A Thirty-Third Teacher, and Fascicle Sixty-Eight Complete
Vāsantī sends Good-Wealth to the spirit who first woke her — back at the awakening site again. And for only the second time in this pilgrimage, Good-Wealth answers a teacher in verse of his own, which closes the fascicle.
Four Wisdoms, and Four Things She Cannot Do
Her confession runs on the sun, the moon, valor and a voice — and then, unusually, she says she cannot do four things rather than the usual one.
「善男子！我唯知此菩薩破一切眾生暗法光明解脫。如諸菩薩摩訶薩，成就普賢無邊行願，普入一切諸法界海，得諸菩薩金剛智幢自在三昧，出生大願，住持佛種；於念念中，成滿一切大功德海，嚴淨一切廣大世界；以自在智，教化成熟一切眾生；以智慧日，滅除一切世間暗障；以勇猛智，覺悟一切眾生惛睡；以智慧月，決了一切眾生疑惑；以清淨音，斷除一切諸有執著；於一切法界一一塵中，示現一切自在神力，智眼明淨，等見三世。而我何能知其妙行、說其功德、入其境界、示其自在？
"Good son, I know only this bodhisattva liberation of the light of the dharma that breaks the darkness in every being. But the bodhisattva-mahāsattvas have accomplished Samantabhadra's boundless practices and vows; they enter universally into every ocean of the dharma-realms; they have attained the bodhisattvas' sovereign samādhi of the vajra banner of wisdom; they bring forth great vows and uphold the buddha-lineage. In thought after thought they fulfill every ocean of great merit and adorn and purify every vast world. With sovereign wisdom they teach and ripen every being; with the sun of wisdom they extinguish every darkening obstruction in the world; with valiant wisdom they awaken every being from their torpid sleep; with the moon of wisdom they resolve the doubts of every being; with a pure voice they cut off every attachment to existence; and within every single mote of dust in the whole dharma-realm they manifest every sovereign spiritual power, their eye of wisdom bright and clear, seeing the three times equally. How, then, could I know their wondrous practice, or speak of their merit, or enter their domain, or reveal their sovereignty?
以智慧日，滅除一切世間暗障 … 以智慧月，決了一切眾生疑惑 — with the sun of wisdom they extinguish every darkening obstruction in the world … with the moon of wisdom they resolve the doubts of every being. A spirit of the night attributes to bodhisattvas both a sun and a moon, and gives them different jobs: the sun burns off obstruction, the moon settles doubt. Between them stands 以勇猛智，覺悟一切眾生惛睡, with valiant wisdom they awaken every being from their torpid sleep — which is precisely what was done to her, twice, in Part 1080.
而我何能知其妙行、說其功德、入其境界、示其自在？ — how could I know their wondrous practice, or speak of their merit, or enter their domain, or reveal their sovereignty? The standard confession in this pilgrimage asks two things, knowing and speaking. Hers asks four, adding entering and revealing, which are the two that would make her a teacher of it rather than a reporter.
The One Who Woke Her First
The next teacher is not new to the reader. She has been in this sūtra since its opening assembly, and she is waiting at the same awakening site Good-Wealth visited nine parts ago.
「善男子！此閻浮提摩竭提國菩提場內，有主夜神，名：普德淨光。我本從其發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，常以妙法開悟於我。汝詣彼問：菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道。」
"Good son, here in Jambudvīpa, within the awakening site in the country of Magadha, there is a night-spirit named Universal Virtue's Pure Light. It was from her, at the beginning, that I gave rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, and she has constantly awakened me by means of the wondrous dharma. You should go to her and ask: how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path."
有主夜神，名：普德淨光 — there is a night-spirit named Universal Virtue's Pure Light. This name appears in the sūtra's very first fascicle, in the roll-call of the assembly gathered at the awakening site, where this translation rendered it as the Night-Lord of Universal Virtue's Pure Light — and in the seventh part she is recorded there as having attained a liberation-gate of her own. She has been sitting in the audience of this sūtra since its opening, and Good-Wealth is now being sent to her.
我本從其發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心 — it was from her, at the beginning, that I gave rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. 本, at the root or at the beginning, sends the chain back one further link. Vāsantī's own teacher was the one who came into a palace bedroom and rattled a necklace — and Good-Wealth is about to meet her.
Good-Wealth's Own Verse
He praises her in ten stanzas, four of them built on a single pore, and the last of them makes a claim about arithmetic that the whole sūtra could be said to rest on.
Good-Wealth has spoken verse to a teacher only once before, at Part 1030, and there it ran to four lines. Here it runs to ten stanzas.
爾時，善財童子向婆珊婆演底神而說頌曰：
At that time, Good-Wealth spoke a verse to the spirit Vāsantī, saying:
「見汝清淨身，相好超世間，
如文殊師利，亦如寶山王。
汝法身清淨，三世悉平等，
世界悉入中，成壞無所礙。
我觀一切趣，悉見汝形像，
一一毛孔中，星月各分布。
汝心極廣大，如空遍十方，
諸佛悉入中，清淨無分別。
一一毛孔內，悉放無數光，
十方諸佛所，普雨莊嚴具。
一一毛孔內，各現無數身，
十方諸國土，方便度眾生。
一一毛孔內，示現無量剎，
隨諸眾生欲，種種令清淨。
若有諸眾生，聞名及見身，
悉獲功德利，成就菩提道。
多劫在惡趣，始得見聞汝，
亦應歡喜受，以滅煩惱故。
千剎微塵劫，歎汝一毛德，
劫數猶可窮，功德終無盡。」
Seeing your pure body, its marks and signs surpassing the world, you are like Mañjuśrī, and like the king of jewel mountains.
Your dharma-body is pure, the three times all equal within it; the worlds all enter into it, and their forming and breaking obstructs nothing.
I observe every destiny of existence and see your form in all of them; within each single pore the stars and the moon are each laid out.
Your mind is utterly vast, pervading the ten directions as space does; all the buddhas enter into it, pure and without discrimination.
Within each single pore countless lights are released; to all the buddhas of the ten directions they rain down adornments universally.
Within each single pore countless bodies appear; throughout the lands of the ten directions they deliver beings by skillful means.
Within each single pore measureless buddha-lands are revealed; in accord with the wishes of beings, in every kind of way they are made pure.
If there are any beings who hear your name or see your body, they all obtain the benefit of merit and accomplish the path of awakening.
Though one has been in the evil destinies for many eons, on first coming to see and hear of you one should still receive it with joy — because it extinguishes affliction.
Through eons as many as the motes of dust in a thousand buddha-lands, were one to praise the merit of a single one of your pores, the number of eons could still be exhausted, but the merit would never come to an end.
時，善財童子說此頌已，頂禮其足，遶無量匝，慇懃瞻仰，辭退而去。
When Good-Wealth had spoken this verse, he bowed his head at her feet, circled her measureless times, gazed up at her with earnest devotion, took his leave, and departed.
一一毛孔中，星月各分布 — within each single pore the stars and the moon are each laid out. He has been looking at her since Part 1074, where the constellations blazed across her body; here he reports that they are inside each pore, individually, and he spends four consecutive stanzas on pores — lights, bodies, buddha-lands. The Huayan figure of the small holding the large is not stated as doctrine anywhere in his verse; it is simply what he observes.
多劫在惡趣，始得見聞汝，亦應歡喜受，以滅煩惱故 — though one has been in the evil destinies for many eons, on first coming to see and hear of you one should still receive it with joy, because it extinguishes affliction. The stanza is addressed to someone whose whole history has gone badly and who has only just now arrived. It does not ask them to regret anything.
劫數猶可窮，功德終無盡 — the number of eons could still be exhausted, but the merit would never come to an end. The closing line of the fascicle sets a finite quantity against an infinite one, and it is worth noticing which side is which: the eons, however many, are countable; a single pore's worth of merit is not. It is the same asymmetry the fascicle opened with, when a whole city could not imagine why a composed youth would knock on a certain door.
Part 1082 Complete — Fascicle Sixty-Eight Complete
This closes chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-eight. Part 1083 opens fascicle sixty-nine, 入法界品第三十九之十, with Good-Wealth's return to the awakening site in Magadha and the night-spirit Universal Virtue's Pure Light — the thirty-third teacher of this pilgrimage, and the one who set his own teacher on the path.