新華嚴經論 40.4

40.4

As for Sudhana's asking Lady Māyā how long ago she attained this liberation, Māyā answered: 'Good man, it was in ancient times, beyond what can be known by the supernormal powers and divine eye of a bodhisattva in their final existence; it is known only to Buddhas.' The meaning is that it cannot be known by divisions of time, nor can it be measured by numbers of kalpas. One must use the seal of Buddha-wisdom silently to unify past and present, exhausting all measures and relinquishing views of beginning and end; only then can one know the length or brevity of her resolve and attainment of the Dharma. If one maintains views of beginning and end, even if one were to calculate a number by comparing dust motes of endless lands, there would be no way to comprehend it. Even if one were to compare dust motes of endlessly unfolding lands into a number, it could still not be comprehended. When numbers are forgotten and attachments exhausted, wisdom manifests and it is known. Thus, one cannot calculate its distance using quantitative reckoning. If one used reckoning methods to exhaust endless kalpas calculating the volume of empty space within a pore, one could never find its limits, because empty space cannot receive measurements. This measurelessness is taken as the time attained. As Mañjuśrī's gāthā says: 'In a single thought one universally contemplates immeasurable kalpas; / There is no going, no coming, and no abiding. / In this way one completely knows the events of the three periods of time, / Surpassing all expedients and accomplishing the ten powers.' This is the great reckoning of a bodhisattva in their final existence. At that time, the kalpa was named Pure Light, which indicates that the dharmakāya is the substance of the kalpa. The world was named Meru Virtue, meaning that attainment of the unshakeable is the substance of the world. Although there were mountains where the five destinies lived mixed together, yet the country was formed of many jewels, pure, adorned, and without defilement or evil—this is because when one's own mind alone is pure, all realms are pure, and the myriad phenomena are without defilement. If one forms views of pure and defiled, one's own mind perceives impurity. This shows that great compassion universally encompasses the five destinies and great wisdom is devoid of views of defiled and pure; hence it is named 'adorned with many jewels'. That there were one hundred thousand kotis of four-continent worlds indicates the stages of myriad practices benefiting sentient beings. That there was a four-continent world named Lion Banner indicates that great wisdom is all-pervading, and the ten directions are a single realm. Within it were eighty kotis of royal cities, and one royal city named Sovereign Banner, which indicates practicing the eightfold noble path and the ten pāramitās. The place where wisdom roams and abides is called the residence of the wheel-turning king, styled Sovereign Banner; the king's name was Great Majestic Virtue, which means that wisdom's sovereignty is able to govern saṃsāra without destroying itself. To the north of that royal city was a bodhimaṇḍa named Full Moon Radiance. To the north of the city: the north is the position of Kan, which is where the wisdom of teachers and rulers abides, the position that remedies confusion; hence it is styled a bodhimaṇḍa. Because it can remedy grasping and delusion, it is named Full Moon Radiance. The deity of that bodhimaṇḍa was named Compassionate Virtue, because wisdom's transforming of confusion takes compassion as its virtue. There was a bodhisattva named Free of Defilement Banner: initiating practice from the dharmakāya, his nature is spontaneously free of defilement. 'Sitting in the bodhimaṇḍa about to attain complete awakening': 'about to' means wishing to attain. There was an evil Māra named Golden Light, who came to the bodhisattva's place together with his retinue and troops. That wheel-turning king of Great Majestic Virtue, having already attained the bodhisattva's supernormal powers, sovereignly manifested troops several times more numerous, surrounding the bodhimaṇḍa, so that the host of Māras were panicked and terrified and all fled and scattered—the meaning is that the evil Māra named Golden Light represents the real and unreal having one identical mark and single orientation in the realm of dharmakāya wisdom. The bodhisattva Free of Defilement had not yet clarified the equality of mind and objects; he had to rely on the King of All-Wisdom to clearly contemplate that the principle of mind and objects thoroughly penetrates without duality. Mind and objects are like illusions: all realms are illusory wisdom and illusory births, whereupon one is not deluded by objects. The mind-māras of false marks and the entire dharmadhātu all become Buddha-activities, which is called 'fleeing and scattering'. That the bodhimaṇḍa deity felt compassionate joy means Dharma-delight. That the bodhimaṇḍa deity conceived the thought of a son toward that king shows that shattering views relies on wisdom, while initiating practice to transform the mundane relies on compassion. This shows that wisdom in this stage is born of compassion; hence wisdom is viewed like a son. Furthermore, bringing together the wheel-turning king as Vairocana and the bodhimaṇḍa deity as myself: this shows that, for fear that people might not understand the meaning, he relied on phenomena to represent it, making it easy to comprehend. Ultimately one must not take there to be external objects or Māras outside the mind. It simply clarifies that the mind has no inside, outside, or middle, and that the myriad phenomena, self and other, are of the same essence: the one is not single, and the other is not other. It is merely because the Dharma is profound and difficult to reveal that he borrowed phenomena to express it clearly; the wise gain understanding through parables. Furthermore, in all initial generation of the supreme mind of great awakening, one always first gives rise to great vows and a mind of great compassion to teach and transform sentient beings, and only then seeks the essential practices for liberation that benefit sentient beings. When one reaches the fulfillment of practice, this Dharma does not change. All Buddhas are like this, because they are born first from great compassion and great vowed practices. 'When immeasurable Buddhas of the worlds of the ten directions are about to attain Buddhahood, they all emit great light from their navels to illuminate my body, my palaces, halls, and houses': the palace of compassion and hall of wisdom, with nurturing as the house and the ocean of saṃsāra as the residence. It shows that the navel is in the center of the body, the juncture where all sentient beings grow and develop; this place is the storehouse where sentient beings grow and develop. Like the root-knurl of a tree, it grows stems, trunks, and branches upward, and sprouts roots downward into the earth; it is situated in the juncture between yin and yang, the origin of sprouting and arising. It is also like the Jiazi cycle, in which Xu is the Heavenly Knurl, giving rise to yang on the left and yin on the right. Now, the emission of light from the navel symbolizes the origin of taking birth, like the image of the Heavenly Knurl, the beginning of giving rise to compassion and the origin of generating great wisdom. Human life is also like this: from initial infancy gradually growing up, qi also arises from the navel-wheel, penetrating the upward and downward nature of growth, because this place is the origin of receiving qi and beginning life. Light emitted from here is also its Qian position, the juncture of beginning and end, the origin of growth; the navel is just this. It also symbolizes abiding in the juncture between wisdom and compassion. The center of accomplishing wisdom is the ūrṇā between the eyebrows; the center of accomplishing great compassion is the navel. This is the stage of Samantabhadra's abiding in the world to benefit sentient beings in the eleventh ground, remedying the obstruction in the ten grounds of world-transcending affinity with the real where benefiting sentient beings is not sovereign and practice is not vast. As in the 'Chapter on the Ten Samādhis', the bodhisattvas' three searchings for Samantabhadra take practicing the perfection of giving in accordance with great wisdom as chief, commanding the sea of pāramitās of the dharmadhātu. In sum, all Buddhas of the three periods of time take compassion as their initial birth. If one lacks compassion to benefit beings and is repulsed by saṃsāra, that is the two vehicles and Pure Land bodhisattvas; only after turning their minds can they return to reality. Those of fixed nature find it difficult to return for many kalpas. The rest is as fully stated in the sūtra itself. 'I only know this bodhisattva's liberation of the illusory arising of great vows and wisdom': this clarifies deferring to others' virtues to advance. Deferring to others' virtues to advance contains three gates: First, pointing out the kalyāṇamitra's dwelling, saying it is in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven. There was a king named Right Mindfulness, which indicates that wisdom is pure and sovereign like a heavenly king. Being named Right Mindfulness symbolizes that pure wisdom is without thought yet sovereign, acting in accordance with principle, doing nothing yet the myriad things are accomplished of themselves; this shows that the pure wisdom of the eleventh ground spontaneously manifests in response. In the stage of the ten abodes, he was merely called Right Mindfulness. The devaputra asked about his brahmacarya, but did not say he had a daughter. Arriving here at the eleventh ground he is called a king, and it also says he has a daughter, which shows generating compassion through wisdom. Having a daughter named Heavenly Lord Radiance symbolizes that within unproduced wisdom, the unsoiled nature of compassion spontaneously functions to benefit beings. This stage symbolizes that wisdom and its function are complete, without before and after. Taking the heavens symbolizes sovereign spiritual transformations without fixed direction while abiding in saṃsāra, not that it is strictly located in a physical place. Reverently stating what he sought, [the king] said: 'I have attained the bodhisattva liberation named Unhindered Mindfulness'—one attains unhindered wisdom of the three periods of time, in a single thought imprinting the three periods of time, past, present, and future, the kalpa-measures of all sentient beings' births and deaths, and the kalpa-measures of all Buddhas of the three periods of time achieving the Way; in a single thought knowing all completely without lack of clarity, just as if present before one now. Because wisdom free of false thoughts manifests before one, and all phenomena are originally like this, this clarifies the wisdom of right mindfulness free of false thoughts. Within it, the number of Buddhas across all kalpas, and whether across kalpas one makes offerings to many Buddhas or not, with increases and decreases being indeterminate—these are all the numbers of Buddhas of the three periods of time universally made offerings to by thought-free right wisdom in a single thought. This is the appearance of duration and brevity within what has neither duration nor brevity. The realm of the Great Round Mirror Wisdom completely devoid of time is inherently like this in its Dharma-nature; it does not depend on cultivation and realization. Cultivation is merely illuminating the twelve links of dependent origination by oneself, penetrating delusion to become wisdom. Wisdom has nothing to be cultivated; one merely resolves delusion by oneself. The real cannot be fabricated, nor does it have the nature of the three periods of time, past or present. This is the kalyāṇamitra of the second [sub-]ground in the eleventh ground. From the kalyāṇamitra of the second [sub-]ground in the eleventh ground downward, it generally clarifies the active body of the unhindered function of wisdom within right mindfulness, universally practicing the same practices and embracing sentient beings. This is uniformly true throughout all worlds of the ten directions, equally pervading the six destinies; all are born from Lady Māyā's ocean of great compassion, with the unproduced wisdom of right mindfulness as their substance. This is the moral discipline pāramitā in the eleventh ground: because it is the gate of generating compassion through wisdom, the daughter is named Heavenly Lord Radiance.