If They Speak My Name
Avalokiteśvara's answer is the passage East Asia has recited for fifteen hundred years — eighteen named fears, and then a vow attached to nothing more demanding than remembering him, saying his name, or catching sight of him.
The Gate of Great Compassion
The question is put in the standard words, and the answer arrives with the standard praise — and then a liberation named for a practice rather than for a boundary, a treasury, or a light.
爾時，善財童子頂禮觀自在菩薩足，遶無數匝，合掌而住，白言：「聖者！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，而未知菩薩云何學菩薩行？云何修菩薩道？我聞聖者善能教誨，願為我說！」
At that time, Good-Wealth bowed his head at Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva's feet, circled him countless times, and stood with his palms joined, saying: "Noble one, I have already given rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, but I do not yet know how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva practices, or how a bodhisattva cultivates the bodhisattva path. I have heard that the noble one is skillfully able to teach and instruct — please, explain it to me!"
菩薩告言：「善哉善哉！善男子！汝已能發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。「善男子！我已成就菩薩大悲行解脫門。善男子！我以此菩薩大悲行門，平等教化一切眾生相續不斷。
The bodhisattva said to him: "Excellent, excellent! Good son, you have already been able to give rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Good son, I have accomplished the bodhisattva liberation-gate of the practice of great compassion. Good son, by means of this bodhisattva gate of the practice of great compassion, I teach and transform every being equally, continuously and without a break.
大悲行解脫門 — the liberation-gate of the practice of great compassion. Of the twenty-eight liberations named so far in this pilgrimage, this is among the plainest: no jewels, no light, no boundary. The operative word is 行, practice — something done rather than something entered.
Eleven Ways of Gathering Beings In
He works through the four means of attraction and then keeps going, ending on the least spectacular option available to him — looking like the people he is helping, and living with them.
「善男子！我住此大悲行門，常在一切諸如來所，普現一切眾生之前。或以布施，攝取眾生；或以愛語，或以利行，或以同事，攝取眾生；或現色身，攝取眾生；或現種種不思議色淨光明網，攝取眾生；或以音聲，或以威儀，或為說法，或現神變，令其心悟而得成熟；或為化現同類之形，與其共居而成熟之。
"Good son, abiding in this gate of the practice of great compassion, I am constantly in the presence of every tathāgata and manifest universally before every being. Sometimes it is by giving that I gather beings in; sometimes by kind speech, sometimes by beneficial conduct, sometimes by working alongside them, that I gather beings in; sometimes I manifest a form-body to gather beings in; sometimes I manifest every kind of inconceivably colored net of pure light to gather beings in; sometimes it is by sound, sometimes by my bearing, sometimes by teaching the dharma, sometimes by manifesting spiritual transformations, that I cause their minds to awaken and so to ripen; and sometimes I manifest myself transformed into a shape of their own kind, and dwell together with them, and so ripen them.
或為化現同類之形，與其共居而成熟之 — sometimes I manifest myself transformed into a shape of their own kind, and dwell together with them, and so ripen them. The list opens on 布施, giving, and closes on cohabitation. 共居 is domestic vocabulary — living under the same roof. The bodhisattva who has just been described shining brighter than sun, moon and lightning ends his own catalogue with moving in.
Eighteen Fears
The eighteen are not abstractions. Among them are poverty, not making a living, a ruined reputation, being moved off one's land, crowds, and the dark.
「善男子！我修行此大悲行門，願常救護一切眾生；願一切眾生，離險道怖，離熱惱怖，離迷惑怖，離繫縛怖，離殺害怖，離貧窮怖，離不活怖，離惡名怖，離於死怖，離大眾怖，離惡趣怖，離黑闇怖，離遷移怖，離愛別怖，離怨會怖，離逼迫身怖，離逼迫心怖，離憂悲怖。
"Good son, when I cultivate this gate of the practice of great compassion, I vow to protect and rescue every being always. I vow that every being may be free of the fear of the perilous road, free of the fear of feverish affliction, free of the fear of confusion, free of the fear of bondage, free of the fear of being killed, free of the fear of poverty, free of the fear of not surviving, free of the fear of a bad name, free of the fear of death, free of the fear of crowds, free of the fear of the evil destinies, free of the fear of darkness, free of the fear of being displaced, free of the fear of parting from what is loved, free of the fear of meeting with what is resented, free of the fear of bodily oppression, free of the fear of mental oppression, and free of the fear of sorrow and grief.
離不活怖 … 離惡名怖 … 離遷移怖 — free of the fear of not surviving, of a bad name, of being displaced. 不活 is the fear of not being able to make a living; 惡名 is reputational ruin; 遷移 is being moved or uprooted. These sit in the same list as the fear of death and the fear of the evil destinies, and the sūtra makes no distinction of rank between them.
離愛別怖，離怨會怖 — free of the fear of parting from what is loved, free of the fear of meeting with what is resented. This is the classic pair 愛別離 and 怨憎會 from the list of eight sufferings, here reframed as fears rather than as pains. The earlier translation of this same episode, in Buddhabhadra's sixty-fascicle version already rendered on this site, also gives eighteen items but a partly different set of them — litigation and folly there, darkness and displacement here. The tradition of the eighteen fears removed grows out of exactly this passage.
Three Conditions, and Nothing Else
Then the vow that made him the most invoked bodhisattva in East Asia. It asks for no practice, no precept, and no understanding.
復作是願：『願諸眾生，若念於我，若稱我名，若見我身，皆得免離一切怖畏。』善男子！我以此方便，令諸眾生離怖畏已，復教令發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心永不退轉。
And I make this vow as well: 'I vow that beings, if they call me to mind, if they speak my name, if they see my body, may all of them be freed and delivered from every fear and dread.' Good son, by this skillful means, once I have freed beings from fear and dread, I further teach them to give rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi and never to turn back from it.
若念於我，若稱我名，若見我身 — if they call me to mind, if they speak my name, if they see my body. Three conditions, each one a single act, and each 若 leaving the others unnecessary. This is the doctrinal root of the recitation of his name, and it is worth noticing where the sūtra puts it: not at the end of his teaching as a concession to the weak, but inside his central vow, immediately after the eighteen fears.
復教令發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心永不退轉 — I further teach them to give rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi and never to turn back. The relief of fear is not the end of it. 復, further, marks the second movement: fear is removed first because a frightened being cannot begin, and only then is the aspiration taught.
Nine Constancies He Does Not Claim
His confession runs on nine clauses each beginning 常, constantly — and the last of them is about ending something rather than doing it.
「善男子！我唯得此菩薩大悲行門。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，已淨普賢一切願，已住普賢一切行，常行一切諸善法，常入一切諸三昧，常住一切無邊劫，常知一切三世法，常詣一切無邊剎，常息一切眾生惡，常長一切眾生善，常絕眾生生死流；而我云何能知能說彼功德行？」
"Good son, I have attained only this bodhisattva gate of the practice of great compassion. But the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas have already purified every one of Samantabhadra's vows and already abide in every one of Samantabhadra's practices; they constantly practice every good dharma, constantly enter every samādhi, constantly abide throughout every boundless eon, constantly know every dharma of the three times, constantly go to every boundless buddha-land, constantly put an end to every being's evil, constantly grow every being's goodness, and constantly cut off beings' stream of birth and death. How, then, could I know or speak of their meritorious practice?"
Part 1067 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1068 brings a bodhisattva from the east — Right Course, who lands on the rim-mountain of this world, sets his foot down, shakes the whole Sahā world six ways, and outshines every light in it before coming to where Avalokiteśvara sits.