No Arising, No Ceasing
The chapter's "meaning" left unnamed in the previous hymn now begins to surface: every dharma, having no place it comes from and no one who makes it, has no arising — and what has no arising can have no ceasing either. To see this, the hymn says, is to see the Tathāgata himself.
Supreme Grove Bodhisattva's Hymn
爾時，勝林菩薩承佛威力，普觀十方而說頌言：
At that time, relying upon the Buddha's own awesome power, Supreme Grove Bodhisattva universally surveyed the ten directions and then spoke a verse, saying:
「譬如孟夏月，空淨無雲曀，
赫日揚光暉，十方靡不充。
其光無限量，無有能測知，
有目斯尚然，何況盲冥者。
諸佛亦如是，功德無邊際，
不可思議劫，莫能分別知。
諸法無來處，亦無能作者，
無有所從生，不可得分別。
一切法無來，是故無有生，
以生無有故，滅亦不可得。
一切法無生，亦復無有滅，
若能如是解，斯人見如來。
諸法無生故，自性無所有，
如是分別知，此人達深義。
以法無性故，無有能了知，
如是解於法，究竟無所解。
所說有生者，以現諸國土，
能知國土性，其心不迷惑。
世間國土性，觀察悉如實，
若能於此知，善說一切義。」
"Just as in the first month of summer, when the sky is clear and free of any clouding overcast, the blazing sun raises up its radiant light, and there is no place throughout the ten directions it fails to fill — its light is without any limit or measure, and none can ever fathom it; even those with sight find it so, how much more those blind and in darkness.
Every buddha, too, is just the same, their merit without any boundary or limit; through inconceivable kalpas, none can ever discriminate or fully know it. Every dharma has no place it comes from, and no one at all who makes it; there is nothing from which it arises, and it cannot be discriminated at all.
Every dharma has no coming at all, and for this reason has no arising; and because there is no arising, no ceasing can be found either. Every dharma has no arising, and likewise has no ceasing either — whoever is able to understand it in this way, this person sees the Tathāgata.
Because every dharma has no arising, its own nature has nothing to it at all; whoever discriminates and knows it in this way, this person penetrates its profound meaning. Because dharmas have no nature at all, there is no one who is able to fully understand them; whoever understands dharmas in this way, in the end, has nothing at all that they understand.
What is spoken of as having arising is simply the manifestation of every land; whoever is able to know a land's own nature, their mind is never confused or deluded by it. The very nature of the worldly lands, contemplated, is entirely just as it truly is; whoever is able to know this, is skillfully able to expound every single meaning."
"Whoever understands dharmas in this way, in the end, has nothing at all that they understand" is a deliberately self-undermining line — the very act of claiming to have grasped emptiness would itself be one more thing grasped at, which the teaching has just denied is possible. This is the same move the Diamond Sūtra makes repeatedly: any formulation precise enough to be stated is already, in some sense, too solid to be the thing itself.
Part 121 Complete
This closes Part 121. Chapter 20 continues in Part 122 with Fearless Grove Bodhisattva's hymn.