred thousand billion; on the seventh stage, ten thousand billion nayutas; on the eighth stage, as many as the dust motes of a million trichiliocosms; on the ninth stage, as many as the dust motes of a hundred thousand million asamkhyeya lands; on the tenth stage, as many as the dust motes of ineffable hundreds of thousands of billions of nayutas of Buddha lands. Based on the above ten stages, a million trichiliocosms is still an abbreviated explanation; thus we know this does not reveal the truly ultimate body.