Vajragarbha Consents
The light has spoken, and Vajragarbha yields. But his consent is not a simple yes — it opens with a long verse on why the thing he is about to say cannot properly be said, and ends with him promising only a small portion of it. Then, without further preamble, the First Ground begins, and the sūtra describes the bodhisattva who first gives rise to that mind, passes beyond the ground of ordinary beings, and comes to abide on Pramuditā, the Ground of Joy.
Hard to Tell as a Bird's Track
Vajragarbha's objection was never that the teaching is secret. It was that it exceeds the medium. This verse says so at length before saying anything else — the path is not thought and is apart from thought, it is unborn and unceasing, it is not the gateway of the aggregates, and the intellect does not reach it. Only after establishing all of that does he agree to speak, and even then he undertakes to give a small portion.
爾時，金剛藏菩薩觀察十方，欲令大眾增淨信故而說頌曰：
「如來大仙道，微妙難可知，非念離諸念，求見不可得。
無生亦無滅，性淨恒寂然，離垢聰慧人，彼智所行處。
自性本空寂，無二亦無盡，解脫於諸趣，涅槃平等住。
非初非中後，非言辭所說，出過於三世，其相如虛空。
寂滅佛所行，言說莫能及；地行亦如是，難說難可受。
智起佛境界，非念離心道，非蘊界處門，智知意不及。
如空中鳥迹，難說難可示；如是十地義，心意不能了。
慈悲及願力，出生入地行，次第圓滿心，智行非慮境。
是境界難見，可知不可說，佛力故開演，汝等應敬受。
如是智入行，億劫說不盡，我今但略說，真實義無餘。
一心恭敬待，我承佛力說，勝法微妙音，譬諭字相應。
無量佛神力，咸來入我身，此處難宣示，我今說少分。」
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva surveyed the ten directions, and wishing to increase the pure faith of the great assembly, spoke in verse, saying:
"The path of the Tathāgata, the great seer, is subtle and wondrous, difficult to know; it is not thought and is apart from every thought — seek to see it and it cannot be found. Unborn and likewise unceasing, its nature pure and forever still, it is the place where the wisdom of those free of stain and keen of understanding moves. Its own nature is fundamentally empty and quiescent, without duality and without end; released from all the destinies, it abides in the sameness of nirvāṇa. It is not beginning, not middle, not end, and is not what words can speak; it has passed beyond the three times, and its mark is like empty space. The quiescent course in which the buddhas move — speech can never reach it; and the practice of the grounds is just so, hard to tell and hard to receive. Wisdom gives rise to the domain of a buddha, which is not thought and is apart from the way of mind; it is not the gateway of aggregates, elements, or sense-fields — wisdom knows it, and the intellect does not reach. Like the track of a bird through the sky, hard to tell and hard to point out — such is the meaning of the ten grounds, which mind and intellect cannot comprehend. Loving-kindness, compassion, and the power of vows give birth to the practice of entering the grounds; the mind is fulfilled in due order, and this course of wisdom is no object of deliberation. This domain is hard to behold — it can be known but cannot be told. By the Buddha's power I shall unfold it, and you should receive it with reverence. Such is this practice of entering by wisdom that koṭis of kalpas would not exhaust the telling of it; I shall now speak only in brief, and yet leave nothing of the true meaning out. Wait single-mindedly and with reverence — sustained by the Buddha's power I shall speak, in the subtle and wondrous sound of this supreme Dharma, with simile and letter in accord. The measureless spiritual power of the buddhas has all come to enter into my body. This place is hard to proclaim and hard to point out; I shall now speak but a small portion of it."
"It can be known but cannot be told" (可知不可說) is the whole of Vajragarbha's position in five characters, and it is not a paradox he is trying to dissolve. Knowing and telling are simply different capacities here, and the second does not follow from the first. Everything he goes on to say for the rest of this chapter is offered under that qualification.
The bird's track (鳥迹) is the sharpest of the images. A bird genuinely passes through the sky, and its passage is entirely real; what does not exist is any trace left behind for someone else to follow. This is exactly what a teaching about the grounds is up against — the path is real and has been walked, but it does not leave the kind of mark that instruction ordinarily hands from one person to another.
The First Ground
The consent given, the text turns without transition to its subject. What follows is a single long conditional describing the being in whom this mind arises — first what they have already done, then the ten things they are doing it for. Note that not one of the ten purposes is for themselves.
第一地
「佛子！若有眾生深種善根，善修諸行，善集助道，善供養諸佛，善集白淨法，為善知識善攝，善清淨深心，立廣大志，生廣大解，慈悲現前，為求佛智故，為得十力故，為得大無畏故，為得佛平等法故，為救一切世間故，為淨大慈悲故，為得十方無餘智故，為淨一切佛剎無障礙故，為一念知一切三世故，為轉大法輪無所畏故。
The First Ground
"Child of the Buddha! Suppose there are beings who have planted wholesome roots deeply, who have well cultivated every practice, well gathered the aids to the path, well made offerings to the buddhas, well gathered the pure white dharmas, who are well gathered in by good spiritual friends and well purified in the profound mind, who have established a vast resolve and given rise to a vast understanding, and in whom loving-kindness and compassion stand present — and this for the sake of seeking the Buddha's wisdom, for the sake of attaining the ten powers, for the sake of attaining great fearlessness, for the sake of attaining the Buddha's Dharma of sameness, for the sake of rescuing every world, for the sake of purifying great loving-kindness and compassion, for the sake of attaining the wisdom of the ten directions that leaves nothing out, for the sake of purifying every buddha-land without obstruction, for the sake of knowing all three times in a single thought, for the sake of turning the great Dharma-wheel without fear.
佛子！菩薩起如是心，以大悲為首，智慧增上，善巧方便所攝，最上深心所持，如來力無量，善觀察分別勇猛力、智力，無礙智現前、隨順自然智，能受一切佛法，以智慧教化，廣大如法界，究竟如虛空，盡未來際。
Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva gives rise to just such a mind — a mind that takes great compassion as its head, in which wisdom is preeminent, which is gathered in by skillful means and upheld by the supreme profound mind; measureless in the Tathāgata's power, well contemplating and discriminating the power of valor and the power of wisdom; a mind in which unobstructed wisdom stands present and which accords with spontaneous wisdom, able to receive every buddha-dharma, teaching and transforming beings by wisdom — vast as the dharma-realm, ultimate as empty space, exhausting the whole reach of the future.
佛子！菩薩始發如是心，即得超凡夫地，入菩薩位，生如來家，無能說其種族過失，離世間趣，入出世道，得菩薩法，住菩薩處，入三世平等，於如來種中決定當得無上菩提。菩薩住如是法，名：住菩薩歡喜地，以不動相應故。
Child of the Buddha! The moment a bodhisattva first gives rise to such a mind, they at once pass beyond the ground of ordinary beings and enter the station of a bodhisattva; they are born into the family of the Tathāgata, and no one is able to name any fault in their lineage; they leave the destinies of the world and enter the supramundane path; they attain the Dharma of a bodhisattva and abide in a bodhisattva's place; they enter the sameness of the three times, and within the lineage of the Tathāgata they will assuredly attain unsurpassed awakening. A bodhisattva who abides in such a Dharma is said to abide on Pramuditā, the Ground of Joy — for they are now joined with what does not move.
The threshold described here is crossed at the moment of arising (始發如是心), not at the completion of anything. What changes is not attainment but standing — the bodhisattva has entered a lineage, and the text's way of putting this is oddly legal: no one can name a fault in their descent. In a world organized by birth, to be born into the family of the Tathāgata is to hold a position no accusation about origins can reach.
And the ground is named for what it is joined to rather than for what it feels like. Joy is the name, but the reason given is 以不動相應故 — because it accords with what does not move. The joy of this ground is not an elevated mood that could subside; it is what being unshakably placed feels like from the inside.
Part 403 Complete
This continues the Ten Grounds chapter, now entering the first of the ten. Chapter 26 continues in Part 404 as the sūtra sets out what the bodhisattva on Pramuditā actually comes to possess — an abundance of joy, faith, delight, and gladness — and enumerates, one after another, the recollections from which that joy arises, before turning to the fears that fall away once all thought of self is gone.