Where Great Compassion Arises
Having made the vows, the bodhisattva is given ten kinds of mind and ten workings of faith. Then the sūtra sets the Dharma's depth and quiet directly against the condition of an ordinary mind — covered over, tangled, unable to get itself out — and traces how suffering grows, link by link, from name-and-form to old age and death. Compassion is not exhorted here. It is what happens when that sequence is actually seen.
Ten Minds, Ten Workings of Faith
The ten minds are consequences of vowing rather than prerequisites for it — they are what having vowed does to a person. The ten workings of faith that follow are each stated as an object rather than a feeling: faith is described entirely by what it is able to credit.
「佛子！菩薩發如是大願已，則得利益心、柔軟心、隨順心、寂靜心、調伏心、寂滅心、謙下心、潤澤心、不動心、不濁心。成淨信者，有信功用：能信如來本行所入，信成就諸波羅蜜，信入諸勝地，信成就力，信具足無所畏，信生長不可壞不共佛法，信不思議佛法，信出生無中邊佛境界，信隨入如來無量境界，信成就果。舉要言之，信一切菩薩行，乃至如來智地說力故。
"Child of the Buddha! Once a bodhisattva has made such great vows as these, they attain a mind of benefit, a mind made pliant, a mind of accord, a mind of stillness, a mind well tamed, a mind of quiescence, a mind of humility, a mind of moisture, a mind unmoving, and a mind unclouded. And one who has accomplished pure faith has faith's own working: they are able to have faith in that which the Tathāgata entered by his original practice; faith in the accomplishment of the pāramitās; faith in the entering of the supreme grounds; faith in the accomplishment of the powers; faith in the full possession of the fearlessnesses; faith in the growth of the indestructible, unshared buddha-dharmas; faith in the inconceivable buddha-dharmas; faith in the bringing forth of a buddha's domain, which has neither middle nor edge; faith in according with and entering the Tathāgata's measureless domain; and faith in the accomplishment of the fruit. To state it in brief — because they have faith in every bodhisattva practice, and so on up to the power of what is taught of the Tathāgata's ground of wisdom.
潤澤心, rendered here as a mind of moisture, is the odd one in the list of ten, and it is worth not smoothing away. The image is of ground that is not parched — soil in which something could take root. Beside stillness, taming, and quiescence, which are all forms of settling, this one names a receptivity that those alone would not produce.
The Shoot of Suffering in the Field of the Three Realms
This is the longest single reflection in the First Ground, and its structure is a collision. Ten descriptions of the Dharma — profound, still, empty, signless — are set down first. Then the word "yet", and everything after it describes a mind that could not be further from any of them. The passage closes by working through how suffering actually propagates, and then by saying that the whole apparatus is empty.
「佛子！此菩薩復作是念：『諸佛正法，如是甚深，如是寂靜，如是寂滅，如是空，如是無相，如是無願，如是無染，如是無量，如是廣大。而諸凡夫心墮邪見，無明覆翳，立憍慢高幢，入渴愛網中，行諂誑稠林不能自出，心與慳嫉相應不捨，恒造諸趣受生因緣，貪、恚、愚癡積集諸業日夜增長，以忿恨風吹心識火熾然不息，凡所作業皆顛倒相應，欲流、有流、無明流、見流，相續起心意識種子，於三界田中復生苦芽。
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva thinks further in this way: 'The true Dharma of the buddhas is profound like this, still like this, quiescent like this, empty like this, signless like this, wishless like this, undefiled like this, measureless like this, vast like this. And yet the minds of ordinary beings fall into wrong views, are covered over by ignorance, raise up high the banner of pride, enter into the net of thirsting craving, and walk in the dense thicket of flattery and deceit, unable to get themselves out; their minds accord with stinginess and envy and will not let them go, and they ceaselessly fashion the causes and conditions for taking birth among the destinies. Greed, hatred, and delusion accumulate deeds that grow by day and by night; with the wind of wrath and resentment they fan the fire of mind and consciousness so that it blazes without ceasing; and every deed they do accords with what is upside down. The flood of desire, the flood of existence, the flood of ignorance, and the flood of views raise up, one upon another, the seeds of mind, intellect, and consciousness, and in the field of the three realms the shoot of suffering springs up once again.
所謂：名色共生不離，此名色增長，生六處聚落，於中相對生觸，觸故生受，因受生愛，愛增長故生取，取增長故生有，有生故有生老死憂悲苦惱。如是眾生生長苦聚，是中皆空，離我、我所，無知、無覺，無作、無受，如草木石壁，亦如影像；然諸眾生不覺不知。』
That is to say: name-and-form arise together and are not parted; this name-and-form grows and gives birth to the village of the six sense-fields; within it, upon meeting, contact is born; because of contact, feeling is born; from feeling, craving is born; because craving grows, grasping is born; because grasping grows, becoming is born; and because becoming is born, there is birth, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, suffering, and distress. In just this way do beings grow a heap of suffering — and within it all is empty, apart from a self and from what belongs to a self, without knowing and without awareness, without a doer and without one who undergoes, like grass and trees, like stones and walls, and like a reflected image as well; yet beings neither awaken to this nor know it.'
菩薩見諸眾生於如是苦聚不得出離，是故即生大悲智慧。復作是念：『此諸眾生我應救拔，置於究竟安樂之處。』是故即生大慈光明智。
The bodhisattva, seeing that beings cannot get free of such a heap of suffering as this, at once gives rise to the wisdom of great compassion. And they think further: 'These beings I ought to rescue and draw out, and set them in the place of ultimate peace and ease.' And so they at once give rise to the radiant wisdom of great loving-kindness.
"The village of the six sense-fields" (六處聚落) is a striking choice of image for what is usually rendered flatly as a link in a chain. A village is somewhere one lives — settled, populated, ordinary. The six senses are not described as a mechanism here but as a place people take up residence in, which is why contact happens there "upon meeting", as neighbors meet.
The passage ends by pulling the ground out from under everything it has just described. The heap of suffering is real enough to be grown, and it is also empty — no self in it, no knower, no doer, no one who undergoes, as inert as stone or a reflection. Both halves are held. The suffering is not denied by the emptiness, and the emptiness is not softened by the suffering.
Note what compassion is made of here. The bodhisattva does not respond to the suffering alone, but to the last clause — that beings neither awaken to this nor know it. What draws out compassion is the not-knowing, and the sūtra names its result 大悲智慧, the wisdom of great compassion, as though seeing clearly and being moved were the same act.
Part 408 Complete
This continues the First Ground of the Ten Grounds chapter. Chapter 26 continues in Part 409 as compassion and loving-kindness issue in practice — the great giving of one who abides on the first ground, withholding nothing at all, down to the body itself — and then the chain of qualities that follows from it, from tirelessness through knowledge of the treatises and worldly wisdom to the ten dharmas that purify the grounds.