Bodhisattvas' Outward Teaching

The woman Suvarṇaśiras, "Golden-Light-Crown," and the elder's son Bhīruśruta were together in a pleasure garden, scattering flowers and burning incense amid music, when the woman, watching the young man, felt her own desire satisfied. At that instant Mañjuśrī (called in the old translations "Mṛduśiras," "Gentle-Crowned") transformed the woman's very body: she died on the spot, her face turning hideous, pus and blood streaming from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, her body swelling and rotting past recognition, swarmed at once by flies. Terrified at seeing her corpse dissolve this way before him, the young man searched desperately for some refuge from this horror. Then, through Mañjuśrī's own youthful, wondrous power, the garden's very trees spontaneously sang out verses of praise — and hearing them, the young man's fear gave way to joy, and a wholesome heart arose in him. Gathering the woman's corpse in his own robe, he laid it among the trees and left it there, walking away.

The World-Honored One, wishing to further instruct him, then emitted light from his own body that illuminated the whole realm of Magadha. Seeing the Tathāgata's towering majesty, the young man's heart filled with joy — and Śakra, appearing before him, praised his good fortune in having encountered a buddha at all. Following the god's own urging, the young man took flowers Śakra offered him and scattered them over the Tathāgata, then bowed at his feet and declared his own refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the noble sangha — recounting how the wanton woman Suvarṇaśiras, who had gone with him to the garden for pleasure, had that very day turned hideous and died, and asking in his fear whether some king might now come to investigate him for it. The Buddha told him only to be at ease.

Suvarṇaśiras herself, seeing that the young man had already been converted and now followed the moral precepts, came with her own musicians before the Buddha, bowed at his feet, and stood to one side. Mañjuśrī then asked the young man whether he still recognized this "elder sister" — and, asked how he knew her, the young man answered in verse: "Form is like a mass of foam; feeling, like a bubble rising and bursting; perception, like a mirage — this I now clearly understand."

The Buddha told Ānanda that Mañjuśrī had, in ages past, likewise converted this very woman and roused her to the path — just as the Buddha himself, in a former life, had done the same. Suvarṇaśiras, ninety-two hundred thousand kalpas hence, would become a buddha named Ratnaprabhā, "Jeweled Radiance"; the elder's son would become a bodhisattva named Guṇaprabhā, "Radiance of Virtue," and later a buddha himself — the Buddha, before his own nirvāṇa, having already conferred upon the bodhisattva Guṇaprabhā his own prediction of buddhahood, with the name, at his own final nirvāṇa, Dhṛtajvāla, "Torch-Bearer" (Source: Sūtra of the Great Pure Dharma-Gate).

Two hundred young devas had given rise to the bodhisattva resolve, but their resolve was not yet firm, and each of them, thinking the Buddha's own path too hard to attain, considered abandoning it for the swifter goal of becoming an arhat or pratyekabuddha instead. Knowing they could still be brought to complete the bodhisattva path, the Buddha manifested himself as a poor householder carrying a bowl filled with a hundred delicacies, who came before the Buddha, bowed, and offered the bowl up. The Buddha accepted it — and, at Mañjuśrī's prompting that such a gift called for repayment, cast the bowl down into the earth before Śāriputra's very eyes. The bowl sank straight through seventy-two Ganges-sands' worth of buddha-lands, coming to rest, unheld, in the air within the land of a buddha named Prabhāsarāja, "King of Light," now presently teaching there — whose own attendants, puzzled at its sudden appearance, were told by their own buddha that it came from a buddha named Śākyamuni above, sent to rescue bodhisattvas whose resolve was faltering.

The Buddha then asked Śāriputra to retrieve the bowl. Relying on his own wisdom, Śāriputra entered ten thousand samādhis and passed through ten thousand buddha-lands, yet could not find it; rising from meditation, he reported his failure. Maudgalyāyana was sent, and likewise failed; Subhūti and five hundred other elders could not see it; even Maitreya could not see it. Only when Mañjuśrī was asked did he, without even rising from his seat, enter samādhi and reach his right hand down through the earth, passing through every buddha-land below, all of which shook at his passing and in all of which he himself became visible. Through the seventy-two Ganges-sands of lands, each hair on his very arm shone with hundreds of thousands of lights, each light bearing hundreds of thousands of lotuses, and on each lotus a bodhisattva seated in meditation, all praising Śākyamuni's own virtues, his śrāvakas, bodhisattvas, and buddha-land alike. Śākyamuni then emitted light from the very soles of his own feet, illuminating those same seventy-two Ganges-sands of lands below, and all who saw that light attained the samādhi of universal equality. Mañjuśrī then took up the bowl with his right hand and returned with countless bodhisattvas, presenting it to the Buddha with a bow.

The Buddha then told Śāriputra of a past age, under a buddha named Vīryāsaha, "Unsurpassed in Vigor," when a monk named Prajñārāja, "King of Wisdom," went begging and received a bowl of a hundred delicacies. A young prince's son, Vimalarāja, "Stainless King," being carried by his own wet nurse at the city gate, saw the monk from afar, had himself set down, and ran to beg food from him; the monk gave him a honey cake, whose sweetness so delighted the child that he followed the monk, heedless of his own nurse, all the way to the buddha Vīryāsaha himself, where he bowed and sat to one side. The monk had the child himself offer the bowl of food to the Buddha — and the Buddha ate from it, yet the food, far from being depleted, fed eighty-four thousand monks and twelve thousand bodhisattvas besides, all to their full satisfaction, without the bowl ever emptying. Delighted by the Buddha's own power, the child took the five precepts from the monk and gave rise to the bodhi-resolve himself; his own parents, coming to bow before the Buddha in search of their son, were told by the child that he had already entered the bodhisattva's own path and wished to become a monk — to which they consented, resolving to follow him themselves.

The Buddha revealed that the monk Prajñārāja was Mañjuśrī himself, and that the child was the Buddha's own former self — just as every buddha throughout countless, incalculable buddha-lands, without number, had likewise all been first roused to their own resolve by Mañjuśrī, to whose kindness we all remain indebted. Hearing this, the two hundred devaputras reflected that if even Śākyamuni Buddha himself had first been moved to buddhahood by Mañjuśrī, they themselves had no cause for laziness — and, through this very reflection, their own resolve became firm at last (Source: Sūtra of King Ajātaśatru, upper fascicle).

The bodhisattva Samantabhadra, renowned for his own unhindered supernormal power and majesty, came from the east together with countless great bodhisattvas, every land he passed through shaking, raining down jeweled lotuses amid heavenly music, surrounded by a great host of the eightfold division of spirits, and bowed before Śākyamuni Buddha. He said: "From the buddha-land of Ratnatejorājā I heard, from afar, that this sahā world was expounding the Lotus Sūtra, and have come together to hear it — may the World-Honored One now teach it." The Buddha told Samantabhadra that any son or daughter of good family who fulfills four conditions will obtain this Lotus Sūtra after the Tathāgata's own nirvāṇa.

Samantabhadra then vowed: if anyone, standing or walking, recites and reflects upon this sūtra, and forgets even a single phrase or verse of it, he himself, together with the great bodhisattvas, will go to that very person, manifesting himself to protect and comfort their heart, restoring their fluency for the sake of the sūtra itself — and whoever sees him will rejoice and grow only more diligent, attaining, through the very sight of him, both samādhi and dhāraṇī. And if, in a later, evil age, any of the fourfold assembly seeks, upholds, recites, or copies this Lotus Sūtra, wishing to practice it, they need only apply themselves single-mindedly for twenty-one days — at the end of which he will manifest himself before them and teach them the Dharma himself (Source: Wondrous Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 7).

Long ago, under a buddha named Vipulaprabhā (the Bodhisattvacaryā Sūtra calls him Vimalaprabhā, "Stainless Light"), a king's son named Guṇadhana (the same sūtra calls him Karmaśiras, "Foremost in Deeds"), then sixteen, proud of his own fine looks, had never once bowed in respect before the Buddha. The Buddha, seeking someone able to convert him, drew lots among eighty-four thousand bodhisattvas, none of whom would accept the task, until one bodhisattva, Śuddhavīrya, "Pure Diligence," volunteered — at which the great chiliocosm shook six ways. Standing at the prince's own gate, he was met with abuse, mud thrown in his face, and blows from staves and stones, yet remained neither angry nor willing to leave, unwearied even after a thousand years of such treatment. Only after twenty thousand years did he reach the prince's second gate; only after eighty-four thousand years, not yet seven days short, did he reach the seventh.

The prince, marveling that this ascetic's mind never wearied through so long a trial, asked at last what he sought — and Śuddhavīrya, perceiving the prince's own mind now finally softened, spoke a verse urging him to go before the Buddha. The prince then renounced his own throne, went forth under the Buddha's own teaching, and, hearing the Dharma and abiding in it, attained the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas. The Buddha revealed that Śuddhavīrya was himself, and Guṇadhana was Maitreya (Source: Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra, fascicle 26; also found, largely in agreement, in the Sūtra on the Prince Whose Mind Was Subdued and the Bodhisattvacaryā Sūtra).

Jyotiṣka Māṇava, kneeling on his right knee before the Buddha Ratnagarbha with palms joined, said: "World-Honored One, I have now given rise to the resolve for unsurpassed bodhi and accomplished roots of goodness; if, among the three vehicles, what I have wished for is truly to my own benefit, let white dragon-elephants spontaneously emerge from my own two hands." Through the Buddha's own spiritual power, pure-white dragon-elephants at once emerged from both his hands, their seven limbs touching the ground. Seeing this, the Buddha told the dragon-elephants themselves to rise into the sky and, not far from there, rain down the eight-virtued fragrant water over the whole world, that all beings who touched even a single drop, on smelling its fragrance, might have their five hindrances — desire, anger, drowsiness, restlessness, and doubt — entirely cut off. The two dragon-elephants then circled swiftly through the sky, like a strong archer's arrow in flight, and, their task accomplished, returned to stand once more before Jyotiṣka Māṇava, who watched them return with great joy (Source: Sūtra of Jyotiṣka Māṇava's Vow to Attain Bodhi).

Long ago, as a bodhisattva born into a household of the four castes, I declared at the very moment I touched the ground: "I shall deliver beings from every calamity; I shall dispel their ignorance and grant them sight and hearing of the sages' own bright example." My own nine classes of relatives, astonished that an infant could speak at all, suspected some spirit or dragon possessed me and wished to divine the cause — but I answered that I was transformed by the sages above, possessed of universal wisdom, no demon at all, and then fell silent. My relatives, recognizing in me an ambition as vast as heaven and earth, named me Samantadāna, "Universal Giving." By ten, I had mastered every scripture and worldly art alike, and, taking leave of my family, devoted myself to relieving the poor through giving. When my family offered me the wealthiest name in the realm to use as I pleased, I asked instead only to become a monk, and, given the monastic robe, bowl, and staff, set out to relieve beings through these alone. My parents consented, and I traveled teaching through an entire great kingdom.

In that kingdom lived a powerful, learned family whose daughter, seeing my own bearing — my mind as calm and pure as heavenly gold, marked with the signs of a great sage-to-be, a future hero of the world — was offered to me in marriage by her own father. I agreed, on condition of first completing my journey, and, taking passage across the sea, went on alone into the mountains. In a deserted place I came upon a silver city, its walls encircled seven times by a poisonous serpent as thick as a hundred spans, its head raised to watch me. Reflecting that this creature's malice called only for my own compassion, I roused loving-kindness, and its poison vanished, its head bowing in sleep; I walked over it and entered the city. The devas within, delighted at my long-awaited arrival, asked me to stay thirty days, during which I entrusted my own affairs to an attendant minister and accepted their offerings. At the end, they gave me a bright pearl that shone forty thousand li, granting whatever I wished for, its store of treasures never exhausted — on the condition that, should I attain buddhahood, they might become my disciples. I agreed, and went on.

I next came to a golden city, encircled fourteen times by a still greater serpent, its head raised many times higher; again I entered loving-kindness meditation, its poison subsided, and I entered. The devas there, equally delighted, asked me to stay a hundred eighty days, and at my departure gave me a second pearl, shining two hundred thousand li, its treasures without limit, on the same condition of future discipleship, granting me besides unsurpassed supernormal footwork. I went on further still to a city of lapis lazuli, encircled twenty-one times by a serpent raising its head in fury at the very gate; again I subdued it with loving-kindness and entered. The devas there, delighted as before, asked me to stay three full seasons, and at my departure gave a third pearl, shining sixteen hundred thousand li, granting whatever was wished for without limit, on the same condition.

Having gained these three pearls, I turned back toward my own former home. But the sea's own spirits, gathering in council, reasoned that these three pearls were the very glory of their whole ocean, and that they would rather lose every other treasure than let this ascetic keep them — and one, transforming into an ordinary man, approached me and asked to see the treasure I had reportedly obtained. The moment I showed it to him, he seized it by force. I protested that I had crossed every danger and the sea itself to obtain this treasure for the relief of the poor, only to have it stolen by this very spirit — and, when he refused to return it, I vowed to drain his entire ocean dry. He scoffed that no one could exhaust so vast and deep a sea — but I declared that before the Buddha Dīpaṃkara I had vowed to gain the power to overturn every ocean, to move Mount Sumeru itself, to shake heaven and earth, and to displace every buddha-land, and that the Buddha had granted my very wish; a mere spirit's paltry strength could never obstruct my true resolve. I then planted both feet and began scooping the sea's water out over the very rim of the iron mountains that encircle the world. The pure devas above, recalling my old vow before Dīpaṃkara Buddha to deliver all beings as a future World-Honored One, descended to help me bail, and in a moment eight-tenths of the ocean was gone. Terrified that his own home was about to be destroyed, the sea spirit returned my pearl at once.

I then continued my journey, giving alms as I went; every country I passed through was left without a single poor person, every king reformed his own rule to govern by the five precepts and ten good deeds, opening the prisons in general amnesty, until beings everywhere were benefited and I myself at last attained buddhahood. I was that Samantadāna; my father was King Śuddhodana himself; my mother was my own mother, named in this account Shěmiào; the ascetic's daughter was Gopī; the deva of the silver city was Ānanda; the deva of the golden city was Maudgalyāyana; and the deva of the lapis-lazuli city was Śāriputra (Source: Collection on the Perfections, fascicle 1; also found in the Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, where this same story is told of Prince Kalyāṇakārin).

Ānanda told the Buddha he recalled once entering Śrāvastī and seeing the bodhisattva Atyuttama, "Surpassing Victory," lying on the same bed as a woman, and, suspecting some impure act, wondered whether a practitioner of pure conduct ought to be seen and thought of this way at all under the Tathāgata's own teaching. The moment he spoke this, the whole trichiliocosm shook six ways, and Atyuttama himself rose up and hovered in the air, four zhang nine chi above the ground, and asked Ānanda whether someone truly guilty of impurity could do such a thing in the Buddha's own presence. Ānanda threw himself down in immediate repentance for his own biased judgment against so great a being.

The Buddha then explained: that woman had been Atyuttama's own companion across a hundred past lives, her old attachment to him not yet uprooted, and she had vowed that if Atyuttama would grant her wish just once more, she would afterward follow his own teaching entirely. Knowing her mind, Atyuttama, properly dressed, entered her room that very morning and spoke this verse to her:

"My own foolish transgression through desire is nothing the buddhas praise;
one who can cut off attachment and craving attains the foremost place among the buddhas' own people."

The woman, overjoyed, rose from her seat and threw herself to the ground, taking refuge and confessing her own fault, and praised Atyuttama in turn:

"I have now left every desire behind, as the World-Honored One himself praises;
having restrained my own attachment and craving, I vow the Buddha's own unsurpassed path.
What my mind once desired, I now confess and repent myself;
grieving for all beings, I resolve at last upon the path."

Atyuttama then gave her his own prediction: that after transforming this very female body, she would, ninety-nine kalpas hence, attain buddhahood herself, under a name that translates roughly as "Liberated from Countless Hundreds of Thousands," Tathāgata (Source: Sūtra of the Bodhisattva Wisdom-Superior, upper fascicle).

When Śākyamuni Buddha was a bodhisattva, he was named Mahāsārthavāha, "Great Caravan-Leader." Crossing the great ocean, his ship was wrecked by a violent storm, and he told the merchants aboard to hold onto his own hair and limbs, that he might carry them across — then, once they had all taken hold, killed himself with a knife, knowing that the sea, by its own nature, never keeps a corpse afloat. A swift wind at once blew them all to shore (Source: Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 4).

The bodhisattva, sitting in meditation on a mountain, his mind fixed in loving-kindness, remained utterly still even after a bird built her nest upon his very crown — aware of her presence, but fearing that any movement might cause her eggs to fall, he stayed unmoving there until her chicks had hatched and grown their own feathers, and did not leave even then until they were able to fly. Reflecting on this himself, he spoke this verse:

"One who can accomplish such a thing is a god among gods and men;
to remain undisturbing to another being — this virtue has no equal.
For this the World-Honored One himself is the very foremost of spirits,
abiding thus at the seat of awakening, every virtue already complete within him."

(Source: Saṃgharakṣa Sūtra, upper fascicle).

"Through countless kalpas of unbroken diligence in seeking the path, I attained buddhahood at last, surpassing Maitreya by nine full kalpas. I recall, in a past age, seeing my own country's people in poverty and, moved to pity, resolving to enter the sea in search of the wish-fulfilling pearl. A great company of us set sail, and I went before the sea's own dragon king to beg for the wish-fulfilling pearl upon his very head — and the king, hearing my wish to relieve the poor, gave it to me at once. The other merchants, having gathered their own treasures in full, returned by ship together with me.

"But the sea's dragons and spirits, in council, reasoned that this pearl, the ocean's own supreme treasure, ought never belong to an ordinary mortal, and resolved to take it back by any means rather than lose it — surrounding me day and night, though my own virtue and the pearl's own power kept them from succeeding, until, once we had crossed the sea, I stood rejoicing at the shore, bowed my head, and invoked the sea gods' blessing with the pearl tied about my own neck. At that very moment, through the sea dragons' own contrivance, the pearl was made to fall into the sea.

"Grieved that I had crossed the sea through such labor and hardship only to obtain this treasure for the relief of the multitude, and that the sea spirits had now made it fall back into their own domain, I ordered my attendants to bring vessels, declaring I would bail out the sea to its very mud floor and never rest until the pearl was recovered. I began bailing without regard for my own life, and the water flowed of itself into the waiting vessels. The sea dragons and spirits, seeing this, grew afraid — such power and diligence, they said, was truly beyond the world's own measure — and, before the water could fully drain away, brought the pearl back and apologized, admitting they had only meant to test me, never imagining such diligence and power existed. I then returned to my own country with the pearl and caused a rain of the seven treasures to fall, bringing peace to the whole world. That guide was my own former self" (Source: Jātaka Sūtra, fascicle 1).

Long ago, the bodhisattva went to sea together with five hundred merchants in search of treasure, and, after months at sea, their ship laden with riches, turned homeward — only to meet a violent storm, thunder shaking the earth, sea spirits gathering like storm clouds, fire streaming from their eyes on every side, waves rising to engulf even the mountains. The terrified merchants cried out that they were doomed, and looked to heaven for mercy.

The bodhisattva, moved with grief, reflected that he had sought buddhahood only for the sake of beings, and that the sea gods, who abhor a corpse, might be appeased by his own death, saving the others' lives — the very highest work of a great being. Reasoning that only his own blood, poured into the sea, could satisfy the sea gods' anger and bring the ship safely to shore, he told the others to link hands and hold onto his body, and, once they had done so, drew a knife and killed himself. Through the virtue of his death, the sea gods carried the ship safely to shore, and everyone aboard was saved.

The sailors, embracing his corpse, wailed that he could be no ordinary man but a true bodhisattva, crying out to heaven that they would rather have died themselves than lose so virtuous a being — and their sincere grief moved the heavens themselves. Śakra, witnessing the bodhisattva's own vast compassion, descended and, declaring that so virtuous a being must become a sage and hero of the world, revived him himself, pouring heavenly medicine into his mouth and over his body. The bodhisattva at once revived, rose, and greeted the others — and Śakra filled their ship with famous treasures, a thousand times what it had held before.

Returning to his own homeland, welcomed joyfully by all his kin, he relieved the poor and needy, proclaimed the Buddha's own teaching, and enlightened the ignorant everywhere; the king of that country, moved by the bodhisattva's own virtue, came to receive his pure teaching himself, so that ruler and ministers alike became benevolent and loyal, the whole realm kept the precepts, families raised filial children, the country prospered free of poison and harm, and its people, rejoicing, were at last reborn in heaven, forever free of suffering. Through kalpas of unbroken diligence, the bodhisattva at last attained buddhahood. He who killed himself to save the multitude was my own former self; Śakra was Maitreya; and the five hundred merchants are the five hundred arhats now seated in this very assembly (Source: Sūtra of Killing Oneself to Save Merchants; also found in the Collection on the Perfections).

Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas as numerous as the fine dust motes of a thousand worlds sprang up from the earth, joined their palms in single-minded reverence, gazed up at the Buddha's own countenance, and vowed that, after his nirvāṇa, in every land where his emanation-bodies had themselves entered nirvāṇa, they would widely proclaim this sūtra, wishing themselves to uphold, recite, expound, copy, and make offerings to this true and pure great Dharma. The World-Honored One then, before Mañjuśrī and countless hundreds of thousands of myriads of bodhisattvas who had long dwelt in this sahā world, together with śrāvakas, humans, and non-humans of every kind, put forth his own broad, long tongue, reaching up to the Brahmā heaven, every pore of his body emitting boundless light of every color, illuminating the worlds of the ten directions entirely — and every buddha seated on a lion throne beneath the jeweled trees did likewise (Source: Lotus Sūtra, fascicle 6).

Long ago, a monk of unbroken diligence and precept, dwelling in a monastery, recited the Perfection of Wisdom aloud, and all who heard his voice rejoiced in it. A boy of only seven, herding cattle outside the city, heard his chanting from afar, went to the temple to listen, and understood it at once — delighted, he questioned the monk further, whose own answers still left him unsatisfied, until the boy himself explained its meaning so wonderfully that the monk, astonished, praised the child as no ordinary being. The boy then returned to his cattle, only to find them scattered into the mountains; tracking them, he was killed by a tiger.

He was reborn as the son of an elder's foremost wife, who, from the moment of her pregnancy, spoke the Perfection of Wisdom aloud from dawn to dusk without ceasing. Her household, unfamiliar with the Dharma, suspected her of madness or possession by some ghost, and, unable to divine the cause, grew anxious throughout. The same monk, entering the city to beg, passed the elder's own gate and, hearing the same wondrous recitation from within, asked who spoke it — and, told it was thought to be the wife's own ghost-sickness, explained that this was no sickness at all, but a profound and reasoned teaching, and that her unborn child must himself be a disciple of the Buddha. Reassured, the elder kept the monk and fed him until, in time, the wife gave birth to a son without even the usual signs of labor — the child himself, at the moment of birth, joining his palms and kneeling to recite the Perfection of Wisdom, while his mother, once delivered, remembered nothing of it at all, as though waking from a dream.

The elder gathered the sangha to witness the child speak the sūtra without hindrance, and, asking what this meant, was told by the monk that this was truly a disciple of the Buddha, not to be feared but raised with care, for he would grow to become a teacher to all beings, from whom even they themselves would learn. By seven, the child already understood the Perfection of Wisdom's subtlest meaning beyond compare, and monks everywhere came to study under him, correcting and completing whatever errors or omissions they found in the scriptures under his guidance. Wherever the child went, he converted others to the Great Vehicle; the elder's own household of five hundred, young and old, all took up the great resolve through him and undertook the Buddha's own work; throughout the city and marketplace, he roused the unsurpassed resolve in eighty-four thousand people, and gained five hundred formal disciples, while the monks who heard him all turned their own resolve toward the Great Vehicle and attained the pure Dharma-eye. The Buddha told Ānanda that this child was his own former self, and that the monk was the Buddha Kāśyapa (Source: Sūtra of the Child Who Understood the Dharma the Moment He Heard It).