A Single Line of Dharma
Part 422 ended by finding that everything rests on learning. Here the sūtra says what learning is worth, and the accounting is extreme — one unheard line against a world packed with treasure, against a wheel-turning throne, against the station of Śakra held for a hundred thousand kalpas. Then the absorptions, entered one after another, and a final clause that quietly declines to enjoy any of them.
What It Is Worth
The passage works by exchange rates. Each thing the bodhisattva would gladly forgo is more valuable than the last, and what is set against all of them stays the same size — one line, one verse.
菩薩如是勤求佛法，所有珍財皆無吝惜，不見有物難得可重，但於能說佛法之人生難遭想。是故，菩薩於內外財，為求佛法悉能捨施。無有恭敬而不能行，無有憍慢而不能捨，無有承事而不能作，無有勤苦而不能受。
The bodhisattva, seeking the Buddha's Dharma with such diligence, begrudges none of their precious wealth; they see no possession as hard to obtain or worth prizing, and reserve the thought of a rare encounter for the person able to speak the Buddha's Dharma. And so, for the sake of seeking the Buddha's Dharma, the bodhisattva is able to give away every possession, inward and outward alike. There is no reverence they cannot perform, no arrogance they cannot cast off, no service they cannot render, and no hardship they cannot bear.
若聞一句未曾聞法，生大歡喜，勝得三千大千世界滿中珍寶；若聞一偈未聞正法，生大歡喜，勝得轉輪聖王位；若得一偈未曾聞法，能淨菩薩行，勝得帝釋梵王位住無量百千劫。
Should they hear a single line of Dharma they have never heard before, they give rise to a great joy, greater than had they gained a three-thousandfold great thousand world filled with precious treasure. Should they hear a single verse of the true Dharma they have not heard, they give rise to a great joy, greater than had they gained the throne of a wheel-turning sage king. And should they obtain a single unheard verse able to purify the bodhisattva's practice, that is greater than gaining the station of Śakra or of a Brahmā king and holding it for measureless hundreds of thousands of kalpas.
若有人言：『我有一句佛所說法，能淨菩薩行。汝今若能入大火阬，受極大苦，當以相與。』菩薩爾時作如是念：『我以一句佛所說法，淨菩薩行故，假使三千大千世界大火滿中，尚欲從於梵天之上投身而下，親自受取，況小火阬而不能入！然我今者為求佛法，應受一切地獄眾苦，何況人中諸小苦惱！』
Should someone say: "I have a single line of Dharma spoken by the Buddha, able to purify the bodhisattva's practice. If you can now enter a great pit of fire and undergo the most extreme suffering, I shall give it to you" — the bodhisattva at that moment thinks thus: 'For the sake of a single line of Dharma spoken by the Buddha, by which the bodhisattva's practice is purified, even were the three-thousandfold great thousand world filled with fire, I would still wish to throw myself down from above the Brahmā heaven and receive it in person — how much less could I fail to enter a small fire pit! And since I now seek the Buddha's Dharma, I ought to undergo all the sufferings of the hells — how much more so these slight torments among humans!'
菩薩如是發勤精進求於佛法，如其所聞觀察修行。此菩薩得聞法已，攝心安住，於空閑處作是思惟：『如說修行乃得佛法，非但口言而可清淨。』
The bodhisattva, giving rise to diligent effort in seeking the Buddha's Dharma in this way, contemplates and practices it just as they have heard it. Having heard the Dharma, this bodhisattva gathers in their mind and abides securely, and in a place of solitude considers thus: 'It is by practicing as it is taught that the Buddha's Dharma is obtained; it is not by words of the mouth alone that one can be made pure.'
但於能說佛法之人生難遭想 — they reserve the thought of a rare encounter for the person able to speak the Buddha's Dharma. The sentence has an exact structure: nothing is treated as 難得, hard to obtain, except a teacher. Rarity is not abolished as a category; it is moved. What everyone else regards as precious becomes ordinary, and a person who can say something true becomes the scarce thing.
The fire-pit exchange is not a test the bodhisattva passes but an argument they make about scale, and the argument runs the wrong way round on purpose. A world filled with fire is worse than a pit, and being thrown into it from the Brahmā heaven worse still — and that is the case they say they would accept, so that the pit becomes trivially small by comparison. The rhetorical move is the same one 何況 has been making throughout the Ten Grounds.
The closing sentence is the corrective that keeps the whole passage from being about acquisition. Having established that a line of Dharma outweighs a world, the bodhisattva goes to a quiet place and observes that hearing it is not what purifies. 非但口言而可清淨 — not by words of the mouth alone.
The Absorptions, and No Delight in Them
The eight attainments are given in their standard sequence, each one entered by leaving behind what the previous one still held — thought, joy, bliss, form, space, consciousness, and finally nothingness itself. The last sentence changes what all of it means.
「佛子！是菩薩住此發光地時，即離欲惡不善法，有覺有觀，離生喜樂，住初禪；滅覺觀，內淨一心，無覺無觀，定生喜樂，住第二禪；離喜住捨，有念正知，身受樂，諸聖所說能捨有念受樂，住第三禪；斷樂，先除苦喜憂滅，不苦不樂，捨念清淨，住第四禪；
"Child of the Buddha! When this bodhisattva abides on this Luminous Ground, they at once become free of desire and of unwholesome, evil dharmas; with thought and examination, filled with the joy and bliss born of seclusion, they abide in the first dhyāna. Extinguishing thought and examination, inwardly purified and unified, without thought and without examination, filled with the joy and bliss born of concentration, they abide in the second dhyāna. Leaving joy behind and abiding in equanimity, with mindfulness and right knowing, experiencing bliss in the body — that of which the noble ones speak as being able to relinquish, to be mindful, and to dwell in bliss — they abide in the third dhyāna. Cutting off bliss, having already removed suffering and extinguished gladness and grief, neither suffering nor blissful, with equanimity and mindfulness made pure, they abide in the fourth dhyāna.
超一切色想，滅有對想，不念種種想，入無邊虛空，住虛空無邊處；超一切虛空無邊處，入無邊識，住識無邊處；超一切識無邊處，入無少所有，住無所有處；超一切無所有處，住非有想非無想處。但隨順法故，行而無所樂著。
Passing beyond every perception of form, extinguishing the perception of resistance, giving no thought to perceptions of manifold difference, they enter boundless space and abide in the sphere of infinite space. Passing beyond the whole sphere of infinite space, they enter boundless consciousness and abide in the sphere of infinite consciousness. Passing beyond the whole sphere of infinite consciousness, they enter what has not the least thing within it and abide in the sphere of nothingness. Passing beyond the whole sphere of nothingness, they abide in the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. But because they act only in accord with the Dharma, they practice these while taking no delight or attachment in them at all.
但隨順法故，行而無所樂著 — because they act only in accord with the Dharma, they practice these while taking no delight or attachment in them at all. Everything before this sentence is shared with practitioners of every school; the sentence is what makes it a bodhisattva's. These states are famously pleasant, and the third ground has just spent its opening pages establishing that pleasant conditioned states are what the bodhisattva is turning away from. The absorptions are not exempted from that finding — they are entered anyway, and not enjoyed.
Read against the chain in Part 422, the placement makes sense. Meditative absorption was the fourth link from the bottom, and everything above it depended on the discernment it makes possible. The bodhisattva does not cultivate these states for what they feel like; they cultivate them because the wisdom that delivers beings cannot be had apart from them.
Part 423 Complete
This continues Prabhākarī, the third of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 424 as the bodhisattva's mind follows loving-kindness — vast, measureless, non-dual, without enemy or opponent, reaching everywhere throughout the dharma-realm — and compassion, joy, and equanimity likewise; after which they attain measureless spiritual power, able to shake the earth, to pass through rock and mountain as through open space, and to hear every sound however near or far.