A Single Pellet of Incense
Good-Wealth asks what could possibly cause a house like this one, and Dharma-Jewel-Topknot's answer is startlingly small — a single pellet of incense, burned long ago for a buddha passing through a city — before he names a sixteenth teacher and sends Good-Wealth onward.
What Cause Produced This?
Faced with a house holding ten floors of vision, from ordinary charity to tathāgatas themselves, Good-Wealth's question is the plainest one imaginable — and the elder's answer, when it comes, is smaller than anyone would expect.
爾時，善財見是事已，白言：「聖者！何緣致此清淨眾會？種何善根獲如是報？」長者告言：「善男子！我念過去，過佛剎微塵數劫，有世界，名：圓滿莊嚴，佛號：無邊光明法界普莊嚴王如來、應、正等覺，十號圓滿。彼佛入城，我奏樂音，并燒一丸香而以供養，以此功德迴向三處，謂：永離一切貧窮困苦、常見諸佛及善知識、恒聞正法，故獲斯報。
At that time, having seen these things, Good-Wealth said: "Noble one, what cause has brought about this pure assembly? What wholesome root did you plant to obtain such a reward?" The elder said: "Good son, I recall that in the past, more kalpas ago than there are fine motes of dust in a buddha-land, there was a world named Perfect Adornment, whose buddha was the tathāgata Boundless Light, King of the Universal Adornment of the Dharma-Realm, Worthy One, Truly and Rightly Awakened One, complete in all ten epithets. When that buddha entered the city, I played music, and burned a single pellet of incense as an offering, dedicating this merit toward three aims: namely, to forever leave behind all poverty and suffering, to constantly behold every buddha and good spiritual friend, and to forever hear the true dharma — and it is for this reason that I obtained this reward.
并燒一丸香而以供養 — and burned a single pellet of incense as an offering. Ten stories of tathāgatas and prajñāpāramitā-gates, traced back to one small act performed as a buddha simply walked past — music, and a single pellet of incense. The scale of the reward has nothing to do with the size of the gift, only the direction in which it was aimed.
A Sixteenth Teacher
As always, the elder's confession of his own limitation opens directly onto the next name — an elder called Universal Eye, in a city called Universal Gate, in a land called Vine-Root.
「善男子！我唯知此菩薩無量福德寶藏解脫門。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，得不思議功德寶藏，入無分別如來身海，受無分別無上法雲，修無分別功德道具，起無分別普賢行網，入無分別三昧境界，等無分別菩薩善根，住無分別如來所住，證無分別三世平等，住無分別普眼境界，住一切劫無有疲厭；而我云何能知能說彼功德行？「善男子！於此南方，有一國土，名曰：藤根；其土有城，名曰：普門；中有長者，名為：普眼。汝詣彼問：菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道？」時，善財童子頂禮其足，遶無數匝，慇懃瞻仰，辭退而去。
"Good son, I only know this bodhisattva liberation-gate of the Measureless Treasury of Merit. As for the great bodhisattva-mahāsattvas who have attained the inconceivable Treasury of Merit, who enter the sea of the tathāgata's own body free of discrimination, who receive the unsurpassed cloud of dharma free of discrimination, who cultivate the equipment of merit free of discrimination, who raise up the net of Samantabhadra's own practice free of discrimination, who enter the state of samādhi free of discrimination, who equal the bodhisattva's own wholesome roots free of discrimination, who abide where the tathāgata abides free of discrimination, who realize the equality of the three times free of discrimination, who abide in the state of the universal eye free of discrimination, and who abide throughout every kalpa without weariness — how could I possibly know or speak of their own meritorious practice? Good son, to the south of here, there is a land named Vine-Root; within that land, there is a city named Universal Gate; within it, there is an elder named Universal Eye. You should go to him and ask: how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path?" At that time, Good-Wealth bowed his head at his feet, circumambulated him countless times, gazed up at him with deep reverence, and took his leave and departed.
Part 1011 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-six. Part 1012 follows Good-Wealth's journey south to the land of Vine-Root and the city of Universal Gate, and his meeting with the elder Universal Eye, whose own practice begins with healing every kind of disease.