A Liberation That Grows Thought After Thought
The whole chain turns on one instant — 我纔見佛, the moment I saw that buddha. What follows is the only passage in this fascicle that shows a liberation actually enlarging, step by counted step, and the step is a single thought.
The Moment She Saw Him
A samādhi first, then memory, then hearing, then the liberation — four links, and the sūtra marks each with a causal word.
「我纔見佛，即得三昧，名：出生見佛調伏眾生三世智光明輪。獲此三昧故，能憶念須彌山微塵數劫，亦見其中諸佛出現，於彼佛所聽聞妙法；以聞法故，即得此破一切眾生暗法光明解脫。
"The moment I saw that buddha, I attained a samādhi named the Wheel of the Light of Wisdom of the Three Times That Produces the Seeing of Buddhas and the Taming of Beings. Because I had obtained this samādhi, I was able to recall eons as numerous as the motes of dust in Mount Sumeru, and to see the buddhas who appeared within them, and at those buddhas' places to hear the wondrous dharma; and because I heard the dharma, I then attained this liberation of the light of the dharma that breaks the darkness in every being.
得此解脫已，即見其身遍往佛剎微塵數世界，亦見彼世界所有諸佛，又見自身在其佛所；亦見彼世界一切眾生，解其言音，識其根性，知其往昔曾為善友之所攝受，隨其所樂而為現身，令生歡喜。
Having attained this liberation, I then saw my own body go everywhere throughout worlds as numerous as the fine motes of dust in a buddha-land, and saw all the buddhas of those worlds, and saw my own body in the presence of those buddhas; and I saw every being of those worlds, understood their speech and sounds, recognized the nature of their faculties, knew that in the past they had been taken up by good friends, and manifested a body in accordance with what each delighted in, causing delight to arise in them.
我纔見佛，即得三昧 — the moment I saw that buddha, I attained a samādhi. 纔 is the adverb of barely-and-already: no sooner had she seen than she had it. And the chain the sūtra then lays out is strictly causal — 獲此三昧故, because I obtained this samādhi; 以聞法故, because I heard the dharma — so that the liberation she now teaches Good-Wealth is traced back, link by link, to a girl being walked to a grove by a spirit who woke her.
知其往昔曾為善友之所攝受 — I knew that in the past they had been taken up by good friends. Of everything she can see in those worlds, this is the item she lists last and it is the one that matters to her own story. She recognizes in every being the thing that happened to her: someone got to them first.
One, Then a Hundred, Then a Thousand
The sūtra rarely shows growth; it usually shows completion. Here it counts the increase, and repeats the same four characters at every step.
「我時於彼所得解脫，念念增長，此心無間；又見自身遍往百佛剎微塵數世界，此心無間；又見自身遍往千佛剎微塵數世界，此心無間；又見自身遍往百千佛剎微塵數世界。如是，念念乃至不可說不可說佛剎微塵數世界，亦見彼世界中一切如來；
"At that time the liberation I had attained there grew thought after thought, and this mind was without interruption; and I saw my own body go everywhere throughout worlds as numerous as the fine motes of dust in a hundred buddha-lands, and this mind was without interruption; and I saw my own body go everywhere throughout worlds as numerous as the fine motes of dust in a thousand buddha-lands, and this mind was without interruption; and I saw my own body go everywhere throughout worlds as numerous as the fine motes of dust in a hundred thousand buddha-lands. In this way, thought after thought, on up to worlds as numerous as the fine motes of dust in unspeakably unspeakable buddha-lands; and I saw every tathāgata in those worlds as well;
亦自見身在彼佛所，聽聞妙法，受持憶念，觀察決了；亦知彼佛諸本事海、諸大願海，彼諸如來嚴淨佛剎，我亦嚴淨；亦見彼世界一切眾生，隨其所應而為現身教化調伏。此解脫門，念念增長，如是乃至充滿法界。
and I saw my own body in the presence of those buddhas, hearing the wondrous dharma, upholding it and holding it in memory, examining it and resolving it; and I knew those buddhas' oceans of past deeds and oceans of great vows, and as those tathāgatas adorned and purified their buddha-lands, so I adorned and purified mine; and I saw every being of those worlds, and manifested a body for them in accordance with what was fitting, teaching, transforming and taming them. This liberation-gate grew thought after thought, in this way, on up to filling the whole dharma-realm.
念念增長，此心無間 — it grew thought after thought, and this mind was without interruption. 此心無間 is repeated after each stage, and it is the load-bearing phrase: the expansion is not a series of separate attainments but one unbroken movement of mind. 無間, without interruption, is elsewhere in this translation the technical term for a continuity nothing can get between.
彼諸如來嚴淨佛剎，我亦嚴淨 — as those tathāgatas adorned and purified their buddha-lands, so I adorned and purified mine. Set within a list of what she perceives, this clause quietly stops being perception. She does not merely see the buddhas' work; she matches it. It is the one sentence in her whole account that puts her on the same side of the activity as a buddha.
如是乃至充滿法界 — in this way, on up to filling the whole dharma-realm. The sequence that began with a single world ends without a number. The sūtra's arithmetic in this fascicle has usually started at the unspeakable; here it walks up to it from one, which is the only way a reader could follow.
Part 1081 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1082 closes the fascicle with Vāsantī's confession, the naming of a thirty-third teacher — a night-spirit at the awakening site who first set her on the path — and Good-Wealth's own farewell verse, in which a thousand buddha-land dust-mote eons would not exhaust the merit of a single one of her pores.