Seeing Without Discriminating
Lion's Roar follows a buddha through every station of his life, making the same offering at each; then gives the doctrinal core of her liberation in five parallel statements, each pairing what she perceives with the reason she does not divide it; then hands Good-Wealth on to a woman named Vasumitrā, and fascicle sixty-seven closes.
Eight Stations of a Buddha's Life
Her offerings are not made once. The Tuṣita palace was only the first station, and she follows a buddha's career through all of it — including the gaps in between.
如於住兜率宮菩薩所，如是於住胎、出胎、在家、出家、往詣道場、成等正覺、轉正法輪、入於涅槃，如是中間，或住天宮，或住龍宮，乃至或復住於人宮，於彼一一諸如來所，我皆如是而為供養。若有眾生，知我如是供養佛者，皆於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉；若有眾生來至我所，我即為說般若波羅蜜。
Just as at the place of the bodhisattva dwelling in the Tuṣita palace, so too at his dwelling in the womb, his emergence from the womb, his life in the household, his leaving the household, his going to the place of awakening, his attainment of full and perfect awakening, his turning of the true dharma-wheel, and his entry into nirvāṇa — and in the intervals between these, whether he dwells in a heavenly palace, or dwells in a nāga palace, or on down to dwelling even in a human palace — at the place of each and every one of those tathāgatas I make offerings in just this way. If there are beings who come to know that I make offerings to the buddhas in this way, they all become irreversible in anuttara-samyak-sambodhi; and if there are beings who come to where I am, I then teach them prajñāpāramitā.
如是中間，或住天宮，或住龍宮，乃至或復住於人宮 — and in the intervals between these, whether he dwells in a heavenly palace, or a nāga palace, or even a human palace. 中間, the in-between, is the telling word. The eight stations from womb to nirvāṇa are the canonical list of a buddha's great acts; she adds the unremarkable stretches between them and makes the same offering there. Nothing in a buddha's life is treated as off-duty.
Five Things She Does Not Divide
Five statements, each built identically — a faculty exercised in full, a mark not discriminated, and a reason given with 故, because. This is the actual content of the liberation she named.
「善男子！我見一切眾生，不分別眾生相，智眼明見故；聽一切語言，不分別語言相，心無所著故；見一切如來，不分別如來相，了達法身故；住持一切法輪，不分別法輪相，悟法自性故；一念遍知一切法，不分別諸法相，知法如幻故。
"Good son, I see every being without discriminating the mark of a being, because my wisdom-eye sees clearly. I hear every speech without discriminating the mark of speech, because my mind attaches to nothing. I see every tathāgata without discriminating the mark of a tathāgata, because I have fully penetrated the dharma-body. I uphold and sustain every dharma-wheel without discriminating the mark of a dharma-wheel, because I have awakened to the self-nature of dharmas. I know every dharma throughout in a single thought without discriminating the marks of dharmas, because I know that dharmas are like a conjuring.
我見一切眾生，不分別眾生相 — I see every being without discriminating the mark of a being. The structure matters as much as the content: she does not stop seeing, stop hearing, or stop upholding the dharma-wheel. Each clause affirms the activity at full strength and then removes only the 相, the mark or characteristic that would make the object a separate thing. Non-discrimination here is not blankness; it is undiminished perception without the partitioning.
知法如幻故 — because I know that dharmas are like a conjuring. The same phrase, 了法如幻, explained the garden's own existence in Part 1055. The insight that built the place is the insight that lets her perceive everything in it without dividing it.
A Single Hair Lifts Every World
Her confession runs longer than most, and the images escalate steadily — from a body that fills the dharma-realm to a pore in which universes are seen forming and coming apart.
「善男子！我唯知此成就一切智解脫。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，心無分別，普知諸法，一身端坐，充滿法界，於自身中現一切剎，一念悉詣一切佛所，於自身內普現一切諸佛神力，一毛遍舉不可言說諸佛世界，於其自身一毛孔中現不可說世界成壞，於一念中與不可說不可說眾生同住，於一念中入不可說不可說一切諸劫；而我云何能知能說彼功德行？
"Good son, I know only this liberation of the accomplishment of all-knowing wisdom. But the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas have minds without discrimination and know all dharmas universally; sitting upright in a single body, they fill the dharma-realm; within their own body they manifest every buddha-land; in a single thought they go to where every buddha is; within their own body they universally manifest the spiritual power of every buddha; with a single hair they lift up unspeakable buddha-worlds everywhere; within a single pore of their own body they manifest the forming and disintegrating of unspeakable worlds; in a single thought they dwell together with unspeakably unspeakable beings; and in a single thought they enter all the unspeakably unspeakable eons. How, then, could I know or speak of their meritorious practice?
一毛遍舉不可言說諸佛世界 — with a single hair they lift up unspeakable buddha-worlds everywhere. This is the Huayan figure in its most compressed form: not that the small contains the large symbolically, but that a hair does the lifting. The next clause makes it worse — 於其自身一毛孔中現不可說世界成壞, within a single pore they manifest unspeakable worlds forming and disintegrating. The pore does not merely hold worlds; it holds their whole cosmic history.
A Twenty-Sixth Teacher, and Fascicle Sixty-Seven Complete
The next destination is the only one on the pilgrimage whose name is a warning, and the teacher waiting there is named simply 女人, a woman.
「善男子！於此南方，有一國土，名曰：險難；此國有城，名：寶莊嚴；中有女人，名：婆須蜜多。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, to the south of here there is a country named Perilous; in this country there is a city named Jewel Adornment; and in it there is a woman named Vasumitrā. You should go to her and ask: how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path?" At that time, Good-Wealth bowed his head at her feet, circled her countless times, gazed up at her with earnest devotion, took his leave, and departed.
名曰：險難 — a country named Perilous. 險難 is ordinary vocabulary in this sūtra for danger and hard going, used of hell-bound roads and of wilderness a traveller must cross; it has never been a place-name until now. Good-Wealth is being sent, by name, into difficulty.
中有女人，名：婆須蜜多 — and in it there is a woman named Vasumitrā. She is introduced with no title at all: not a bhikṣuṇī, not a laywoman, not a goddess or a queen — simply 女人, a woman. Every other teacher in this fascicle has arrived with a role attached. The withholding is deliberate, and fascicle sixty-eight will make plain why.
Part 1060 Complete — Fascicle Sixty-Seven Complete
This closes chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-seven. Part 1061 opens fascicle sixty-eight, 入法界品第三十九之九, with eight attainments that come to Good-Wealth on the road, his arrival in the city of Jewel Adornment, and the townspeople who cannot understand why so composed a youth would be looking for Vasumitrā at all.