Like a Parent's Only Child

Good-Wealth said: "Noble one, everything you have just described — I wish to attain every one of it. Noble one, I wish that every being might extinguish every feverish affliction, be free of every evil deed, give rise to every kind of ease and happiness, and cultivate every pure practice. Noble one, when every being gives rise to affliction, commits every kind of evil deed, and falls into every evil destiny, suffering bitter torment in both body and mind, the bodhisattva, having seen this, gives rise to grief and distress within his own mind. Noble one, it is just as if there were a person who had only a single child, whose love for him was utterly complete, and who then suddenly saw him being cut and mutilated by another — that person's own heart would ache so sharply that he could find no peace. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise just the same: seeing beings fall, through the karma of their own affliction, into the three evil destinies and undergo every kind of suffering, his mind is filled with great grief and distress. But if he sees beings give rise to the three kinds of wholesome karma of body, speech, and mind, and be born among the destinies of gods and humans, receiving happiness in both body and mind, then the bodhisattva, at that very time, gives rise to great joy. "Why is this? The bodhisattva does not seek all-knowing wisdom for his own sake; he does not covet the pleasures of desire within birth-and-death; he is not turned about by the power of inverted perception, inverted view, inverted mind, the fetters, the latent tendencies, or craving and views; he does not give rise to the various notions of pleasure that beings hold; nor does he savour and cling to the bliss of the dhyānas; and he does not abide within birth-and-death out of any obstruction, weariness, or retreat. He simply sees that beings, throughout every state of existence, fully undergo measureless and manifold sufferings, and so he gives rise to a mind of great compassion, and through the power of his great vow, universally gathers them all in. Through the power of that compassionate vow, he cultivates the bodhisattva's practices: to sever every being's affliction, to seek the tathāgata's own wisdom of all-knowing wisdom, to make offerings to every buddha and tathāgata, to adorn and purify every vast and expansive land, and to purify every being's own desires and every one of their bodily and mental actions — and within birth-and-death, he is never once wearied.