Ten Ways the Dharma-Realm Cannot Be Broken
The gift of this dharma is a mind that cannot be shaken, able at last to tell a buddha's power from Māra's own. And out of that firmness comes a ten-part contemplation of the dharma-realm, ending on the one word this whole account keeps returning to: unbreakable.
Telling a Buddha's Power From Māra's
The ten qualities that made her a great teacher are now put to use. What they produce in a listener is a mind that no longer mistakes one power for another.
「佛子！我以此等法施眾生，令生白法，求一切智，其心堅固猶如金剛那羅延藏，善能觀察佛力、魔力，常得親近諸善知識，摧破一切業惑障山，集一切智助道之法，心恒不捨一切智地。
"Child of the Buddha, by such gifts of dharma as these I give to beings, causing them to give rise to white dharmas and to seek all-knowing wisdom. Their minds become firm as the treasury of vajra and Nārāyaṇa; they are able to observe clearly the power of a buddha and the power of Māra; they constantly draw near to every good spiritual friend; they shatter every mountain of the hindrance of deeds and afflictions; they gather the dharmas that aid the path to all-knowing wisdom; and their minds never abandon the ground of all-knowing wisdom.
善能觀察佛力、魔力 — they are able to observe clearly the power of a buddha and the power of Māra. Named plainly, side by side, as two things a firm mind can now tell apart. The sūtra does not say Māra's power is an illusion or that it vanishes before a strong enough mind; it says a firm mind can observe it clearly, which is a different claim. Māra's power is real enough to require actual discernment, not just resolve.
其心堅固猶如金剛那羅延藏 — their minds become firm as the treasury of vajra and Nārāyaṇa. The same pairing of vajra with the mythic strongman Nārāyaṇa has appeared earlier in this sūtra as a simile for an unshakeable mind, and once, in fascicle seventy, as the name of a buddha, 金剛那羅延幢. Whether attached to a state of mind or to a buddha's own name, the two words together are this sūtra's fixed idiom for a firmness that nothing can get underneath.
Ten Ways of Knowing the Dharma-Realm
Out of that firmness comes a set of ten contemplations, all beginning 我知法界, I know the dharma-realm, and each pairing a quality of the realm with a reason she knows it.
「善男子！我以如是淨法光明饒益一切眾生，集善根助道法時，作十種觀察法界。何者為十？所謂：我知法界無量，獲得廣大智光明故；我知法界無邊，見一切佛所知見故；我知法界無限，普入一切諸佛國土，恭敬供養諸如來故；我知法界無畔，普於一切法界海中，示現修行菩薩行故；我知法界無斷，入於如來不斷智故；
"Good son, when I benefit all beings with such pure light of dharma as this, gathering roots of goodness and the dharmas that aid the path, I make ten kinds of contemplation of the dharma-realm. What are these ten? Namely: I know the dharma-realm to be measureless, because I have obtained the light of vast wisdom; I know the dharma-realm to be boundless, because I see what every buddha sees and knows; I know the dharma-realm to be limitless, because I enter universally into every buddha-land and reverently make offerings to every tathāgata; I know the dharma-realm to be without border, because I display, throughout every ocean of the dharma-realm, the practice of the bodhisattva path; I know the dharma-realm to be uninterrupted, because I enter the tathāgata's own uninterrupted wisdom;
我知法界一性，如來一音，一切眾生無不了故；我知法界性淨，了如來願普度一切諸眾生故；我知法界遍眾生，普賢妙行悉周遍故；我知法界一莊嚴，普賢妙行善莊嚴故；我知法界不可壞，一切智善根充滿法界不可壞故。善男子！我作此十種觀察法界，集諸善根辦助道法，了知諸佛廣大威德，深入如來難思境界。
I know the dharma-realm to be of a single nature, because a tathāgata's single voice leaves not one being without understanding; I know the dharma-realm's nature to be pure, because I understand the tathāgata's vow to universally deliver all beings; I know the dharma-realm to pervade all beings, because Samantabhadra's wondrous practices pervade them entirely; I know the dharma-realm to be a single adornment, because Samantabhadra's wondrous practices adorn it so well; and I know the dharma-realm to be unbreakable, because the roots of goodness of all-knowing wisdom fill the dharma-realm unbreakably. Good son, by making these ten kinds of contemplation of the dharma-realm, gathering every root of goodness and completing the dharmas that aid the path, I came to understand fully the vast majestic virtue of every buddha, and entered deeply into the tathāgata's own domain, hard to conceive.
Ten qualities are named for the dharma-realm — measureless, boundless, limitless, without border, uninterrupted, of a single nature, pure in nature, pervading all beings, a single adornment, and unbreakable — and the first five all open with 無, without: without measure, without edge, without limit, without border, without interruption. The five negations describe a thing with no outer boundary at all. The five that follow are positive claims about what fills that unbounded space: one nature, one purity, one pervasion, one adornment, one unbreakability. The list moves from saying what the dharma-realm has no edge to, to saying what is nonetheless everywhere true of it.
我知法界不可壞，一切智善根充滿法界不可壞故 — I know the dharma-realm to be unbreakable, because the roots of goodness of all-knowing wisdom fill the dharma-realm unbreakably. The tenth and final item repeats its own key term, 不可壞, unbreakable, inside its own reason — the dharma-realm cannot be broken because it is filled, unbreakably, with roots of goodness. It is the same rhetorical closure this fascicle has used before when a chain of reasoning runs out of anywhere further to go: the explanation restates the thing explained, because there is nothing underneath it to appeal to instead.
Part 1135 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-one. Part 1136 has her attain ten dhāraṇī-wheels of great majestic virtue, each with ten thousand more as retinue, before she turns to what she actually says with them — a teaching sorted by mental faculty and by number, one thing and then all things at once.