Better to Endure Every Suffering
Dharma Banner Bodhisattva speaks the chapter's tenth and final verse, declaring that it would be better to forever endure every suffering of the world than to be far from the Tathāgata and fail to behold his sovereign power. The verse insists that offerings made without knowing the true and real Dharma cannot be called offerings at all, and closes on why every buddha arises in the world: because living beings, flowing through birth and death since beginningless time, fail to understand it.
Why Every Buddha Arises in the World
The tenth and final verse of this chapter opens with an intensity the previous nine have not quite matched: better to forever endure every suffering of the world than to be far from the Tathāgata. It moves through faith — a single thought of faith swiftly ascends the unsurpassed path — before its own closing turn, one final time insisting that offerings without knowledge of the true Dharma are not offerings at all, and naming the reason every buddha arises: living beings, flowing through birth and death since beginningless time, have simply failed to understand it.
「寧可恒具受，一切世間苦，
終不遠如來，不覩自在力。
若有諸眾生，未發菩提心，
一得聞佛名，決定成菩提。
若有智慧人，一念發道心，
必成無上尊，慎莫生疑惑。
如來自在力，無量劫難遇，
若生一念信，速登無上道。
設於念念中，供養無量佛，
未知真實法，不名為供養。
"It would be better to forever fully endure every suffering of the world entire, than to ever be far from the Tathāgata, and fail to behold his sovereign power. If there are any living beings who have not yet given rise to the mind of bodhi, the moment they come to hear the Buddha's name, they are certain to accomplish bodhi. If there is any person of wisdom who, in a single thought, gives rise to the mind of the path, they will surely accomplish the unsurpassed Honored One — take care never to give rise to doubt. The Tathāgata's own sovereign power is difficult to encounter even throughout immeasurable kalpas; if one gives rise to even a single thought of faith, one swiftly ascends the unsurpassed path. Even if, in thought after thought, one makes offerings to immeasurable buddhas, without knowing the true and real Dharma, this cannot be called making offerings at all.
若聞如是法，諸佛從此生，
雖經無量苦，不捨菩提行。
一聞大智慧，諸佛所入法，
普於法界中，成三世導師。
雖盡未來際，遍遊諸佛剎，
不求此妙法，終不成菩提。
眾生無始來，生死久流轉，
不了真實法，諸佛故興世。
諸法不可壞，亦無能壞者，
自在大光明，普示於世間。」
If one hears the Dharma such as this, from which every buddha is born, even though passing through immeasurable suffering, one never abandons the conduct of bodhi. The moment one hears of great wisdom, the very Dharma that every buddha has entered, one universally becomes, throughout the Dharma-realm, a Guiding Teacher of the three periods of time. Even if, to the very end of the future, one travels throughout every buddha-land entirely, without seeking this wondrous Dharma, one will never accomplish bodhi at all. Living beings, since beginningless time, have long flowed through birth and death; it is because they fail to understand the true and real Dharma that every buddha therefore arises in the world. No dharma can ever be destroyed, and there is no one at all able to destroy it; this sovereign and great light is universally displayed throughout the world."
"It is because they fail to understand the true and real Dharma that every buddha therefore arises in the world" closes this chapter's ten verses with a statement of purpose rather than another paradox — after nine verses spent unsettling every ordinary way of imagining the Buddha's body, presence, and appearing, the tenth simply says why the unsettling was worth doing: living beings have flowed through birth and death since beginningless time for lack of exactly this understanding.
Chapter 24 Complete — 兜率宮中偈讚品第二十四
With Dharma Banner Bodhisattva's verse, all ten Banner bodhisattvas have spoken — Vajra Banner, Firm Banner, Valiant Banner, Light Banner, Wisdom Banner, Jeweled Banner, Diligence Banner, Stainless Banner, Constellation Banner, and Dharma Banner — each offering their own verse of praise within the Tuṣita palace, moving from the paradox of a Tathāgata who neither appears nor enters nirvāṇa through the moon reflected in every water to a closing declaration of why every buddha arises in the world at all. Unlike several of this sūtra's longer chapters, this one closes without an earthquake or a formal gathering of witnesses — the tenth verse simply completes the sequence, and the text moves directly into the next chapter.
Part 207 Complete
This closes Part 207 and Chapter 24. Fascicle twenty-three continues in Part 208 with the opening of the twenty-fifth chapter, "The Ten Dedications" (十迴向品第二十五), as Vajra Banner Bodhisattva enters the Bodhisattva Wisdom-Light Samādhi and is praised by a hundred thousand buddhas who all share his own name.