A Wheel That Cannot Be Measured in Kalpas
Ninety-seven bodies are traced back to five powers and a single unbroken chain from body to buddha, and then Good-Wealth's plain question about how long ago she began meets an answer that refuses the question's own terms before it even starts.
Five Powers Behind Every Body
Before naming how she does it, the passage first names why — beings meet these ninety-seven bodies in seven different ways, and every one of them is traced back to five sources at once.
「念念中，現如是等色相身充滿十方，令諸眾生或見、或念、或聞說法、或因親近、或得開悟、或見神通、或覩變化，悉隨心樂，應時調伏，捨不善業，住於善行。善男子！當知此由大願力故，一切智力故，菩薩解脫力故，大悲力故，大慈力故，作如是事。
"In thought after thought, I manifest bodies of forms such as these, filling the ten directions, causing beings — whether by seeing, by calling to mind, by hearing the dharma spoken, through drawing near, through gaining awakening, through seeing spiritual power, or through witnessing transformation — all to be tamed according to their own delight, at the right moment, so that they cast aside unwholesome deeds and abide in wholesome conduct. Good son, you should know that this is accomplished through the power of great vows, the power of all-knowing wisdom, the power of the bodhisattva's liberation, the power of great compassion, and the power of great loving-kindness.
或見、或念、或聞說法、或因親近、或得開悟、或見神通、或覩變化 — counted directly, seven distinct ways a being might meet these bodies: seeing, calling to mind, hearing the dharma, drawing near, gaining awakening, seeing spiritual power, witnessing transformation. Behind these seven stand exactly five named powers — vow, wisdom, liberation, compassion, loving-kindness. Neither number explains the other; the text simply states both counts side by side, seven ways in, five powers underneath.
One Body, Then an Ocean of Everything
A single sentence now builds a chain five links long, each link opening onto something measureless, until an ordinary body has produced an entire cosmos of buddhas.
「善男子！我入此解脫，了知法性無有差別，而能示現無量色身，一一身現無量色相海，一一相放無量光明雲，一一光現無量佛國土，一一土現無量佛興世，一一佛現無量神通力，開發眾生宿世善根，未種者令種，已種者令增長，已增長者令成熟；念念中，令無量眾生，於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提得不退轉。
"Good son, entering this liberation, I understand that the nature of dharmas has no distinction at all, and yet I am able to manifest measureless form-bodies; from each and every body there appears an ocean of measureless forms; from each and every form there is emitted a measureless cloud of light; from each and every light there appears measureless buddha-lands; within each and every land there appears the arising in the world of measureless buddhas; from each and every buddha there is manifested measureless spiritual power, opening and cultivating the wholesome roots of beings from former lives — for those who have not yet planted them, causing them to be planted; for those who have already planted them, causing them to increase; for those already increased, causing them to ripen. In thought after thought, I cause measureless beings to attain non-retrogression in anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.
一一身⋯⋯一一相⋯⋯一一光⋯⋯一一土⋯⋯一一佛 — checked directly, five links run in a row, each introduced by 一一, each and every: body, form, light, land, buddha. Every link is itself already measureless before the next one opens inside it, so the chain does not describe addition but multiplication five times over — and this entire cascade is offered as the plain mechanics behind a single earlier claim, 了知法性無有差別, understanding that the nature of dharmas has no distinction at all.
A Question Refused Its Own Terms
Good-Wealth asked a plain question about duration, and the answer opens by declaring that duration itself is not a category this teacher's wisdom can be measured in.
「善男子！如汝所問：『從幾時來，發菩提心，修菩薩行？』如是之義，承佛神力，當為汝說。「善男子！菩薩智輪遠離一切分別境界，不可以生死中長短、染淨、廣狹、多少，如是諸劫分別顯示。何以故？菩薩智輪本性清淨，離一切分別網，超一切障礙山，隨所應化而普照故。
"Good son, as for what you asked — 'From how long ago did you give rise to the mind of bodhi, and cultivate the bodhisattva practices?' — sustained by the Buddha's own spiritual power, I shall now expound this meaning for you. Good son, the bodhisattva's wheel of wisdom is far removed from every domain of discrimination; it cannot be shown forth in terms of the length or brevity, the defilement or purity, the breadth or narrowness, the manyness or fewness, of kalpas within birth-and-death. Why is this so? Because the bodhisattva's wheel of wisdom is pure in its own nature, free of every net of discrimination, surpassing every mountain of hindrance, and shines everywhere according to whoever should be transformed.
不可以生死中長短、染淨、廣狹、多少，如是諸劫分別顯示 — it cannot be shown forth in terms of the length or brevity, the defilement or purity, the breadth or narrowness, the manyness or fewness, of kalpas within birth-and-death. Good-Wealth asked a straightforward question of duration — how long ago. The answer names four separate axes along which kalpas could in principle be measured, and rules out every one of them before a single simile has been offered. What follows in the coming Parts is not, strictly, an answer to how long; it is an explanation of why the question's own unit of measure does not apply to what is being asked about.
Part 1167 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1168 opens the first of several similes the night-spirit uses to make this refusal concrete — beginning with the sun, which has no day and no night of its own, only a rising and a setting that beings name.