Seeing No Self Who Gives
Having vowed to give their own body without limit, the bodhisattva now contemplates the very giving itself away — no self, no gift, no recipient, no field of merit, no karma, no fruit at all — and closes with a plain reflection on how fragile and fleeting every body living beings ever receive actually is.
No Notion of Self, Gift, or Recipient
菩薩如是利益眾生而無我想、眾生想、有想、命想、種種想、補伽羅想、人想、摩納婆想、作者想、受者想。但觀法界、眾生界，無邊際法、空法、無所有法、無相法、無體法、無處法、無依法、無作法。作是觀時，不見自身，不見施物，不見受者，不見福田，不見業，不見報，不見果，不見大果，不見小果。
The bodhisattva, benefiting living beings in this way, holds no notion of self, no notion of a living being, no notion of existence, no notion of a life-force, no notion of any kind at all, no notion of a person, no notion of a human being, no notion of a youth, no notion of a doer, and no notion of a recipient. They contemplate only the Dharma-realm and the realm of living beings — a dharma without any boundary or limit, an empty dharma, a dharma that has nothing to it at all, a signless dharma, a substanceless dharma, a placeless dharma, a dharma without reliance, and a dharma without any doer at all. When contemplating in this way, they see no self of their own, see no object given, see no recipient, see no field of merit, see no karma, see no recompense, see no fruit, see no great fruit, and see no small fruit.
爾時，菩薩觀去、來、今一切眾生所受之身尋即壞滅，便作是念：『奇哉！眾生愚癡無智，於生死內受無數身，危脆不停，速歸壞滅。若已壞滅，若今壞滅，若當壞滅，而不能以不堅固身求堅固身。我當盡學諸佛所學，證一切智，知一切法，為諸眾生說三世平等、隨順寂靜、不壞法性，令其永得安隱快樂。』佛子！是名菩薩摩訶薩第一歡喜行。
At that time, the bodhisattva contemplates that the bodies received by every living being of the past, the future, and the present are, before long, destroyed and dissolved, and then reflects in this way: 'How strange it is! Living beings, foolish and without wisdom, receive countless bodies within birth-and-death, precarious and fragile, never remaining still, swiftly returning to destruction and dissolution. Whether already destroyed, being destroyed now, or destined to be destroyed, they are unable, with this unstable body, to seek a stable one. I shall exhaustively study what every buddha has studied, realize all-knowing wisdom, understand every dharma, and, for the sake of living beings, teach the equality of the three periods of time, the tranquil quiescence that follows from it, and the unchanging nature of dharmas, causing them to attain forever peace, security, and happiness.' Son of the Buddha, this is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva's own first practice, the practice of joy.
The ten-fold list of notions the bodhisattva holds none of — self, being, existence, life-force, person, human, youth, doer, recipient — is a formula that recurs throughout Prajñāpāramitā literature as a way of exhaustively closing off every angle from which a fixed identity might be smuggled back in. What makes this passage distinctive is where it lands: not abstract emptiness for its own sake, but a plain, almost weary observation that bodies are fragile and keep breaking, and that this fragility is exactly why the bodhisattva keeps giving.
Part 131 Complete
This closes Part 131. Chapter 21 continues in Part 132 with the second practice, the practice of benefiting others.