Markless, Yet Every Mark
Good-Wealth finally speaks to Gopā directly, and his question is not one question but eleven — each one naming a truth a bodhisattva has already realized, paired against the opposite-seeming thing he still, somehow, goes on doing.
Markless, Yet Every Mark
Good-Wealth's question to Gopā unfolds as eleven paired paradoxes in a row, each one asking how a single truth and its apparent opposite can both be true of the same bodhisattva at once.
爾時，善財童子詣彼釋女瞿波之所，頂禮其足，合掌而住，作如是言：「聖者！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，而未知菩薩云何於生死中，而不為生死過患所染？了法自性，而不住聲聞、辟支佛地？具足佛法，而修菩薩行？住菩薩地，而入佛境界？超過世間，而於世受生？成就法身，而示現無邊種種色身？證無相法，而為眾生示現諸相？知法無說，而廣為眾生演說諸法？知眾生空，而恒不捨化眾生事？雖知諸佛不生不滅，而勤供養無有退轉？雖知諸法無業無報，而修諸善行恒不止息？」
At that time, Good-Wealth went to where that Śākya woman Gopā was, bowed at her feet, and stood with palms joined, saying: "Noble one, I have already, before this, given rise to the mind of anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, yet I do not yet know: how does a bodhisattva move within birth-and-death, and yet not be stained by the faults of birth-and-death? How does he fully understand the intrinsic nature of dharmas, and yet not abide in the ground of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha? How is he fully endowed with the buddha-dharma, and yet cultivate the bodhisattva's practices? How does he abide in the bodhisattva's own ground, and yet enter the buddha's own domain? How does he transcend the world, and yet take birth within the world? How does he accomplish the dharma-body, and yet manifest boundless bodies of every kind of form? How does he realise the markless dharma, and yet manifest every mark for the sake of beings? How does he know that no dharma can be spoken, and yet expound every dharma widely for the sake of beings? How does he know that beings are empty, and yet never once abandon the task of transforming beings? Though he knows that every buddha neither arises nor ceases, how does he diligently make offerings without ever retreating? Though he knows that no dharma has any karma or retribution, how does he cultivate every wholesome practice forever without cease?"
而不⋯⋯而修⋯⋯而入⋯⋯而於世受生⋯⋯而示現⋯⋯而為眾生示現諸相⋯⋯而廣為眾生演說諸法⋯⋯而恒不捨化眾生事⋯⋯而勤供養無有退轉⋯⋯而修諸善行恒不止息 — counted directly, eleven separate paradoxes run through this single question, each built on the same hinge word 而, yet. Every pair names a realization first and the apparently contradictory practice second, and the question never asks Good-Wealth to choose between them — only how both are true of one bodhisattva at once.
Part 1200 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-five. Part 1201 opens Gopā's answer — ten dharmas that fulfil the bodhisattva practice she calls Indra's Net of Universal Wisdom-Light.