Ten Ways of Coming Near
Vasumitrā answers by listing every way a person might approach her — hearing her, seeing her, speaking, taking her hand, sitting where she sits, embracing her, kissing her — and names what each contact turns into. Then Good-Wealth asks what she once did to become capable of this, and the answer is one coin.
Hearing, Seeing, Speaking, Touching
The list begins with the person who arrives already 欲意所纏, bound up by thoughts of desire, and it does not turn him away. Each degree of nearness is met with a different concentration.
「若有眾生欲意所纏來詣我所，我為說法，彼聞法已，則離貪欲，得菩薩無著境界三昧；若有眾生暫見於我，則離貪欲，得菩薩歡喜三昧；若有眾生暫與我語，則離貪欲，得菩薩無礙音聲三昧；若有眾生暫執我手，則離貪欲，得菩薩遍往一切佛剎三昧；若有眾生暫昇我座，則離貪欲，得菩薩解脫光明三昧；
"If there are beings bound up by thoughts of desire who come to where I am, I teach them the dharma; and having heard the dharma, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of the domain of non-attachment. If there are beings who merely see me, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of delight. If there are beings who merely speak with me, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of unobstructed voice. If there are beings who merely take my hand, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of going everywhere to every buddha-land. If there are beings who merely ascend to my seat, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of the light of liberation.
則離貪欲 — they then leave craving and desire behind. The clause is repeated identically after every single item, ten times without variation, and it is the hinge of the whole episode. The contact is never denied, softened, or converted into something metaphorical; what changes is what the contact produces. In each case the desire is the door, and 則, then, is immediate.
Gazing, Stretching, Blinking, Embracing, Kissing
The second five move from what a person does to her toward what she merely does in their sight — and then closer than any other teacher in this pilgrimage is approached.
若有眾生暫觀於我，則離貪欲，得菩薩寂靜莊嚴三昧；若有眾生見我頻申，則離貪欲，得菩薩摧伏外道三昧；若有眾生見我目瞬，則離貪欲，得菩薩佛境界光明三昧；若有眾生抱持於我，則離貪欲，得菩薩攝一切眾生恒不捨離三昧；若有眾生咂我脣吻，則離貪欲，得菩薩增長一切眾生福德藏三昧。
If there are beings who merely gaze upon me, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of tranquil adornment. If there are beings who see me stretch, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of crushing and subduing other paths. If there are beings who see me blink, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of the light of a buddha's domain. If there are beings who embrace me, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of gathering in every being and never once abandoning them. If there are beings who kiss my lips, they then leave craving and desire behind and attain the bodhisattva samādhi of increasing the treasury of merit of every being.
見我頻申 — if there are beings who see me stretch. This is the same word, 頻申, that names the twenty-fifth teacher in the previous fascicle, the bhikṣuṇī 師子頻申 — a lion's long stretch as it rouses itself. Here it is a woman's ordinary stretch, seen by someone who came for another reason entirely, and the samādhi it yields is 摧伏外道, crushing and subduing other paths. Between the two occurrences the sūtra has put the same gesture in the mouth of a lion and in the body of a woman at home, and given it enormous force both times.
抱持於我 … 咂我脣吻 — embrace me … kiss my lips. The sūtra states these plainly and assigns them the two most generous samādhis in the list: never abandoning any being, and increasing every being's store of merit. Nothing is euphemized and nothing is condemned. The scandal the townspeople anticipated in Part 1061 is answered here not by denial but by showing exactly what happens in the room.
What Did You Once Do?
She closes the list with a general statement covering anyone at all who comes near, and Good-Wealth asks the question the whole account provokes.
凡有眾生親近於我，一切皆得住離貪際，入菩薩一切智地現前無礙解脫。」善財白言：「聖者種何善根、修何福業，而得成就如是自在？」
Whatever beings draw near to me, every one of them comes to abide in the boundary free of craving, and enters the bodhisattva ground of all-knowing wisdom, an unobstructed liberation made manifest before them." Good-Wealth said: "Noble one, what roots of goodness did you plant, and what meritorious deeds did you cultivate, that you came to accomplish such sovereign mastery as this?"
One Jewelled Coin
Her answer goes back to a buddha whose single footstep on a city threshold made the city grow — and then to what she herself was, and what she could afford to give.
答言：「善男子！我念過去，有佛出世，名為：高行；其王都城，名曰：妙門。善男子！彼高行如來哀愍眾生，入於王城蹈彼門閫，其城一切悉皆震動，忽然廣博，眾寶莊嚴，無量光明遞相映徹，種種寶華散布其地，諸天音樂同時俱奏，一切諸天充滿虛空。
She answered: "Good son, I recall that in the past a buddha appeared in the world, named Lofty Practice, and his royal capital city was named Wondrous Gate. Good son, that Tathāgata Lofty Practice, in pity for beings, entered the royal city and set his foot upon its threshold; and the whole of that city shook, and suddenly grew broad and vast, adorned with a multitude of jewels, with measureless lights shining through one another in turn. Jewelled flowers of every kind were scattered across its ground, heavenly music sounded all at once together, and all the gods filled the sky.
善男子！我於彼時，為長者妻，名曰：善慧；見佛神力，心生覺悟，則與其夫往詣佛所，以一寶錢而為供養。是時，文殊師利童子為佛侍者，為我說法，令發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。
Good son, at that time I was an elder's wife, named Good Wisdom. Seeing the Buddha's spiritual power, an awakening arose in my mind, and I went together with my husband to where the Buddha was and made an offering of a single jewelled coin. At that time Mañjuśrī, the youth, was the Buddha's attendant, and he taught me the dharma and caused me to give rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.
蹈彼門閫，其城一切悉皆震動，忽然廣博 — he set his foot upon its threshold, and the whole of that city shook, and suddenly grew broad and vast. The buddha does not enter and then transform the city; the transformation happens at the sill, on contact. It is the same logic as the ten items above: something changes at the point of touch.
以一寶錢而為供養 — and made an offering of a single jewelled coin. After bodies numbering the dust-motes of buddha-lands, after ten samādhis and a house walled ten layers deep, the seed of all of it is one coin, given by a married woman who happened to look up. And the person who taught her afterwards was Mañjuśrī — the same bodhisattva who, at the start of this whole chapter, sent Good-Wealth out on the road that has now brought him to her door.
Part 1063 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1064 closes Vasumitrā's teaching with her confession before bodhisattvas whose skillful means have no edge, and names a twenty-seventh teacher — the householder Veṣṭhila in the city of Good Crossing, who keeps perpetual offerings at the stūpa of the Buddha Sandalwood Seat.