Banners of Wisdom

"Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva mahāsattva may also give every kind of supreme and wondrous banner and pennant. Every jewel forms the pole, jeweled silk forms the pennant, every kind of mixed and brilliant color forms the banner itself; a jeweled net hangs down and covers it, its light and colors filling everything; jeweled bells sway gently, their notes harmonizing together; a rare and wondrous jewel shaped like a crescent moon, its Jambū-river gold light outshining even the sun, is set atop the banner; manifesting in accordance with the karmic fruit of every world, it is adorned with every kind of wondrous thing. Such countless thousands of ten-thousands of koṭis of nayutas of wondrous banners and pennants, their reflected light joined and interwoven, radiating in alternation, their brightness and purity spread across the great earth, filling the realm of empty space, the Dharma-realm, and every buddha-land in the ten directions. The bodhisattva mahāsattva, with a pure mind of faith and understanding, with such immeasurable banners and pennants as these, gives them to every buddha now present and to every stūpa and shrine remaining after a buddha's parinirvāṇa; or gives them to the treasure of the Dharma; or gives them to the treasure of the saṃgha; or gives them to bodhisattvas and every good spiritual friend; or gives them to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas; or gives them to the great assembly; or gives them to a single individual; to whoever comes seeking them, they give them to them all entirely. With this wholesome root, they dedicate it in this way, namely: 'May all sentient beings all be able to establish every banner and pennant of wholesome roots and merit, indestructible; may all sentient beings establish every banner and pennant of mastery over the Dharma, honored and cherished, diligently guarded and protected; may all sentient beings forever write out the true Dharma upon jeweled silk, upholding and protecting the Dharma-treasury of every buddha and bodhisattva; may all sentient beings establish a lofty and conspicuous banner, kindling the lamp of wisdom to universally illumine the world; may all sentient beings raise up a firm banner, able to entirely destroy every activity of Māra; may all sentient beings establish the banner of the power of wisdom, unbreakable by any Māra; may all sentient beings obtain the Nārāyaṇa banner of great wisdom, destroying every banner of worldly pride; may all sentient beings obtain the great, luminous banner of the sun of wisdom, its wisdom-sun light universally illumining the Dharma-realm; may all sentient beings be fully endowed with the immeasurable jewel-adorned banner, filling every world in the ten directions to make offerings to the buddhas; may all sentient beings obtain the Tathāgata's own banner, destroying every one of the ninety-six kinds of heterodox, mistaken view.' This is the bodhisattva mahāsattva's dedication of wholesome roots when giving banners and pennants, so that all sentient beings may obtain the profound, lofty, and vast banner of bodhisattva practice, and the banner of every bodhisattva's spiritual power and pure path of practice.