A Cloud of Bodies
Gopā sings the whole teaching again — twelve stanzas naming Indra's Net and the Light of Universal Wisdom, a cloud of bodies, a sun of wisdom, and finally a bodhisattva who divides himself across every destiny to answer whatever a being's own mind desires.
A Cloud of Bodies
Gopā turns her prose teaching into verse, each stanza closing on a different name for the same practice, moving outward from a single teacher to every buddha and every being at once.
爾時，釋迦瞿波女，欲重明此義，承佛神力，觀察十方，而說頌言：「菩薩為利諸群生，
正念親承善知識，
敬之如佛心無怠，
此行於世帝網行。
勝解廣大如虛空，
一切三世悉入中，
國土眾生佛皆爾，
此是普智光明行。
志樂如空無有際，
永斷煩惱離諸垢，
一切佛所修功德，
此行於世身雲行。
菩薩修習一切智，
不可思議功德海，
淨諸福德智慧身，
此行於世不染行。
一切諸佛如來所，
聽受其法無厭足，
能生實相智慧燈，
此行於世普照行。
十方諸佛無有量，
一念一切悉能入，
心恒不捨諸如來，
此向菩提大願行。
能入諸佛大眾會，
一切菩薩三昧海，
願海及以方便海，
此行於世帝網行。
一切諸佛所加持，
盡未來際無邊劫，
處處修行普賢道，
此是菩薩分身行。
見諸眾生受大苦，
起大慈悲現世間，
演法光明除闇冥，
此是菩薩智日行。
見諸眾生在諸趣，
為集無邊妙法輪，
令其永斷生死流，
此是修行普賢行。
菩薩修行此方便，
隨眾生心而現身，
普於一切諸趣中，
化度無量諸含識。
以大慈悲方便力，
普遍世間而現身，
隨其解欲為說法，
皆令趣向菩提道。
At that time, Śākya Gopā, wishing to make this meaning clear once more, sustained by the Buddha's own spiritual power, gazed out across the ten directions, and spoke in verse, saying: "For the benefit of the multitude of beings, the bodhisattva,
with right mindfulness, draws near to and serves a good spiritual friend,
revering her as a buddha, his mind never slackening —
this is Indra's Net, practised in the world.
His superior understanding, vast and expansive as empty space,
has every one of the three times entirely enter within it;
every land, every being, and every buddha are just the same —
this is the practice of the Light of Universal Wisdom.
His aspiration, like empty space, has no boundary at all;
he forever severs affliction, and is free of every stain;
at the place of every buddha he cultivates merit —
this is a cloud of bodies, practised in the world.
The bodhisattva cultivates all-knowing wisdom,
an ineffable ocean of merit;
he purifies his own body of blessing and wisdom —
this is the practice, unstained, in the world.
At the place of every buddha and tathāgata,
he hears and receives their dharma without ever wearying of it;
he is able to give rise to the lamp of wisdom that is reality itself —
this is the practice of universal illumination in the world.
The buddhas of the ten directions are without measure,
yet in a single thought he is able to enter every one of them;
his mind forever never abandons any tathāgata —
this is the great vow that turns toward bodhi.
He is able to enter the great assemblies of every buddha,
the whole ocean of every bodhisattva's samādhi,
the ocean of vows and the ocean of skilful means —
this is Indra's Net, practised in the world.
Sustained by the empowerment of every buddha,
to the very end of future time, throughout boundless kalpas,
he cultivates the path of Samantabhadra in every single place —
this is a bodhisattva's practice of dividing his own body.
Seeing every being undergo great suffering,
he gives rise to great loving-kindness and compassion, and manifests within the world;
he expounds the light of the dharma, dispelling every darkness —
this is a bodhisattva's practice of the sun of wisdom.
Seeing every being throughout every destiny,
he gathers the boundless and wondrous wheel of dharma for their sake,
causing them to forever sever the current of birth-and-death —
this is the cultivation of Samantabhadra's own practice.
The bodhisattva cultivates this skilful means,
manifesting his body according to the minds of beings;
universally, throughout every destiny,
he transforms and delivers measureless sentient beings.
Through the power of great loving-kindness and compassion, and skilful means,
he manifests his body universally throughout the world;
according to their understanding and desire, he expounds the dharma for them,
causing every one of them to advance toward the path of bodhi.
此行於世帝網行⋯⋯此是普智光明行⋯⋯此行於世帝網行 — this is Indra's Net, practised in the world⋯⋯this is the practice of the Light of Universal Wisdom⋯⋯this is Indra's Net, practised in the world. The practice named once in prose two Parts ago returns twice here as Indra's Net (stanzas one and seven) and once as the Light of Universal Wisdom (stanza two) — the same single name this whole passage has been circling since Gopā first spoke it, now given a hymn's worth of different faces: a cloud of bodies, a sun of wisdom, a bodhisattva dividing himself across every destiny.
Part 1203 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle seventy-five. Part 1204 turns to Gopā's own second liberation-gate — a vast account of watching the karma of every being in the Sahā world across countless kalpas.