The Buddha-Dharma Is No Different from the World
The sixth practice opens with pure action of body, speech, and mind, abiding in non-attainment — and moves to a teaching that dissolves the boundary between sacred and ordinary: the buddha-dharma is no different from the worldly dharma, and the worldly dharma is no different from the buddha-dharma, neither mixed together nor distinct.
The Sixth Practice: Skillful Manifestation
「佛子！何等為菩薩摩訶薩善現行？此菩薩身業清淨、語業清淨、意業清淨，住無所得、示無所得身語意業，能知三業皆無所有、無虛妄故，無有繫縛；凡所示現，無性無依；住如實心，知無量心自性，知一切法自性，無得無相，甚深難入；住於正位真如法性，方便出生而無業報；不生不滅，住涅槃界，住寂靜性；住於真實無性之性，言語道斷，超諸世間，無有所依；入離分別無縛著法，入最勝智真實之法，入非諸世間所能了知出世間法。此是菩薩善巧方便，示現生相。」
"Son of the Buddha! What is a bodhisattva-mahāsattva's own practice of skillful manifestation? This bodhisattva's own actions of body, speech, and mind are all pure; abiding in non-attainment, they manifest actions of body, speech, and mind that are themselves non-attained, able to know that all three actions have nothing to them at all, and, being free of any falsehood, have no bondage or entanglement at all; whatever they manifest has no fixed nature and no reliance; abiding in a mind that accords with reality, they know the very self-nature of immeasurable minds, know the very self-nature of every dharma, without attainment and without any mark, most profound and difficult to enter; abiding in the right position of true suchness, the very nature of dharmas, they arise through skillful means and yet incur no karmic recompense; without arising and without ceasing, they abide within the realm of nirvāṇa, abide within the very nature of tranquility; abiding within the true nature that has no fixed nature at all, the path of language cut off, they transcend every worldly thing, relying on nothing at all; they enter the dharma that is free of discrimination and free of bondage and attachment, enter the true dharma of the most supreme wisdom, and enter the transcendent dharma that no worldly thing is able to fully understand. This is the bodhisattva's own skillful means, manifesting the mark of arising."
佛子！此菩薩作如是念：『一切眾生，無性為性；一切諸法，無為為性；一切國土，無相為相。一切三世，唯有言說；一切言說，於諸法中，無有依處；一切諸法，於言說中，亦無依處。』菩薩如是解一切法皆悉甚深，一切世間皆悉寂靜，一切佛法無所增益。佛法不異世間法，世間法不異佛法；佛法、世間法，無有雜亂，亦無差別。了知法界體性平等，普入三世，永不捨離大菩提心，恒不退轉化眾生心，轉更增長大慈悲心，與一切眾生作所依處。
Son of the Buddha, this bodhisattva reflects in this way: 'Every living being takes having no fixed nature as their very nature; every dharma takes the unconditioned as its very nature; every land takes having no mark as its very mark. Everything across the three periods of time exists only as language spoken; and every spoken language, within any dharma, has no place to rely upon at all; and every dharma, within any spoken language, likewise has no place to rely upon at all.' The bodhisattva, understanding in this way that every dharma is entirely most profound, that the whole world is entirely tranquil, and that the buddha-dharma has nothing at all added to it — the buddha-dharma is no different from the worldly dharma, and the worldly dharma is no different from the buddha-dharma; the buddha-dharma and the worldly dharma are never mixed together in confusion, and yet have no distinction between them either. Thoroughly understanding that the very substance and nature of the Dharma-realm is equal, they universally enter the three periods of time, forever never letting go of the great mind of bodhi, forever never turning back from the mind that transforms living beings, ever further increasing their own great mind of compassion, and becoming a place of reliance for every living being.
"The buddha-dharma is no different from the worldly dharma, and the worldly dharma is no different from the buddha-dharma... never mixed together, and yet have no distinction" states, as precisely as the sūtra ever does, the relationship the whole practice of "skillful manifestation" depends on: not that sacred and ordinary collapse into one undifferentiated thing, but that they were never two separate things requiring a bridge between them in the first place.
Part 139 Complete
This closes Part 139. Chapter 21 continues in Part 140 with the bodhisattva's own question — "If I do not mature living beings, who will?" — completing the sixth practice and fascicle nineteen.