What She Does in the Dark
Her liberation is light, and her work is night duty. Nine kinds of mind for nine kinds of being — and then the hour when no one can see anything, and the shapes she takes for whoever is out in it.
Nine Minds for Nine Kinds of Being
The praise is brief, the liberation's name is one line, and then a table: for each kind of being, the exact state of mind she holds toward them.
時，彼夜神告善財言：「善哉善哉！善男子！汝能深心敬善知識，樂聞其語，修行其教；以修行故，決定當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。
At that time that night-spirit said to Good-Wealth: "Excellent, excellent! Good son, you are able to revere good spiritual friends with a deep mind, to delight in hearing their words, and to cultivate their teaching; and because you cultivate it, you will certainly attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.
「善男子！我得菩薩破一切眾生癡暗法光明解脫。
"Good son, I have attained the bodhisattva liberation of the light of the dharma that breaks the darkness of delusion in every being.
善男子！我於惡慧眾生，起大慈心；於不善業眾生，起大悲心；於作善業眾生，起於喜心；於善惡二行眾生，起不二心；於雜染眾生，起令生清淨心；於邪道眾生，起令生正行心；於劣解眾生，起令興大解心；於樂生死眾生，起令捨輪轉心；於住二乘道眾生，起令住一切智心。
Good son, toward beings of evil intelligence I give rise to a mind of great loving-kindness; toward beings of unwholesome karma I give rise to a mind of great compassion; toward beings who do wholesome karma I give rise to a mind of joy; toward beings whose conduct is both good and evil I give rise to a mind of non-duality; toward defiled beings I give rise to a mind of causing them to become pure; toward beings on wrong paths I give rise to a mind of causing them to take up right conduct; toward beings of inferior understanding I give rise to a mind of causing them to rouse up great understanding; toward beings who delight in birth and death I give rise to a mind of causing them to abandon the turning wheel; toward beings abiding on the path of the two vehicles I give rise to a mind of causing them to abide in all-knowing wisdom.
善男子！我以得此解脫故，常與如是心共相應。
Good son, because I have attained this liberation, I am constantly in accord with minds such as these.
於惡慧眾生，起大慈心；於不善業眾生，起大悲心；於作善業眾生，起於喜心 — loving-kindness for beings of evil intelligence, compassion for beings of unwholesome karma, joy for beings who do good. The first three are the first three of the four immeasurables, distributed by the state of the recipient rather than practiced in sequence. The fourth position, where equanimity would fall, is filled instead by 不二心, a mind of non-duality, and it is given to 善惡二行眾生, beings whose conduct is both good and evil at once — precisely the case in which sorting them would be impossible.
常與如是心共相應 — I am constantly in accord with minds such as these. 相應 is the technical term for mental factors arising together with a moment of consciousness. She is not describing attitudes she adopts as needed; she is describing what her mind is continuously made of.
The Hour When Nothing Can Be Seen
The sūtra sets the scene with unusual care — the time, the weather, the company on the roads — before naming who is out there and what has gone wrong for them.
「善男子！我於夜闇人靜，鬼、神、盜賊、諸惡眾生所遊行時，密雲重霧、惡風暴雨、日月星宿並皆昏蔽不見色時，見諸眾生，若入於海，若行於陸，山林、曠野、諸險難處，或遭盜賊，或乏資糧，或迷惑方隅，或忘失道路，慞惶憂怖不能自出；我時即以種種方便而救濟之。
"Good son, in the dark of night when people are still, at the hour when ghosts, spirits, robbers and every evil being go roaming; when dense cloud and heavy fog, foul wind and violent rain have darkened and hidden the sun, the moon and the constellations alike so that no form can be seen — I see beings who, whether they have put out to sea or are travelling on land, in mountain forests, in open wilderness, or in any perilous and difficult place, have either met with robbers, or run short of provisions, or grown confused about which quarter is which, or lost the road altogether, panicked and sorrowing and afraid and unable to get themselves out; and at that moment I rescue and deliver them by every kind of skillful means.
日月星宿並皆昏蔽不見色時 — when the sun, the moon and the constellations alike have been darkened and hidden so that no form can be seen. In the previous part all the constellations blazed across her body. Here they are blotted out of the sky, and she is what is left. The teacher whose ornament is the night sky works at the hour the night sky has gone out.
或迷惑方隅，或忘失道路 — or grown confused about which quarter is which, or lost the road altogether. Of the four misfortunes she lists — robbers, hunger, disorientation, lost road — two are simply not knowing where you are. The word she used for her own liberation is 癡暗, the darkness of delusion; here that darkness has an entirely literal form.
Seven Shapes at Sea, and Light on Land
At sea she becomes something that can swim, carry, or command the water. On land she becomes light — or, failing that, a building or a crowd.
「為海難者，示作船師、魚王、馬王、龜王、象王、阿脩羅王及以海神；為彼眾生，止惡風雨，息大波浪，引其道路，示其洲岸，令免怖畏，悉得安隱。復作是念：『以此善根，迴施眾生，願令捨離一切諸苦。』
"For those in peril at sea I appear as a ship's navigator, a fish king, a horse king, a turtle king, an elephant king, an asura king, or a sea god; and for those beings I stop the foul winds and rain, still the great waves, guide them along their route, and show them the isle and the shore, so that they escape their fear and dread and all reach safety. And I further think this: 'By this root of goodness, dedicated over to beings, may they be caused to leave behind every suffering.'
「為在陸地一切眾生於夜暗中遭恐怖者，現作日月及諸星宿、晨霞、夕電種種光明，或作屋宅，或為人眾，令其得免恐怖之厄。復作是念：『以此善根，迴施眾生，悉令除滅諸煩惱暗。』
"For all those beings on dry land who meet with terror in the darkness of night, I appear as the sun and moon and the constellations, as morning glow and evening lightning, as every kind of light; or else I become a house, or become a crowd of people, so that they escape the calamity of their terror. And I further think this: 'By this root of goodness, dedicated over to beings, may every darkness of affliction in them be extinguished.'
示作船師、魚王、馬王、龜王、象王、阿脩羅王及以海神 — I appear as a ship's navigator, a fish king, a horse king, a turtle king, an elephant king, an asura king, or a sea god. The first of these is exactly the trade of the twenty-third teacher, the navigator Vaira of Part 1046, and the list then descends through animals large enough to be ridden or held onto. Nothing here is a vision; each form is a thing a drowning person could physically use.
或作屋宅，或為人眾 — or else I become a house, or become a crowd of people. After the sun, the moon, the constellations, the dawn and the lightning, the last two options are a roof and company. The sūtra puts them in the same list as the celestial bodies without any change of register, and they are the two that answer the fear rather than the darkness.
Part 1075 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1076 carries her account further — the fears of those who cling to life, reputation, wealth, rank, or the people they love; the good spirits, birds and glowing herbs she becomes for travellers stranded in the mountains; and the vow that beings cut down the thicket of views and walk out of the wilderness of birth and death.