Twenty-One Minds, Raised at Once
Asked how she can possibly know what she has just claimed, the night-spirit answers by reciting it herself — beings caught by four kinds of affliction, one long vow followed by thirteen shorter ones, and then, thought after thought, ten things a bodhisattva does at the very same time.
How She Knows: Vairocana's Own Past
She answers her own rhetorical question at once: entering this very liberation lets her see, with total clarity, the whole history that stands behind it.
云何知然？善男子！我入此出生廣大喜光明解脫，憶念毘盧遮那如來、應、正等覺往昔所修菩薩行海，悉皆明見。「善男子！世尊往昔為菩薩時，見一切眾生，著我、我所，住無明闇室，入諸見稠林，為貪愛所縛、忿怒所壞、愚癡所亂、慳嫉所纏，生死輪迴，貧窮困苦，不得值遇諸佛菩薩。見如是已，起大悲心利益眾生。
"How do I know this is so? Good son, entering this liberation of Bringing Forth Vast Joy and Light, I call to mind Vairocana, the tathāgata, the worthy one, the perfectly and fully awakened one, and see with total clarity the whole ocean of bodhisattva practice he cultivated in ages past. Good son, when the World-Honored One, in ages past, was a bodhisattva, he saw that every being, clinging to a self and to what belongs to a self, dwelt in the dark house of ignorance and had entered the dense thicket of views — bound by craving and desire, ruined by wrath, confused by delusion, and entangled by miserliness and envy, revolving through birth-and-death, impoverished and in distress, unable to encounter any buddha or bodhisattva. Seeing this, he gave rise to a mind of great compassion to bring benefit to beings.
為貪愛所縛、忿怒所壞、愚癡所亂、慳嫉所纏 — bound by craving and desire, ruined by wrath, confused by delusion, and entangled by miserliness and envy. Every one of these four already appeared in Part 1145's list of eleven remedies: 慳吝 there becomes 慳嫉 here, 瞋恚 becomes 忿怒, and 愚癡 stands in both. The teacher's own present-day work — matching afflictions to cures among ordinary travelers she guards after dark — turns out to be the same four afflictions Vairocana himself once saw in every being, at the very start of the vow this whole liberation-gate was named for.
Twenty-One Minds, Raised at Once
Great compassion does not stay a feeling; it becomes a list, and the list runs to twenty-one items before it stops.
所謂：起願得一切妙寶資具攝眾生心；願一切眾生，皆悉具足資生之物無所乏心，於一切眾事離執著心，於一切境界無貪染心，於一切所有無慳吝心，於一切果報無希望心，於一切榮好無羨慕心，於一切因緣無迷惑心；起觀察真實法性心；起救護一切眾生心；起深入一切法漩澓心；起於一切眾生住平等大慈心；起於一切眾生行方便大悲心；起為大法蓋普覆眾生心；起以大智金剛杵破一切眾生煩惱障山心；起令一切眾生增長喜樂心；起願一切眾生究竟安樂心；起隨眾生所欲雨一切財寶心；起以平等方便成熟一切眾生心；起令一切眾生滿足聖財心；起願一切眾生究竟皆得十力智果心。
Namely: he gave rise to the mind that vowed to gain every wondrous jewel and every resource with which to gather in beings — wishing that every being be entirely provided with the necessities of life and lack nothing, that they be free of attachment toward every affair, free of greedy defilement toward every domain, free of miserliness toward everything they possess, free of hope for reward, free of envy toward every glory and success, and free of confusion regarding every cause and condition. He gave rise to the mind that contemplates the true nature of dharmas; the mind that rescues and protects every being; the mind that enters deeply into the whirlpool of every dharma; the mind that abides in equal great loving-kindness toward every being; the mind that practises skilful great compassion toward every being; the mind that becomes a great dharma-canopy universally covering all beings; the mind that, with the vajra club of great wisdom, breaks the mountain of every being's afflictive hindrance; the mind that causes every being to increase in joy; the mind that vows every being's ultimate peace and happiness; the mind that, according to what beings desire, rains down every kind of treasure; the mind that, by equal and skilful means, brings every being to ripeness; the mind that causes every being to be satisfied with the wealth of the noble ones; and the mind that vows every being will ultimately attain the fruit of the ten powers and of wisdom.
起願得一切妙寶資具攝眾生心⋯⋯起願一切眾生究竟皆得十力智果心 — counted directly against the source, the clauses ending in 心, mind, number twenty-one, not the rounder number the passage's own rhythm might suggest. Only the first two open with a verb of their own, 起 and 願; the six that follow it ride on that same 願 without repeating it, each stating a further thing wished for every being before the sentence closes. Every one of the remaining thirteen clauses opens with its own 起. What looks at first like twenty-one equally weighted vows is closer to one long vow, elaborated in six parts, followed by thirteen shorter ones.
The Power That Followed
Compassion stated as a list of wishes becomes, in the very next line, an act — a rain of goods over every being, given without any expectation of return.
「起如是心已，得菩薩力，現大神變；遍法界、虛空界，於一切眾生前，普雨一切資生之物，隨其所欲悉滿其意皆令歡喜，不悔不吝，無間無斷。以是方便，普攝眾生，教化成熟，皆令得出生死苦難，不求其報；淨治一切眾生心寶，令其生起一切諸佛同一善根，增一切智福德大海。
"Having given rise to minds such as these, he attained bodhisattva power and manifested great spiritual transformations; throughout the dharma-realm and the realm of space, before every being, he rained down universally every necessity of life, satisfying each one's own wish entirely and bringing joy to all, without regret and without stinting, unceasing and unbroken. By this skilful means he universally gathered in beings, taught and transformed them to ripeness, and caused every one of them to escape the suffering of birth-and-death, seeking nothing in return; he purified the mind-treasure of every being, causing them to give rise to the one and same wholesome root shared with every buddha, and increasing the great ocean of merit that is all-knowing wisdom.
不求其報 — seeking nothing in return. Part 1145 opened with a flat claim: every pleasure any being feels traces back to the Tathāgata's own power, teaching, protection, and pure nature — ten reasons, no exceptions. This passage is the mechanism behind that claim, not just its restatement: the giving that makes it true is explicitly unconditional, without regret, without stinting, without a single break, and without seeking anything back. A gift with strings attached could not have supported a claim that broad; only a gift with none could.
Ten Thoughts at Once
The mechanism just described is then restated a third way — no longer as vow, and no longer as act, but as ten things done simultaneously, in every single thought.
「菩薩如是念念成熟一切眾生，念念嚴淨一切佛剎，念念普入一切法界，念念悉皆遍虛空界，念念普入一切三世，念念成就調伏一切諸眾生智，念念恒轉一切法輪，念念恒以一切智道利益眾生，念念普於一切世界種種差別諸眾生前盡未來劫現一切佛成等正覺，念念普於一切世界、一切諸劫修菩薩行不生二想。
"In this way the bodhisattva, in thought after thought, brings every being to ripeness; in thought after thought, purifies and adorns every buddha-land; in thought after thought, universally enters every dharma-realm; in thought after thought, pervades entirely the realm of space; in thought after thought, universally enters all three times; in thought after thought, accomplishes the wisdom that tames and subdues every being; in thought after thought, forever turns the wheel of the dharma; in thought after thought, forever benefits beings by the path of all-knowing wisdom; in thought after thought, before beings of every kind of difference throughout every world, manifests, to the very end of future kalpas, every buddha's attainment of true and perfect awakening; and in thought after thought, throughout every world and every kalpa, cultivates the bodhisattva practices without ever giving rise to a thought of duality.
念念 — in thought after thought — opens exactly ten clauses in this passage, counted directly against the source. Part 1120's night-spirit named her own liberation-gate after this same phrase, 念念出生廣大喜莊嚴解脫門; here, eighteen fascicles-worth of parts later, another teacher's foundational story shows what the phrase actually does when unpacked into ten simultaneous activities rather than left folded into a single compound name. The list's last clause, 不生二想, without ever giving rise to a thought of duality, applies backward across the whole set: ripening beings, purifying lands, entering every era, and turning the dharma-wheel are, in this telling, not ten separate acts taking turns but one undivided moment described ten times over.
Part 1146 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-two. Part 1147 carries the story further, into Vairocana's own steady labour amid beings who did not merely lack merit but had fallen into wrong views and the deep pit of birth-and-death, and the long list of what he did to draw them out.