Cutting, Beating, Cursing, Humiliation
The clouds keep coming, one perfection at a time. Patience is defined by four things that can be done to a body, diligence by eleven things worth doing, and meditation arrives only after shame and celibacy have been dealt with first.
The Third Cloud Teaches Patience
Four particulars, then a mind described as 泰然 — at ease. And then a turn most treatments of patience do not make, into what bodies actually look like.
又出等眾生數種種身雲，說能忍受一切眾苦，所謂：割截、捶楚、訶罵、欺辱，其心泰然，不動不亂；於一切行不卑不高，於諸眾生不起我慢，於諸法性安住忍受；說菩提心無有窮盡，心無盡故智亦無盡，普斷一切眾生煩惱；說諸眾生卑賤醜陋不具足身，令生厭離；讚諸如來清淨妙色無上之身，令生欣樂。如是方便，成熟眾生。
And she sent forth every kind of body-cloud, equal in number to beings, which taught the bearing of every suffering — that is to say, of being cut, beaten, cursed at, and humiliated — with the mind at ease, unmoved and unagitated; being neither low nor high toward any conduct, giving rise to no self-conceit toward any being, and abiding in forbearance toward the nature of dharmas. They taught that the mind of awakening has no exhaustion, and that because the mind is inexhaustible wisdom too is inexhaustible, severing universally the afflictions of every being. They spoke of beings' lowly, ugly and incomplete bodies, so as to give rise to weariness and detachment; and they praised the pure, wondrous color of the unsurpassed bodies of the tathāgatas, so as to give rise to gladness. By such skillful means she brought beings to ripeness.
割截、捶楚、訶罵、欺辱，其心泰然 — being cut, beaten, cursed at, and humiliated, with the mind at ease. The four run from the bodily to the social, and 泰然 is not a technical term of Buddhist psychology at all; it is ordinary Chinese for composure, the word one would use of a person who does not flinch. The sūtra does not claim the pain is absent.
心無盡故智亦無盡 — because the mind is inexhaustible, wisdom too is inexhaustible. A causal clause dropped into the middle of a passage on patience, and it is the reason patience is possible: what is being asked for has no end, so the resource drawn on must have none either.
說諸眾生卑賤醜陋不具足身，令生厭離；讚諸如來清淨妙色無上之身，令生欣樂 — they spoke of beings' lowly, ugly and incomplete bodies so as to give rise to detachment, and praised the pure, wondrous color of the tathāgatas' unsurpassed bodies so as to give rise to gladness. The pairing is blunt and it is placed deliberately: the cloud that has just taught bearing violence to the body ends by relocating desire from one kind of body to another, rather than extinguishing it.
The Fourth Cloud Teaches Diligence
Eleven clauses, each opening 勇猛精進 — valiant diligence. Two of them are about breaking mountains.
又出等眾生界種種身雲，隨諸眾生心之所樂，說勇猛精進，修一切智助道之法；勇猛精進，降伏魔怨；勇猛精進，發菩提心，不動不退；勇猛精進，度一切眾生，出生死海；勇猛精進，除滅一切惡道諸難；勇猛精進，壞無智山；勇猛精進，供養一切諸佛如來不生疲厭；勇猛精進，受持一切諸佛法輪；勇猛精進，壞散一切諸障礙山；勇猛精進，教化成熟一切眾生；勇猛精進，嚴淨一切諸佛國土。如是方便，成熟眾生。
And she sent forth every kind of body-cloud, equal to the realm of beings, which, in accordance with what beings delighted in, taught valiant diligence in cultivating the dharmas that aid the path of all-knowing wisdom; valiant diligence in subduing Māra the foe; valiant diligence in giving rise to the mind of awakening, unmoving and never retreating; valiant diligence in delivering every being out of the ocean of birth and death; valiant diligence in removing and extinguishing every hardship of the evil destinies; valiant diligence in breaking down the mountain of unknowing; valiant diligence in making offerings to every buddha and tathāgata without giving rise to weariness; valiant diligence in receiving and upholding the dharma-wheel of every buddha; valiant diligence in shattering and scattering every mountain of obstruction; valiant diligence in teaching and ripening every being; and valiant diligence in adorning and purifying every buddha-land. By such skillful means she brought beings to ripeness.
勇猛精進，壞無智山 … 壞散一切諸障礙山 — valiant diligence in breaking down the mountain of unknowing … in shattering and scattering every mountain of obstruction. Both metaphors appeared earlier in this stretch of the sūtra — the mountain of obstruction in Good-Wealth's own reflections in Part 1086, and mountains of self-view in Great God's confession in Part 1071. Diligence in this list is mostly demolition work.
勇猛精進，供養一切諸佛如來不生疲厭 — valiant diligence in making offerings to every buddha without giving rise to weariness. The item that reveals what 精進 means here: not intensity but the absence of 疲厭, fatigue and revulsion. Diligence is defined by what does not set in.
The Fifth Cloud, and What Comes Before Meditation
The cloud that teaches the meditative absorptions does not start there. It starts with shame, then celibacy, then a frank warning about what the realm of desire belongs to.
又出種種無量身雲，以種種方便，令諸眾生，心生歡喜，捨離惡意，厭一切欲；為說慚愧，令諸眾生藏護諸根；為說無上清淨梵行；為說欲界是魔境界，令生恐怖；為現不樂世間欲樂，住於法樂，隨其次第，入諸禪定諸三昧樂，令思惟觀察，除滅一切所有煩惱；又為演說一切菩薩諸三昧海神力變現自在遊戲，令諸眾生歡喜適悅，離諸憂怖，其心清淨，諸根猛利，愛重於法，修習增長。
And she sent forth every kind of measureless body-cloud which, by every kind of skillful means, caused beings' minds to give rise to delight, to abandon evil intent, and to grow weary of every desire. For them they taught shame and conscience, causing beings to keep and guard their faculties; for them they taught the unsurpassed and pure conduct of celibacy; for them they taught that the realm of desire is Māra's own domain, so as to give rise to dread; and for them they manifested taking no pleasure in the world's pleasures of desire but abiding in the joy of the dharma, entering in due order the joys of the meditative absorptions and the samādhis, causing them to contemplate and examine and to remove and extinguish every affliction they have. And they further expounded the oceans of samādhi of every bodhisattva, and their sovereign and playful manifesting of spiritual power, causing beings to be joyful and glad, to leave sorrow and dread behind, their minds pure, their faculties keen and sharp, cherishing the dharma, and cultivating it so that it increased.
為說慚愧，令諸眾生藏護諸根 — for them they taught shame and conscience, causing beings to keep and guard their faculties. 慚愧 is the pair of moral feelings — shame before oneself and before others — that the tradition treats as the precondition of restraint. The cloud teaches it before it teaches anything about sitting, and 藏護, keeping and guarding, is the concrete practice it produces.
為說欲界是魔境界，令生恐怖 — for them they taught that the realm of desire is Māra's own domain, so as to give rise to dread. The assertion is stark: the entire realm in which human life takes place is another power's territory. And the desired effect, 恐怖, dread, is the same effect Great God produced with rākṣasas in Part 1071 — fear used deliberately, as a method.
神力變現自在遊戲 — their sovereign and playful manifesting of spiritual power. The cloud ends on 遊戲, play, which the previous teacher also placed immediately after the dhyānas in Part 1084. In both cases the sequence is the same: restraint, then absorption, then play.
Part 1088 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-nine. Part 1089 gives the clouds that teach wisdom — a vajra of wisdom that breaks the mountain of views, a rising sun of wisdom that breaks the darkness of delusion — and then the clouds that teach neither dwelling in birth and death nor dwelling in nirvāṇa.