A Vajra of Wisdom and a Rising Sun
The cloud that teaches wisdom does not explain it. It breaks a mountain with a diamond and burns off a darkness with a sunrise. Then a cloud that refuses both of the two places anyone might want to end up — and then eleven things revealed in a single thought.
The Sixth Cloud Teaches Wisdom
It begins with travel and offerings, moves through examining and revealing, and ends with two tools — one that shatters and one that rises.
又出等眾生界種種身雲，為說往詣十方國土，供養諸佛及以師長、真善知識，受持一切諸佛法輪精勤不懈；又為演說、稱讚一切諸如來海，觀察一切諸法門海，顯示一切諸法性相，開闡一切諸三昧門，開智慧境界，竭一切眾生疑海；示智慧金剛，壞一切眾生見山；昇智慧日輪，破一切眾生癡闇。皆令歡喜，成一切智。
And she sent forth every kind of body-cloud, equal to the realm of beings, which taught going to the lands of the ten directions and making offerings to the buddhas and to teachers and true good spiritual friends, receiving and upholding the dharma-wheel of every buddha with diligence and without slackening. And they further expounded and extolled the ocean of every tathāgata, examined the ocean of every dharma-gate, revealed the nature and marks of all dharmas, threw open every samādhi-gate, opened the domain of wisdom, and drained dry the ocean of every being's doubt. They displayed the vajra of wisdom and broke the mountain of every being's views; they raised up the sun-disc of wisdom and broke the delusion-darkness of every being. Causing them all to rejoice, they brought them to accomplish all-knowing wisdom.
示智慧金剛，壞一切眾生見山；昇智慧日輪，破一切眾生癡闇 — they displayed the vajra of wisdom and broke the mountain of every being's views; they raised up the sun-disc of wisdom and broke the delusion-darkness of every being. Two instruments for two different obstacles, and the verbs are exact: 壞, to break by force, for a mountain; 破, also to break but here used of darkness dispelled, for 癡闇. A view is solid and must be struck; delusion is an absence of light and must simply be outshone.
竭一切眾生疑海 — they drained dry the ocean of every being's doubt. 竭, to exhaust or dry up, is the verb used elsewhere in this translation of a garuḍa drying the sea to reach the nāgas, and of a fierce fire evaporating the water of craving in Part 1071. Doubt is treated as a body of water with a bottom.
Neither Birth and Death Nor Nirvāṇa
The seventh cloud sorts its listeners by what they would settle for — worldly power, escape from the three realms, the śrāvaka's ground — and takes each one further.
又出等眾生界種種身雲，普詣一切眾生之前，隨其所應，以種種言辭而為說法；或說世間神通福力；或說三界皆是可怖，令其不作世間業行，離三界處，出見稠林；或為稱讚一切智道，令其超越二乘之地；或為演說不住生死、不住涅槃，令其不著有為、無為；或為演說住於天宮乃至道場，令其欣樂發菩提意。如是方便，教化眾生，皆令究竟得一切智。
And she sent forth every kind of body-cloud, equal to the realm of beings, which went universally before every being and, in accordance with what was fitting, taught the dharma in every kind of speech. Sometimes they spoke of the world's own spiritual powers and powers of merit. Sometimes they spoke of how the three realms are all to be dreaded, causing beings not to perform the world's karmic deeds, to leave the place of the three realms, and to get out of the thicket of views. Sometimes they extolled the path of all-knowing wisdom, causing them to pass beyond the ground of the two vehicles. Sometimes they expounded not dwelling in birth and death and not dwelling in nirvāṇa, causing them not to cling to the conditioned or to the unconditioned. And sometimes they expounded abiding in the heavenly palaces and on up to the place of awakening, causing them to be glad and to give rise to the intention of awakening. By such skillful means they taught and transformed beings, causing them all at last to attain all-knowing wisdom.
或為演說不住生死、不住涅槃，令其不著有為、無為 — sometimes they expounded not dwelling in birth and death and not dwelling in nirvāṇa, causing them not to cling to the conditioned or to the unconditioned. This is the Mahāyāna position in its most compact form, and the cloud reaches it by a deliberate ascent: worldly power first, then dread of the three realms, then the two vehicles surpassed, and only then this. The listener is moved off each resting place in turn, including the last one.
或說三界皆是可怖 … 出見稠林 — sometimes they spoke of how the three realms are all to be dreaded … and get out of the thicket of views. The same two devices this fascicle has used repeatedly — 可怖, dread, as a method, and 見稠林, the thicket of views, as the terrain. Vāsantī's vow in Part 1076 asked that beings 伐見稠林, cut the thicket down; here they are simply led out of it.
Eleven Things in a Single Thought
The eighth cloud abandons subject matter altogether. Every clause opens with the same two characters, and what they measure is not what is taught but how fast.
又出一切世界微塵數身雲，普詣一切眾生之前，念念中，示普賢菩薩一切行願；念念中，示清淨大願充滿法界；念念中，示嚴淨一切世界海；念念中，示供養一切如來海；念念中，示入一切法門海；念念中，示入一切世界海、微塵數世界海；念念中，示於一切剎盡未來劫清淨修行一切智道；念念中，示入如來力；念念中，示入一切三世方便海；念念中，示往一切剎現種種神通變化；念念中，示諸菩薩一切行願，令一切眾生住一切智。如是所作，恒無休息。
And she sent forth body-clouds as numerous as the motes of dust in every world, which went universally before every being and, in thought after thought, revealed all of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva's practices and vows; in thought after thought, revealed the pure great vow filling the dharma-realm; in thought after thought, revealed the adorning and purifying of every ocean of worlds; in thought after thought, revealed the ocean of making offerings to every tathāgata; in thought after thought, revealed entering the ocean of every dharma-gate; in thought after thought, revealed entering every ocean of worlds and ocean of dust-mote-numbered worlds; in thought after thought, revealed the pure cultivation of the path of all-knowing wisdom in every buddha-land to the end of all future eons; in thought after thought, revealed entering the tathāgata's power; in thought after thought, revealed entering the ocean of every skillful means of the three times; in thought after thought, revealed going to every buddha-land and manifesting every kind of spiritual transformation; and in thought after thought, revealed all the bodhisattvas' practices and vows, causing every being to abide in all-knowing wisdom. This work she did ceaselessly, without rest.
念念中 — in thought after thought. Repeated eleven times, at the head of every clause, and the repetition is the content. The earlier clouds were distinguished by their subjects — giving, precepts, patience, diligence, meditation, wisdom, skillful means. This one is distinguished by its tempo: everything the previous seven taught, arriving within a single moment of thought, over and over.
如是所作，恒無休息 — this work she did ceaselessly, without rest. The clause that closes the whole sequence of clouds, and it is worth setting beside the fourth cloud's definition of diligence in Part 1088 — 不生疲厭, without weariness setting in. She is described not as tireless but as not stopping, which is a different and more ordinary claim.
Part 1089 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-nine. Part 1090 gives the last of the body-clouds, teaching the powers by which a bodhisattva gathers the aids to all-knowing wisdom — a strength without boundary, unbreakable, inexhaustible, and never turning back.