Vairocana in Every Mote of Dust
The verse works down the faculties one by one — nose, tongue, body, mind — and twice, at the point where the claim would become boastful, adds four characters that take it back. Then it ends on the sūtra's own founding image.
Nose, Tongue, Body, Mind
Each faculty gets a stanza, and each stanza is a claim of purity — until the mind, where the claim is immediately qualified.
我鼻甚清淨，於法無所礙，
一切皆自在，汝應入此門。
我舌甚廣大，淨好能言說，
隨應演妙法，汝應入此門。
我身甚清淨，三世等如如，
隨諸眾生心，一切悉皆現。
我心淨無礙，如空含萬像，
普念諸如來，而亦不分別。
了知無量剎，一切諸心海，
諸根及欲樂，而亦不分別。
My nose is utterly pure, and toward the dharma there is nothing that obstructs it; in everything it is sovereign; you should enter this gate.
My tongue is vast and broad, pure and fine and able to speak; it expounds the wondrous dharma as is fitting; you should enter this gate.
My body is utterly pure, the same as suchness throughout the three times; in accord with the minds of beings it manifests entirely, in every case.
My mind is pure and unobstructed, containing the myriad images as space does; it holds every tathāgata universally in mind, and yet makes no discrimination.
It fully knows measureless buddha-lands, the whole ocean of minds, their faculties and their desires and delights, and yet makes no discrimination.
普念諸如來，而亦不分別 — it holds every tathāgata universally in mind, and yet makes no discrimination. 而亦不分別 closes both the mind stanza and the one after it, and it is the verse's self-correction: everything claimed for her faculties would become a catalogue of achievements without it. She knows every buddha-land and every being's desires, and does not sort them.
我身甚清淨，三世等如如 — my body is utterly pure, the same as suchness throughout the three times. 如如, suchness, is the flattest possible predicate, and it is applied to a body the reader has just been told is covered in constellations. The verse puts the two descriptions of her body — the starry one in Part 1074 and this one — without any attempt to reconcile them.
And Then a Dust-Mote
Powers, merit, wisdom, and knowledge of the three times — and then the verse narrows abruptly to a single speck, and finds everything inside it.
我以大神通，震動無量剎，
其身悉遍往，調彼難調眾。
我福甚廣大，如空無有盡，
供養諸如來，饒益一切眾。
我智廣清淨，了知諸法海，
除滅眾生惑，汝應入此門。
我知三世佛，及以一切法，
亦了彼方便，此門遍無等。
一一塵中見，三世一切剎，
亦見彼諸佛，此是普門力。
十方剎塵內，悉見盧舍那，
菩提樹下坐，成道演妙法。」
With great spiritual power I shake measureless buddha-lands; my body goes everywhere throughout them, taming those multitudes that are hard to tame.
My merit is vast and broad, inexhaustible as space; it makes offerings to the tathāgatas and brings benefit to all the multitudes.
My wisdom is vast and pure, fully knowing the ocean of dharmas and extinguishing the confusion of beings; you should enter this gate.
I know the buddhas of the three times, and every dharma as well, and I fully understand their skillful means; this gate reaches everywhere and has no equal.
Within every single mote of dust I see every buddha-land of the three times, and see the buddhas in them too; this is the power of the universal gate.
Within the dust-motes of the buddha-lands of the ten directions I see Vairocana everywhere, seated beneath the tree of awakening, accomplishing the way and expounding the wondrous dharma.
一一塵中見，三世一切剎 … 十方剎塵內，悉見盧舍那，菩提樹下坐 — within every single mote of dust I see every buddha-land of the three times … within the dust-motes of the buddha-lands of the ten directions I see Vairocana everywhere, seated beneath the tree of awakening. The verse ends where the whole sūtra began: Vairocana under the tree at the awakening site, at the moment of awakening. Two parts ago Good-Wealth was standing on that very ground, being shown his own buried merit. Here a night-spirit in another city says she sees that same scene inside every particle of matter in the ten directions.
此是普門力 — this is the power of the universal gate. 普門, the universal gate, is the term Kumārajīva's Lotus Sūtra attaches to Avalokiteśvara, and this translation has met it repeatedly in the names of liberations along this pilgrimage. Here it is offered as the explanation of how a speck of dust can contain the three times.
How Long Ago Did You Begin?
Good-Wealth asks the question he has asked before, and the answer opens onto an entire lost world — a king, his capital, a grove to the east, and a tree with a name longer than most sentences in this fascicle.
爾時，善財童子白夜神言：「汝發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心為幾時耶？得此解脫其已久如，乃能如是饒益眾生？」
At that time, Good-Wealth said to the night-spirit: "How long has it been since you gave rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi? And how long ago did you attain this liberation, that you are able to benefit beings in this way?"
其神答言：「善男子！乃往古世，過如須彌山微塵數劫，有劫名：寂靜光，世界名：出生妙寶，有五億佛於中出現。
The spirit answered: "Good son, in an age long past, beyond eons as numerous as the motes of dust in Mount Sumeru, there was an eon named Tranquil Light and a world named Producing Wondrous Jewels, in which five million buddhas appeared.
彼世界中有四天下，名：寶月燈光，有城，名：蓮華光，王名：善法度，以法施化，成就七寶，王四天下。
In that world there were four continents named Jewel-Moon Lamp-Light; and there was a city named Lotus Light; and a king named Good Dharma Deliverance, who taught and transformed by means of the dharma, accomplished the seven treasures, and ruled the four continents.
王有夫人，名：法慧月，夜久眠寐。時，彼城東有一大林，名為：寂住，林中有一大菩提樹，名：一切光摩尼王莊嚴身出生一切佛神力光明。
The king had a consort named Dharma-Wisdom Moon, who was deep asleep late at night. At that time, to the east of that city there was a great grove named Tranquil Dwelling, and in that grove there was a great tree of awakening named All-Light Maṇi-King Adorning the Body and Producing the Light of Every Buddha's Spiritual Power.
王有夫人，名：法慧月，夜久眠寐 — the king had a consort named Dharma-Wisdom Moon, who was deep asleep late at night. The account begins with a woman asleep. In a passage spoken by a spirit of the night, whose liberation breaks the darkness of delusion, the first fact recorded about her own past is that she was unconscious in the dark — and what happens next in the story is that someone comes to wake her.
名：一切光摩尼王莊嚴身出生一切佛神力光明 — named All-Light Maṇi-King Adorning the Body and Producing the Light of Every Buddha's Spiritual Power. Seventeen characters for a tree. The Avataṃsaka gives its most extravagant names to things that are about to matter, and this tree is where the buddha of that world is about to attain awakening.
Part 1079 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1080 tells what happened under that tree — the Tathāgata All-Dharma Thunder-Voice King attaining awakening, and a night-spirit named Pure Moon who came to the sleeping queen's chamber and shook her necklaces until she woke.