Faith at Every Stage of Its Own Ripening
The Tathāgata's own great compassion universally covers every living being, but it does not treat them identically — it meets each one exactly where their faith already stands: those without faith are brought to faith, those with faith see it increase, and so on through increase, purification, maturity, and finally a tamed mind, each stage receiving what it specifically needs next.
Meeting Faith Exactly Where It Stands
Rather than offering a single, uniform gift, the Tathāgata's compassion here is described as addressing five distinct conditions in sequence — no faith, faith, increased faith, purified faith, and matured faith — treating each as needing something different from the one before it. What follows names where that progression ultimately leads: a mind like Samantabhadra's own, free of every domain of Māra, and finally birth within the family of every buddha across the three periods of time.
爾時，如來大悲普覆，示一切智所有莊嚴，欲令不可說百千億那由他阿僧祇世界中眾生，未信者信，已信者增長，已增長者令其清淨，已清淨者令其成熟，已成熟者令心調伏；觀甚深法，具足無量智慧光明，發生無量廣大之心，薩婆若心無有退轉；不違法性，不怖實際，證真實理，滿足一切波羅蜜行，出世善根皆悉清淨；猶如普賢，得佛自在，離魔境界，入諸佛境，了知深法，獲難思智，大乘誓願永不退轉；常見諸佛，未曾捨離；成就證智，證無量法，具足無邊福德藏力，發歡喜心入無疑地；離惡清淨，依一切智，見法不動，得入一切菩薩眾會，常生三世諸如來家。
At that time, the Tathāgata's own great compassion, universally covering everyone, displayed every adornment of all-knowing wisdom, wishing to cause the living beings within indescribable hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of asaṃkhyeyas of worlds — those without faith to attain faith, those who already have faith to have it increased, those whose faith has already increased to have it made pure, those whose faith has already been made pure to have it brought to maturity, and those whose faith has already matured to have their mind tamed; contemplating the profound Dharma, fully endowed with the immeasurable light of wisdom, giving rise to an immeasurable and vast mind, their mind of all-knowing wisdom never turning back; never contradicting the very nature of dharmas, never fearing the ultimate reality, realizing the true and real principle, fulfilling every perfection's own practice entirely, their every wholesome root that transcends the world becoming entirely pure; just like Samantabhadra, attaining the buddha's own sovereign mastery, free of every domain of Māra, entering the domain of every buddha, understanding the profound Dharma entirely, attaining wisdom difficult to conceive of, their vow of the Great Vehicle never once turning back; forever beholding every buddha, never once forsaking or departing from them; accomplishing the wisdom of realization, realizing immeasurable dharmas, fully endowed with the power of the boundless treasury of merit, giving rise to a joyful mind, entering the ground free of any doubt; free of evil and entirely pure, relying upon all-knowing wisdom, beholding the Dharma unmoved, able to enter every assembly of bodhisattvas, forever born within the family of every Tathāgata across the three periods of time.
The five-stage sequence — no faith, faith, increase, purification, maturity — reads almost like a diagnosis before a prescription: compassion here is not a single undifferentiated force but something calibrated to exactly what stage a given living being has already reached. That the sequence ends not in faith itself but in "a tamed mind" is worth noting — faith, in this passage, is a beginning to be built upon, not a destination the compassion stops at once it arrives.
Part 190 Complete
This closes Part 190. Chapter 23 continues in Part 191.