Every Sound, and Every Mind
The absorptions of Part 423 produce their consequences. First the four immeasurables, stated in a single compressed sentence. Then the powers — and what is striking about the sūtra's list is how much of it is about attention rather than force. The hearing reaches down to a gnat; the knowing reaches into what a person has not said; the memory reaches back through kalpas to what one ate.
Loving-Kindness, and the Powers
The four immeasurables get one sentence, and the sūtra spends it entirely on the first, letting the other three follow by a single clause. The powers that come after are the classical list, and they run from moving mountains to touching the sun.
「佛子！此菩薩心隨於慈，廣大無量不二，無怨無對，無障無惱，遍至一切處，盡法界、虛空界，遍一切世間；住悲、喜、捨亦復如是。
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva's mind follows loving-kindness — vast, measureless, and non-dual, without enemy and without opponent, without obstruction and without torment — reaching everywhere throughout the whole dharma-realm and the realm of empty space, pervading every world. And their abiding in compassion, in joy, and in equanimity is likewise.
「佛子！此菩薩得無量神通力，能動大地；以一身為多身，多身為一身，或隱或顯；石壁山障，所往無礙，猶如虛空；於虛空中跏趺而去，同於飛鳥；入地如水，履水如地；身出煙焰，如大火聚；復雨於水，猶如大雲；日月在空，有大威力，而能以手捫摸摩觸；其身自在，乃至梵世。
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva attains measureless spiritual power. They are able to shake the great earth; to make one body into many bodies and many bodies into one; to be hidden or to be manifest; to go through rock walls and mountain barriers without obstruction, as though through empty space; to travel cross-legged through open space, like a bird in flight; to enter earth as though it were water and to walk on water as though it were earth; to send smoke and flame from the body, like a great mass of fire, and to rain down water, like a great cloud. Though the sun and moon stand in the sky and possess great majestic power, they are able to touch and stroke them with the hand; and their body is sovereign, on up to the Brahmā world.
無怨無對 — without enemy and without opponent. The two words are doing different work. An enemy is someone one is set against; an opponent is anyone standing on the other side of something, whether hostility is involved or not. Loving-kindness described this way is not merely the absence of ill will but the absence of any facing-across at all, which is what 不二, non-dual, has already said in the previous clause.
The list of powers is worth reading for what it treats as equivalent. Passing through a mountain and touching the sun are of a piece with being hidden or manifest — none of them is presented as more remarkable than the others, and no reaction is recorded. The sūtra's tone here is that of an inventory, and the effect is to make the capacities sound like consequences rather than achievements.
Hearing, Knowing, Remembering
The remaining three powers in this Part are all forms of taking something in. Each is stated with a limit case that shows its reach — the smallest sound, the finest distinction between two states of mind, and the most trivial detail of a life lived kalpas ago.
此菩薩天耳清淨過於人耳，悉聞人、天若近若遠所有音聲，乃至蚊蚋、虻蠅等聲亦悉能聞。
This bodhisattva's divine ear is pure, surpassing the human ear: they hear every sound of humans and of gods, whether near or far — down to the sounds of gnats and midges, of horseflies and houseflies, all of which they are able to hear as well.
此菩薩以他心智，如實而知他眾生心。所謂：有貪心，如實知有貪心；離貪心，如實知離貪心；有瞋心、離瞋心，有癡心、離癡心，有煩惱心、無煩惱心，小心、廣心，大心、無量心，略心、非略心，散心、非散心，定心、非定心，解脫心、非解脫心，有上心、無上心，雜染心、非雜染心，廣心、非廣心，皆如實知。菩薩如是以他心智知眾生心。
By the knowledge of others' minds, this bodhisattva knows the minds of other beings as they truly are. That is to say: a mind with greed they know truly as a mind with greed; a mind free of greed they know truly as a mind free of greed; and likewise a mind with hatred and a mind free of hatred, a mind with delusion and a mind free of delusion, a mind with afflictions and a mind without afflictions, a narrow mind and a broad mind, a great mind and a measureless mind, a contracted mind and a mind not contracted, a scattered mind and a mind not scattered, a concentrated mind and a mind not concentrated, a liberated mind and a mind not liberated, a mind with something above it and a mind with nothing above it, a defiled mind and a mind undefiled, a broad mind and a mind not broad — all of these they know as they truly are. Thus does the bodhisattva know the minds of beings by the knowledge of others' minds.
此菩薩念知無量宿命差別，所謂：『念知一生，念知二生、三生、四生，乃至十生、二十、三十，乃至百生、無量百生、無量千生、無量百千生，成劫、壞劫、成壞劫、無量成壞劫，我曾在某處，如是名，如是姓，如是種族，如是飲食，如是壽命，如是久住，如是苦樂。我於彼死，生於某處，從某處死，生於此處，如是形狀，如是相貌，如是言音。』如是過去無量差別，皆能憶念。
This bodhisattva recollects and knows the measureless differences of past lives — that is to say: 'I recollect and know one life; I recollect and know two lives, three lives, four lives, on up to ten lives, twenty, thirty, on up to a hundred lives, measureless hundreds of lives, measureless thousands of lives, measureless hundreds of thousands of lives; kalpas of formation, kalpas of dissolution, kalpas of formation and dissolution, and measureless kalpas of formation and dissolution. I was once in such a place, with such a name, such a surname, such a family, such food, such a lifespan, dwelling for so long, with such suffering and such pleasure. I died there and was born in such a place; from such a place I died and was born here, with such a form, such an appearance, and such a voice.' All the measureless differences of the past, in this way, they are able to recall.
The divine ear is defined by its floor rather than its ceiling. What proves it is not that gods can be heard but that gnats can. A power of hearing demonstrated by very large or very distant sounds would be a matter of range; this one is a matter of not filtering, which is a different faculty entirely.
The list of minds known is built almost entirely of pairs, and the pairs are not all moral. Greed, hatred, delusion, and defilement have obvious valences; contracted and scattered, concentrated and unconcentrated, narrow and broad do not. The bodhisattva is not described as detecting faults in people. They are described as knowing what condition a mind is actually in — which is what would be needed by someone who has undertaken to meet each being 隨其所習, according to what they are accustomed to.
And the recollection of past lives ends in domestic detail: a name, a surname, a family, what was eaten, how long it lasted, whether it was pleasant. After lists that run to measureless hundreds of thousands of lives, what is actually recalled is the texture of ordinary living. The vastness is in the number of them, not in their contents.
Part 424 Complete
This continues Prabhākarī, the third of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 425 with the divine eye, which sees beings dying and being born, of fair or ugly form, bound for good or evil destinies according to their deeds — and then a detail that matters more than any of the powers: this bodhisattva can enter and leave every absorption at will, and yet does not take rebirth by the force of those attainments, choosing instead, by the power of intention, to be born wherever the factors of awakening can be fulfilled.