An Illusory Person Has No Breath, No Hunger, No Death
Three similes close out the night-spirit's answer on time — a boatman who commits to neither shore nor the current between them, empty space that hosts every world's birth and death without being touched by either, and a conjured person missing ten things any living body simply has.
A Boatman Who Rests on Neither Shore
The third simile leaves the sky for a river, and finds in the ferryman's own refusal to settle anywhere a shape for a practice that never once stops to measure how long it has gone on.
「佛子！譬如船師，常以大船，於河流中不依此岸、不著彼岸、不住中流，而度眾生無有休息。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以波羅蜜船，於生死流中不依此岸、不著彼岸、不住中流，而度眾生無有休息；雖無量劫修菩薩行，未曾分別劫數長短。
"Child of the Buddha, it is like a boatman who, always with his great boat, in the flow of a river, relies on neither this shore nor clings to that shore, nor stays fixed in the middle of the current, and ferries beings across without ever resting. The great bodhisattva is just the same: with the boat of the pāramitās, in the stream of birth-and-death, he relies on neither this shore nor clings to that shore, nor stays fixed in the middle of the current, and ferries beings across without ever resting; though he practises the bodhisattva path for measureless kalpas, he has never once made any distinction between a kalpa long or short.
不依此岸、不著彼岸、不住中流 — relies on neither this shore, nor clings to that shore, nor stays fixed in the middle of the current. The formula refuses three positions, not two — not simply avoiding one shore for the other, but refusing the middle current as well, the very place a boat that had merely rejected both banks might otherwise be presumed to drift. There is no fourth place left to occupy; the boatman's only remaining option is to keep moving, which is exactly what the simile says he does.
Empty Space, Untouched by Every World's Rise and Fall
The fourth simile widens from a river to the whole of space, hosting the birth and death of every world without once being marked by either.
「佛子！如大虛空，一切世界於中成壞而無分別，本性清淨，無染無亂，無礙無厭，非長非短，盡未來劫持一切剎。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以等虛空界廣大深心，起大願風輪，攝諸眾生，令離惡道，生諸善趣，悉令安住一切智地，滅諸煩惱生死苦縛，而無憂喜、疲厭之心。
"Child of the Buddha, it is like great empty space, within which every world forms and dissolves, and yet space itself makes no distinction of this; its own nature is pure, unstained and undisturbed, unobstructed and untiring, neither long nor short, and it upholds every land to the very end of future kalpas. The great bodhisattva is just the same: with a mind as vast and profound as the realm of space itself, he raises the wheel of the wind of great vows, gathers in every being, causes them to leave the evil destinies and be born into the wholesome ones, and causes all of them to abide securely in the ground of all-knowing wisdom, extinguishing the bonds of affliction and the suffering of birth-and-death — and yet his mind holds no sorrow, no joy, no weariness at all.
如大虛空 — like great empty space. This image has run through this fascicle since Part 1149's own hymn, 了達法性如虛空, fully realising that the nature of dharmas is like empty space, and again in Part 1155's closing line naming that a bodhisattva knows every dharma's nature this way. Here the same comparison is put to a new use — not describing what is known, but explaining why measureless kalpas of active, demanding work leave no mark of weariness at all.
An Illusory Person Has No Breath, No Hunger, No Death
The final simile turns from the cosmic to the intimate — a conjured figure, complete in every limb, and yet missing exactly ten things that make an ordinary body an ordinary body.
「善男子！如幻化人，肢體雖具，而無入息及以出息、寒、熱、飢、渴、憂、喜、生、死十種之事。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以如幻智平等法身現眾色相，於諸有趣住無量劫教化眾生，於生死中一切境界，無欣無厭，無愛無恚，無苦無樂，無取無捨，無安無怖。
"Good son, it is like an illusory conjured person: though complete in every limb and member, it has none of these ten things — breathing in, breathing out, cold, heat, hunger, thirst, sorrow, joy, birth, and death. The great bodhisattva is just the same: with the illusion-like wisdom of the equal dharma-body, he manifests every kind of form, and abides for measureless kalpas within every destiny of existence, teaching and transforming beings; and toward every state within birth-and-death, he holds no delight and no aversion, no love and no anger, no suffering and no pleasure, no grasping and no relinquishing, no ease and no fear.
入息及以出息、寒、熱、飢、渴、憂、喜、生、死 — counted directly, ten things the illusory person lacks. The description that follows names exactly ten states the bodhisattva does not feel toward birth-and-death, given as five paired opposites — delight and aversion, love and anger, suffering and pleasure, grasping and relinquishing, ease and fear. Ten absences in the simile, ten absences in what it illustrates: the count on both sides of the comparison matches, though the second ten is built from pairs and the first from a plain list.
Part 1169 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-three. Part 1170 turns from simile to story — an ancient kalpa named Wholesome Light, a world named Jewel Light, and ten thousand buddhas who once appeared there, the first of whom Good-Wealth is about to hear of in full.