Like the Great Ocean, Untouched by Poison
The bodhisattva's dedication is shown extending to those who are not friends with no difference at all from those who are, since the bodhisattva has entered the equal nature of every dharma — even one who harbors enmity and harm is met only with the eye of loving-kindness. Two similes follow in sequence: a great ocean that no poison can spoil, no matter how hostile or ignorant the beings who trouble it, and a sun that never hides itself from the world, whether or not every eye is able to see it.
Equal to Friend and Enemy Alike
The bodhisattva's dedication does not distinguish between friend and non-friend because it rests on having entered the equal nature of every dharma — a foundation deeper than the ordinary categories of friendship and enmity. Even hostility is met with loving-kindness rather than anger, and the bodhisattva becomes a good spiritual friend to precisely the beings who might otherwise be excluded: the foolish, the ignorant, the ungrateful, the arrogant, whose hostility, the text insists, can no more disturb the bodhisattva than poison can spoil the great ocean or clouds can make the sun cease to exist.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩於非親友守護迴向，與其親友等無差別。何以故？菩薩摩訶薩入一切法平等性故，不於眾生而起一念非親友想。設有眾生於菩薩所起怨害心，菩薩亦以慈眼視之，終無恚怒。普為眾生作善知識，演說正法，令其修習。譬如大海，一切眾毒不能變壞。菩薩亦爾，一切愚蒙、無有智慧、不知恩德、瞋很頑毒、憍慢自大、其心盲瞽、不識善法……如是等類諸惡眾生，種種逼惱，無能動亂。
"Child of the Buddha! When the bodhisattva mahāsattva extends this protective dedication to those who are not friends, it is with no difference at all from those who are friends. For what reason? Because the bodhisattva mahāsattva has entered the equal nature of every dharma, and therefore never gives rise to even a single thought regarding any living being as 'not a friend.' Even if there is a living being who gives rise to a mind of enmity and harm toward the bodhisattva, the bodhisattva still regards them with the eye of loving-kindness, and never gives rise to anger at all. They universally become a good spiritual friend for living beings, expounding the true Dharma and causing them to cultivate and practice it. Just as the great ocean cannot be transformed or spoiled by any poison at all, so too is the bodhisattva — every kind of evil living being, foolish and ignorant, without wisdom, ungrateful, wrathful and stubbornly venomous, arrogant and self-important, their mind blind, unable to recognize wholesome dharmas, and the like — however such beings press and afflict them in every kind of way, none of them is able to disturb or unsettle the bodhisattva.
譬如日天子出現世間，不以生盲不見故，隱而不現；又復不以乾闥婆城、阿脩羅手、閻浮提樹、崇巖、邃谷、塵霧、煙雲……如是等物之所覆障故，隱而不現；亦復不以時節變改故，隱而不現。
Just as the sun, appearing in the world, does not hide itself and fail to appear simply because someone born blind cannot see it; and likewise does not hide itself and fail to appear simply because a gandharva city, an asura's hand, a Jambudvīpa tree, a lofty cliff, a deep ravine, dust, mist, smoke, or cloud, and the like, obscure and screen it; and likewise does not hide itself and fail to appear simply because the seasons change.
The two similes divide the argument cleanly: the ocean addresses what living beings do to the bodhisattva — poison, hostility, provocation — while the sun addresses what living beings fail to see of the bodhisattva, whether from blindness, obstruction, or the passage of seasons. Neither simile denies that the poison is real or the obstruction genuine; each insists only that neither changes what the ocean or the sun actually is.
Part 212 Complete
This closes Part 212. Chapter 25 continues in Part 213 as the sun simile is extended to the bodhisattva directly, describing a great and deep mind that never regresses or grows weary, no matter how difficult living beings prove to guide.