A Mountain Out on the Sea
The stūpa-keeper's vision turns out to include not just every buddha but every stage of every buddha's career, and he can recall all of it distinctly. Then, for the first time in a long while, a teacher gives Good-Wealth his next direction in verse — and the name in it is Avalokiteśvara.
Not Just the Buddhas, but Their Whole Careers
Fifteen stages in a row, from the first stirring of the aspiration to the display of spiritual powers — and then four verbs for what he can do with all of it.
亦見彼佛，初始發心，種諸善根，獲勝神通，成就大願，修行妙行，具波羅蜜，入菩薩地，得清淨忍，摧伏魔軍，成正等覺，國土清淨，眾會圍遶，放大光明，轉妙法輪，神通變現；種種差別，我悉能持，我悉能憶，悉能觀察，分別顯示。
I also see those buddhas at their first arising of the aspiration, planting roots of goodness, gaining surpassing spiritual powers, accomplishing great vows, cultivating wondrous practices, becoming complete in the pāramitās, entering the bodhisattva grounds, attaining pure forbearance, crushing Māra's armies, attaining perfect awakening, their lands pure, their assemblies encircling them, releasing great radiance, turning the wondrous dharma-wheel, and manifesting transformations by spiritual power. Every kind of difference among these I am able to hold, I am able to recall, I am able to examine, and I am able to set out and reveal distinctly.
未來彌勒佛等一切諸佛，現在毘盧遮那佛等一切諸佛，悉亦如是。如此世界，十方世界所有三世一切諸佛、聲聞、獨覺、諸菩薩眾，悉亦如是。
Maitreya Buddha of the future and all buddhas like him, Vairocana Buddha of the present and all buddhas like him — with all of them it is likewise so. And as with this world, so too with all the buddhas of the three times throughout the worlds of the ten directions, and their śrāvakas, their pratyekabuddhas, and their assemblies of bodhisattvas — with all of them it is likewise so.
我悉能持，我悉能憶，悉能觀察，分別顯示 — I am able to hold, able to recall, able to examine, and able to set out and reveal distinctly. The four verbs rise in order: retention, memory, analysis, and teaching. The last one, 分別顯示, uses 分別 approvingly — distinguishing for the sake of showing someone — only a page after Vasumitrā used 不分別 for the absence of discrimination. The sūtra treats the two as different operations, not as a contradiction.
未來彌勒佛 … 現在毘盧遮那佛 — Maitreya Buddha of the future, Vairocana Buddha of the present. A single clause quietly settles who presides over the present age in this sūtra's reckoning: not Śākyamuni but Vairocana, the buddha of the Avataṃsaka's own opening vision.
A Tathāgata, and I, and Every Being
His confession is unusually doctrinal. Buried in the middle of it is the flattest statement of non-duality anywhere in this fascicle, and it puts the speaker himself in the equation.
「善男子！我唯得此菩薩所得不般涅槃際解脫。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，以一念智普知三世，一念遍入一切三昧，如來智日恒照其心，於一切法無有分別，了一切佛悉皆平等、如來及我一切眾生等無有二，知一切法自性清淨，無有思慮，無有動轉，而能普入一切世間，離諸分別，住佛法印，悉能開悟法界眾生；而我云何能知能說彼功德行？
"Good son, I have attained only this bodhisattva liberation of the boundary of not entering parinirvāṇa. But the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas know the three times universally with the wisdom of a single thought, and in a single thought enter every samādhi throughout; the sun of the tathāgata's wisdom constantly shines upon their minds; they hold no discrimination toward any dharma; they have fully understood that every buddha is entirely equal, and that a tathāgata, and I, and every being are equal, without any duality; they know that the self-nature of every dharma is pure; and being without deliberation and without any stirring, they are yet able to enter universally into every world, apart from all discriminations, abiding in the seal of the buddha-dharma, and able to awaken every being in the dharma-realm. How, then, could I know or speak of their meritorious practice?
如來及我一切眾生等無有二 — a tathāgata, and I, and every being are equal, without any duality. The three terms are set side by side with 及, and, and then levelled by 等無有二. He does not say that beings are potentially buddhas or that buddhas condescend to beings; he says the three are one list with no gaps in it, and he includes himself by name in the middle.
無有思慮，無有動轉，而能普入一切世間 — without deliberation and without any stirring, they are yet able to enter universally into every world. 而, yet, is doing the work. Stillness is not what prevents them from acting; it is the condition under which the action becomes universal.
Named in Prose, and Then in Verse
The direction is given twice — once in the pilgrimage's usual formula, and then again as a gāthā, which no teacher has done for several fascicles. The repetition marks who is being named.
「善男子！於此南方有山，名：補怛洛迦；彼有菩薩，名：觀自在。汝詣彼問：菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道？」
"Good son, to the south of here there is a mountain named Potalaka; and there is a bodhisattva there named Avalokiteśvara. You should go to him and ask: how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path?"
即說頌言：
「海上有山多聖賢，眾寶所成極清淨，
華果樹林皆遍滿，泉流池沼悉具足。
勇猛丈夫觀自在，為利眾生住此山；
汝應往問諸功德，彼當示汝大方便。」
And he then spoke a verse, saying:
Out on the sea there stands a mountain, full of sages and worthies, formed of a multitude of jewels, utterly pure; flowering and fruiting trees and groves fill it everywhere, and springs, streams, pools and meres are complete there in full. The valiant one, Avalokiteśvara, dwells upon this mountain for the benefit of beings; you should go and ask him about every merit, and he will show you the great skillful means.
時，善財童子頂禮其足，遶無量匝已，慇懃瞻仰，辭退而去。
At that time, Good-Wealth bowed his head at his feet, and when he had circled him measureless times, he gazed up at him with earnest devotion, took his leave, and departed.
觀自在 — this is Śikṣānanda's name for the bodhisattva that Kumārajīva's Lotus Sūtra calls 觀世音, the one who observes the sounds of the world. 觀自在 renders the other reading of the Sanskrit — the observer who is 自在, sovereign, at ease — and it is the form this translation's source text uses throughout. We render it as Avalokiteśvara, the name already used for this bodhisattva across this site, but the Chinese here is worth noticing: T279 does not call him the hearer of cries. It calls him the one whose looking is free.
補怛洛迦 — Potalaka. The name is pure transliteration in the Chinese, and it is the mountain that later Chinese Buddhism will identify with Mount Putuo off the Zhejiang coast. The verse's own first line, 海上有山, a mountain out on the sea, is the seed of that whole later geography.
勇猛丈夫觀自在 — the valiant one, Avalokiteśvara. 勇猛丈夫 is emphatically masculine and martial vocabulary — a brave man, a champion. It is worth recording plainly that the bodhisattva whom East Asian devotion would come to picture as a woman is introduced here, in this verse, as a warrior.
Part 1065 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1066 carries Good-Wealth up the mountain — eight powers of recollection gained on the way, the western ravine with its soft grasses curling to the right, and Avalokiteśvara seated on a vajra boulder teaching the dharma of great compassion.