The Constellations on Her Body
He walks in through the east gate and the sun sets on cue. Then the teacher appears overhead, wearing the night itself — and every pore of her is a scene of somebody being pulled out of danger.
Four Eyes a Teacher Gives You
He waits at the gate for dark, and while waiting he thinks — four clauses, each beginning 由善知識, through a good spiritual friend, and three of the four are eyes.
漸次遊行，至於彼城，從東門入，佇立未久，便見日沒。心念隨順諸菩薩教，渴仰欲見彼主夜神，於善知識生如來想，復作是念：「由善知識得周遍眼，普能明見十方境界；由善知識得廣大解，普能了達一切所緣；由善知識得三昧眼，普能觀察一切法門；由善知識得智慧眼，普能明照十方剎海。」
Journeying onward by stages, he arrived at that city and entered by its eastern gate; and he had stood there only a short while when he saw the sun go down. In his mind he was following the teaching of the bodhisattvas, thirsting and longing to see that night-spirit, and toward a good spiritual friend he gave rise to the thought of a tathāgata; and this further thought arose in him: "Through a good spiritual friend one gains the all-encompassing eye, universally able to see clearly the domains of the ten directions. Through a good spiritual friend one gains vast understanding, universally able to comprehend every object of thought. Through a good spiritual friend one gains the eye of samādhi, universally able to observe every dharma-gate. Through a good spiritual friend one gains the eye of wisdom, universally able to illuminate the oceans of buddha-lands in the ten directions."
從東門入，佇立未久，便見日沒 — he entered by its eastern gate, and had stood there only a short while when he saw the sun go down. The detail is practical: the teacher he has come for is a spirit of the night, so the errand cannot begin until dark. The sūtra has him arrive, find the right gate, and wait — one of very few places in this pilgrimage where Good-Wealth simply stands still because the hour is wrong.
於善知識生如來想 — toward a good spiritual friend he gave rise to the thought of a tathāgata. This closes the loop opened at Potalaka in Part 1066, where he thought ten times over that a good spiritual friend simply is a tathāgata. What was a list of definitions there has become, here, a practice he performs while waiting.
Gold, Vermilion, and the Night Sky
She is in the air, on a seat inside a tower, and the description moves from gold skin to indigo hair to a red robe and a crown — and then to the stars.
作是念時，見彼夜神於虛空中，處寶樓閣香蓮華藏師子之座，身真金色，目髮紺青，形貌端嚴，見者歡喜，眾寶瓔珞以為嚴飾，身服朱衣，首戴梵冠，一切星宿炳然在體。
As this thought arose, he saw that night-spirit in the sky, upon a lion seat of the fragrant lotus treasury within a jewelled tower. Her body was the color of true gold, her eyes and hair indigo-blue, her form and features upright and dignified, and whoever saw her rejoiced. A multitude of jewelled necklaces served as her adornment; her body was clothed in a vermilion robe and her head bore a Brahmā-crown; and all the constellations blazed across her body.
一切星宿炳然在體 — all the constellations blazed across her body. Not around her and not behind her: 在體, on the body. The spirit who presides over the night wears the night's own markings, in the same way the earth-spirit of the previous teacher held the ground's buried contents. Each of these two teachers is what they preside over.
身真金色，目髮紺青 — her body the color of true gold, her eyes and hair indigo-blue. The same two clauses, in the same order, opened the description of Vasumitrā in Part 1062. The sūtra reuses its formula for a courtesan and for a goddess of the night without alteration.
Every Pore a Rescue
The pores are not ornamental. Each one shows a scene, and the scene is always the same act — someone being got out of somewhere dangerous — followed by where they ended up instead.
於其身上一一毛孔，皆現化度無量無數惡道眾生，令其免離險難之像；是諸眾生，或生人中，或生天上，或有趣向二乘菩提，或有修行一切智道。
In every single pore upon her body there appeared the image of her teaching and delivering measureless, countless beings of the evil destinies, causing them to escape and be free of peril and hardship; and of those beings some were born among humans, some born in the heavens, some proceeding toward the awakening of the two vehicles, and some cultivating the path of all-knowing wisdom.
又彼一一諸毛孔中，示現種種教化方便，或為現身，或為說法，或為示現聲聞乘道，或為示現獨覺乘道，或為示現諸菩薩行、菩薩勇猛、菩薩三昧、菩薩自在、菩薩住處、菩薩觀察、菩薩師子頻申、菩薩解脫遊戲，如是種種成熟眾生。
And within every single one of those pores she manifested every kind of skillful means for teaching and transforming — sometimes manifesting a body for them, sometimes teaching the dharma for them, sometimes revealing to them the path of the śrāvaka vehicle, sometimes revealing to them the path of the pratyekabuddha vehicle, sometimes revealing the bodhisattva practices, the bodhisattvas' valor, the bodhisattvas' samādhi, the bodhisattvas' sovereignty, the bodhisattvas' dwelling place, the bodhisattvas' observation, the bodhisattvas' lion-stretch, and the bodhisattvas' play of liberation — by every such means bringing beings to ripeness.
菩薩師子頻申 — the bodhisattvas' lion-stretch. 師子頻申 is exactly the name of the twenty-fifth teacher, the bhikṣuṇī of the previous fascicle, and here the same phrase appears as a technical item in a list of what bodhisattvas do — between 菩薩觀察, their observation, and 菩薩解脫遊戲, their play of liberation. The bhikṣuṇī's name was never merely a personal one; it names a bodhisattva's capacity, and this passage is where the sūtra lets that show.
令其免離險難之像 — the image of causing them to escape and be free of peril and hardship. 險難, peril and hardship, is the same word that names the country Vasumitrā lived in, two teachers ago. Here it is what the night-spirit's whole body is busy undoing, and in the passage that follows she will list the specific perils by name.
Show Me the Road
His request is unusually direct. He does not ask how a bodhisattva learns; he asks to be shown the road and says where he intends to get to.
善財童子見聞此已，心大歡喜，以身投地，禮夜神足，遶無數匝，於前合掌而作是言：「聖者！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，我心冀望依善知識獲諸如來功德法藏。唯願示我一切智道，我行於中，至十力地！」
Having seen and heard this, Good-Wealth's mind was greatly delighted; he threw his body to the ground, bowed at the night-spirit's feet, circled her countless times, and joining his palms before her said this: "Noble one, I have already given rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, and my mind hopes, in reliance on good spiritual friends, to obtain the treasury of every tathāgata's meritorious dharma. I only pray that you will show me the path of all-knowing wisdom, so that walking upon it I may reach the ground of the ten powers!"
唯願示我一切智道，我行於中，至十力地 — I only pray that you will show me the path of all-knowing wisdom, so that walking upon it I may reach the ground of the ten powers. For thirty-one teachers the request has been a fixed formula about learning and cultivating. Here, at the thirty-second, Good-Wealth changes it: he names the road, says he will walk it, and names the destination. The ten powers are a buddha's own; he is asking to be shown the way to buddhahood in as many words.
Part 1074 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1075 gives Vāsantī's liberation — breaking the darkness of delusion in every being — and the nine kinds of mind she directs at nine kinds of being, before she describes the work she does in the dead of night for travellers lost at sea and on land.