An Elder Who Settles Every Dispute
Good-Wealth's own inner state, built up through a whole chain of images — rampart, garden, sun, wind, city — carries him at last to Delightful, where Unsurpassed Victory is found not teaching from a throne but settling ordinary human disputes for a crowd of merchants and householders.
Rampart, Garden, Sun, and Wind
Good-Wealth's own inward preparation before this meeting is described through an unusually dense chain of images — diligence as a rampart, samādhi as a garden, wisdom as sunlight, skillful means as wind — each building toward a mind that constantly enters the city of all-knowing wisdom.
爾時，善財童子起大慈周遍心、大悲潤澤心相續不斷，福德、智慧二種莊嚴，捨離一切煩惱塵垢，證法平等，心無高下，拔不善刺，滅一切障，堅固精進以為牆塹，甚深三昧而作園苑，以慧日光破無明暗，以方便風開智慧華，以無礙願充滿法界，心常現入一切智城，如是而求菩薩之道。
At that time, Good-Wealth gave rise to a mind of great loving-kindness reaching everywhere, and a mind of great compassion, moistening and unbroken; adorned with the two ornaments of merit and wisdom, he left behind every speck of affliction's own defilement, realizing the equality of every dharma, his mind free of high and low; he pulled out the thorn of every unwholesome thing, extinguished every obstruction, made firm diligence into his own rampart and moat, made profound samādhi into his own garden and park, used the sun-light of wisdom to break through the darkness of ignorance, used the wind of skillful means to open the flower of wisdom, filled the dharma-realm with unobstructed vows, and his mind constantly manifested entering the city of all-knowing wisdom — seeking the bodhisattva path in this way.
Justice, Then Dharma
Unsurpassed Victory is found doing something no teacher before him has been shown doing — adjudicating the ordinary disputes of merchants and householders — before that same authority becomes the vehicle for teaching them the dharma directly.
漸次經歷，到彼城內。見無上勝在其城東大莊嚴幢無憂林中，無量商人、百千居士之所圍遶，理斷人間種種事務；因為說法，令其永拔一切我慢，離我、我所，捨所積聚，滅慳嫉垢，心得清淨，無諸穢濁，獲淨信力，常樂見佛，受持佛法，生菩薩力，起菩薩行，入菩薩三昧，得菩薩智慧，住菩薩正念，增菩薩樂欲。
Journeying onward by stages, he arrived within that city. He saw Unsurpassed Victory in the Sorrowless Grove of the Great Adorned Banner to the east of the city, surrounded by measureless merchants and hundreds of thousands of householders, adjudicating and settling every kind of human affair; and through this, he taught them the dharma, causing them to forever pull out every arrogance, to leave behind self and what belongs to self, to relinquish every accumulation, to extinguish the defilement of stinginess and envy, their minds attaining purity, free of every impurity and turbidity, obtaining the power of pure faith, constantly delighting in beholding the buddha, upholding the buddha-dharma, giving rise to the bodhisattva's own power, arousing the bodhisattva practices, entering bodhisattva samādhi, attaining bodhisattva wisdom, abiding in bodhisattva right mindfulness, and increasing the bodhisattva's own aspiration.
理斷人間種種事務 — adjudicating and settling every kind of human affair. Where King Never Satisfied ruled through illusion and King Great Light through loving-kindness, Unsurpassed Victory's own authority looks almost mundane — an elder resolving ordinary disputes — and it is precisely this ordinary authority that becomes his platform for teaching bodhicitta.
Part 1051 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-seven. Part 1052 follows Good-Wealth's own unusual prostration before Unsurpassed Victory, naming himself twice by name, before the elder answers with a bodhisattva practice that reaches every corner of the desire realm at once.