Colours With No Real Nature
The night-spirit finally answers Good-Wealth's question — a liberation-gate named, a claim that blue, yellow, red, and white have no real nature at all, and then, precisely because of this, a catalogue of measureless bodies that begins here at forty-eight and does not stop.
A Gate Named for What It Does
The name of the gate is almost a plain job description, and the insight behind it undercuts the very colours the coming list is about to catalogue in such abundance.
夜神告言：「善男子！此解脫門，名：教化眾生令生善根。我以成就此解脫故，悟一切法自性平等，入於諸法真實之性，證無依法，捨離世間，悉知諸法色相差別，亦能了達青、黃、赤、白，性皆不實，無有差別，而恒示現無量色身。所謂：
The night-spirit said: "Good son, this liberation-gate is named Teaching and Transforming Beings So They Give Rise to Wholesome Roots. Because I have accomplished this liberation, I have awakened to the equality of the own-nature of every dharma, entered into the true nature of every dharma, realised the dharma that relies on nothing, and left the world behind; I fully know the distinctions among the forms and marks of every dharma, and I am also able to fully understand that blue, yellow, red, and white are none of them real in nature, without any real distinction at all — and yet I constantly manifest measureless form-bodies. Namely:
性皆不實，無有差別，而恒示現無量色身 — none of them real in nature, without any real distinction at all — and yet I constantly manifest measureless form-bodies. The 而, and yet, carries the whole sentence's weight. Knowing that blue is no more real than yellow does not lead this teacher to stop manifesting colour; it is stated as the very condition under which the manifesting continues without end. The list that follows is not built despite the unreality of form — it is built on it.
Twenty-Four Bodies, From Every Kind of Form to a Gaze Never Wearied
The catalogue opens broad — every form, every being, no single shape — before narrowing toward bodies defined by their effect on whoever beholds them.
種種色身、非一色身、無邊色身、清淨色身、一切莊嚴色身、普見色身、等一切眾生色身、普現一切眾生前色身、光明普照色身、見無厭足色身、相好清淨色身、離眾惡光明色身、示現大勇猛色身、甚難得色身、一切世間無能映蔽色身、一切世間共稱歎無盡色身、念念常觀察色身、示現種種雲色身、種種形顯色色身、現無量自在力色身、妙光明色身、一切淨妙莊嚴色身、隨順成熟一切眾生色身、隨其心樂現前調伏色身、
A body of every kind of form; a body not of any single form; a body without bounds; a pure body; a body adorned in every way; a body seen universally; a body equal to every being; a body appearing universally before every being; a body whose light universally shines; a body of which the sight is never wearied; a body pure in every mark and feature; a body of light free from every evil; a body manifesting great courage; a body exceedingly rare to obtain; a body no world can eclipse; a body every world praises without end; a body constantly contemplated in thought after thought; a body manifesting every kind of cloud; a body of every kind of shape and visible colour; a body manifesting measureless sovereign power; a body of wondrous light; a body of every pure and wondrous adornment; a body according with and ripening every being; a body appearing according to their delight, taming them on the spot;
普見色身⋯⋯見無厭足色身 — a body seen universally⋯⋯a body of which the sight is never wearied. Twenty-four items in, the list has moved from what a body looks like to what looking at it does to the viewer — never eclipsed, never exhausted by praise, never tiring to behold. The night-spirit's bodies are being catalogued less as objects with fixed properties than as encounters, defined by their effect on whoever happens to be watching.
Twenty-Four More — Unbreakable, Unoverpowered, Never Dark
The list continues into bodies defined by what cannot touch them — no darkness, no turbidity, nothing able to break or overpower what they are.
無障礙普光明色身、清淨無濁穢色身、具足莊嚴不可壞色身、不思議法方便光明色身、無能奪奪一切色身、無諸闇破一切闇色身、集一切白淨法色身、大勢力功德海色身、從過去恭敬因所生色身、如虛空清淨心所生色身、最勝廣大色身、無斷無盡色身、光明海色身、於一切世間無所依平等色身、遍十方無所礙色身、念念現種種色相海色身、增長一切眾生歡喜心色身、攝取一切眾生海色身、一一毛孔中說一切佛功德海色身、淨一切眾生欲解海色身、決了一切法義色身、無障礙普照耀色身、等虛空淨光明色身、放廣大淨光明色身、
A body of unobstructed universal light; a body pure and free of turbidity; a body complete in adornment, unbreakable; a body of inconceivable dharma and skilful light; a body that nothing is able to overpower at all; a body free of all darkness, breaking every darkness; a body gathering every white and pure dharma; a body of the ocean of merit of great power; a body born from the causes of reverence in ages past; a body born from a mind pure as empty space; a body supreme and vast; a body unceasing and inexhaustible; a body of an ocean of light; a body equal and relying on nothing throughout every world; a body pervading the ten directions without hindrance; a body manifesting, in thought after thought, an ocean of every kind of form; a body increasing the joy of every being; a body gathering in the ocean of every being; a body from every single pore of which the ocean of every buddha's merit is proclaimed; a body purifying the ocean of every being's own desires and understanding; a body resolving the meaning of every dharma; a body of unobstructed universal radiance; a body of pure light equal to empty space; a body emitting vast and pure light;
無能奪奪一切色身 — checked directly against the CBETA source, this item repeats the character 奪, seize or overpower, twice in a row, where every other item in the list uses ordinary unrepeated phrasing. CBETA's own critical apparatus flags this exact spot with an editorial note, marking it as a place where witnesses to the text differ. Rather than silently smoothing the doubled character into a single one, this translation keeps it and renders the sense plainly: a body that nothing is able to overpower, at all.
Part 1165 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1166 carries this same catalogue of bodies through its remaining items, before the night-spirit turns from what she manifests to what these bodies do — reaching every being, everywhere, in thought after thought.