法界次第初門 3.90

3.90

Next, explaining the four means of embrace after the various dhāraṇīs: if a bodhisattva is internally endowed with the various samādhis and dhāraṇīs, their personal practice is already replete, and they must outwardly guide conscious beings to join the path of their own practice. When a great being benefits beings and delivers them widely, nothing surpasses the four immeasurable minds and the four dharmas of embrace. However, since the items of the four immeasurable minds have already been explained earlier, why should they be repeated unnecessarily? Because the four means of embrace are the essentials of skillful guidance, they are elucidated next. These four are collectively called 'embrace' because what sentient beings naturally love are precisely these four dharmas. If a great being uses these four dharmas to accommodate their inclinations and guide them, sentient beings will take refuge in them. Once sentient beings attach themselves and rely upon them, [the bodhisattva] only then guides them with the correct path of the Mahāyāna to liberate them. Therefore it is said: 'First draw them with the hook of desires, and afterward cause them to enter the Buddha path.'