A Hundred Samādhis
The prose exposition of the First Ground ends with what a bodhisattva who goes forth can do in the space of one thought — a hundred of everything, and past all counting if they draw on their vows instead. Vajragarbha then begins again in verse, restating the entire ground from the beginning. The verse is not a summary. It is the same ground said in a form that can be carried.
In the Space of a Single Thought
The passage turns on a conditional — should this bodhisattva wish to leave home. What follows is not a requirement but a description of what becomes available, and the number is the same throughout: a hundred, held steady across twelve different capacities, until the last sentence sets it aside entirely.
是菩薩若欲捨家於佛法中勤行精進，便能捨家、妻子、五欲，依如來教出家學道。既出家已，勤行精進，於一念頃，得百三昧，得見百佛，知百佛神力，能動百佛世界，能過百佛世界，能照百佛世界，能教化百世界眾生，能住壽百劫，能知前後際各百劫事，能入百法門，能示現百身，於一一身能示百菩薩以為眷屬；若以菩薩殊勝願力自在示現，過於是數，百劫、千劫、百千劫，乃至百千億那由他劫不能數知。」
Should this bodhisattva wish to leave the household life and practice with diligent effort within the Buddha's Dharma, they are able to give up home, wife and children, and the five desires, and in reliance on the Tathāgata's teaching to go forth and study the path. Having gone forth, practicing with diligent effort, in the space of a single thought they attain a hundred samādhis, come to see a hundred buddhas, and know the spiritual power of a hundred buddhas; they are able to shake a hundred buddha-worlds, able to pass through a hundred buddha-worlds, able to illumine a hundred buddha-worlds, able to teach and transform the beings of a hundred worlds, able to live for a hundred kalpas, able to know the affairs of a hundred kalpas in each direction, before and after, able to enter a hundred gateways of Dharma, able to manifest a hundred bodies, and in each single body able to display a hundred bodhisattvas as their retinue. And if by the surpassing power of a bodhisattva's own vows they display themselves with sovereign freedom, it goes beyond this number — a hundred kalpas, a thousand kalpas, a hundred thousand kalpas, on up to a hundred thousand million nayutas of kalpas could not count it or know it."
The hundred is doing something specific. Each of the ten grounds closes with this same list, and the number rises ground by ground, so what matters here is not that a hundred is large but that it is the first rung of a scale. The First Ground's attainments are given a definite size — which is precisely what the closing sentence then removes, when vow-power turns a countable hundred into something no length of time could enumerate.
The Ground Restated in Verse
Vajragarbha now goes back to the beginning. The verse retraces the whole ground — the conditions under which the mind is aroused, what it is aroused for, the crossing of the threshold, and the five fears departing — compressing into five-character lines what the prose took many passages to establish.
爾時，金剛藏菩薩欲重宣其義而說頌曰：
「若人集眾善，具足白淨法，供養天人尊，隨順慈悲道，
信解極廣大，志樂亦清淨，為求佛智慧，發此無上心。
淨一切智力，及以無所畏，成就諸佛法，救攝群生眾，
為得大慈悲，及轉勝法輪，嚴淨佛國土，發此最勝心。
一念知三世，而無有分別，種種時不同，以示於世間。
略說求諸佛，一切勝功德，發生廣大心，量等虛空界。
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva, wishing to state this meaning again, spoke in verse, saying:
"If a person gathers every goodness, is fully endowed with the pure white dharmas, makes offerings to the Honored One of gods and humans, and accords with the path of loving-kindness and compassion; if their faith and understanding are utterly vast and their aspiration and delight are pure as well — then, seeking the Buddha's wisdom, they arouse this unsurpassed mind. To purify the powers of all-knowing wisdom and the fearlessnesses as well, to accomplish the dharmas of the buddhas and to rescue and gather in the multitude of beings; to attain great loving-kindness and compassion, to turn the supreme Dharma-wheel, and to adorn and purify a buddha-land — for these they arouse this most supreme mind. To know the three times in a single thought and yet hold no discrimination at all, while the various times differ one from another — thus is it shown to the world. Spoken in brief, seeking every supreme merit of all the buddhas, they give rise to a vast mind whose measure equals the realm of empty space.
悲先慧為主，方便共相應，信解清淨心，如來無量力，
無礙智現前，自悟不由他，具足同如來，發此最勝心。
佛子始發生，如是妙寶心，則超凡夫位，入佛所行處，
生在如來家，種族無瑕玷，與佛共平等，決成無上覺。
Compassion foremost and wisdom as its master, in accord together with skillful means; a mind of faith and understanding made pure, the Tathāgata's measureless power, unobstructed wisdom standing present, awakening for oneself and not by another, complete and the same as the Tathāgata — for this they arouse this most supreme mind. When a child of the Buddha first gives rise to such a wondrous jewel of a mind, they pass beyond the station of the ordinary being and enter the place where the buddhas move; they are born within the family of the Tathāgata, their lineage without flaw or blemish, equal together with the buddhas, certain to accomplish unsurpassed awakening.
纔生如是心，即得入初地，志樂不可動，譬如大山王，
多喜多愛樂，亦復多淨信，極大勇猛心，及以慶躍心，
遠離於鬪諍，惱害及瞋恚，慚敬而質直，善守護諸根，
救世無等者，所有眾智慧，此處我當得，憶念生歡喜。
始得入初地，即超五怖畏，不活死惡名，惡趣眾威德。
以不貪著我，及以於我所，是諸佛子等，遠離諸怖畏。
No sooner has such a mind arisen than they enter the first ground, their aspiration and delight unmovable, like the great king of mountains — abounding in joy, abounding in love and delight, abounding in pure faith as well, with a mind of the utmost valor and a mind of exultation; far removed from quarreling, from doing harm, and from anger; possessed of conscience and reverence, and straightforward; well guarding the faculties. 'Whatever wisdom belongs to the peerless one who saves the world, that shall I attain in this very place' — and recollecting this, joy arises. As soon as they enter the first ground they pass beyond the five fears — of not surviving, of death, of a bad reputation, of the evil destinies, and of an assembly's awesome majesty. Because they neither crave nor cling to a self, nor to what belongs to a self, these children of the Buddha stand far removed from every fear.
常行大慈愍，恒有信恭敬，慚愧功德備，日夜增善法。
樂法真實利，不愛受諸欲，思惟所聞法，遠離取著行。
不貪於利養，唯樂佛菩提，一心求佛智，專精無異念。
修行波羅蜜，遠離諂虛誑，如說而修行，安住實語中。
Constantly practicing great loving-kindness and pity, always possessed of faith and reverence, complete in the merit of conscience, day and night they increase the wholesome dharmas. Delighting in the Dharma's true benefit, they take no pleasure in receiving the desires; pondering the Dharma they have heard, they stand far from the practice of grasping and clinging. They crave neither gain nor support, delighting only in a buddha's awakening; single-mindedly seeking the Buddha's wisdom, wholly concentrated, with no other thought. Cultivating the pāramitās, they stand far from flattery and empty deceit; practicing just as it is taught, they abide securely within truthful speech.
自悟不由他 — awakening for oneself and not by another — sits in the middle of the list of what the supreme mind is aroused from, and it echoes the credential Vimuktacandra named back in Part 401, that this assembly does not take its understanding of the Dharma on anyone's authority. The verse places it alongside the Tathāgata's measureless power without any sense of tension. Being given everything and verifying it oneself are not alternatives here.
The verse's account of the five fears is more compressed than the prose was, and the compression is instructive. Where the prose gave each fear its own reasoning, the verse gives one reason for all five and states it in two lines — no craving for a self, none for what belongs to a self. Five problems and one solution, which is what the prose had been saying at greater length.
Part 412 Complete
This continues the First Ground of the Ten Grounds chapter. Chapter 26 continues in Part 413, which completes both the First Ground and fascicle thirty-four, as the verse runs through the remaining ground — the great vows and their inexhaustibility, the giving that withholds nothing, the goldsmith's fire and the caravan leader once more, the king of Jambudvīpa who gives up his throne — and Vajragarbha closes by saying that he has told only a small portion, and that to expound it fully would take longer than koṭis of kalpas.