The Third Ground Complete
The verse finishes what Part 426 began. Having established that the whole ground rests on hearing, it now prices that hearing — against a kingdom, against the body, against the fire. And it makes a judgment the prose never quite stated outright: of everything the bodhisattva gives up, the giving is not what is difficult. With this, fascicle thirty-five ends.
Not the Hard Part
Two stanzas of giving, escalating in the way the Ten Grounds always escalates — possessions, then household, then the body itself. And then a line that turns the whole sequence around.
國城財貝諸珍寶，妻子眷屬及王位，菩薩為法起敬心，如是一切皆能捨。
頭目耳鼻舌牙齒，手足骨髓心血肉，此等皆捨未為難，但以聞法為最難。
Realms and cities, wealth and coin and every precious treasure, wife and children, retinue, and the royal throne — the bodhisattva, out of reverence for the Dharma, is able to give away all of these. Head and eyes, ears and nose, tongue and teeth, hands and feet, marrow, heart, blood and flesh — to give away even these is not the hard thing; it is the hearing of the Dharma that is hardest of all.
設有人來語菩薩：『孰能投身大火聚，我當與汝佛法寶！』聞已投之無怯懼。
假使火滿三千界，身從梵世而投入，為求法故不為難，況復人間諸小苦！
從初發意至得佛，其間所有阿鼻苦，為聞法故皆能受，何況人中諸苦事！
Should someone come and say to the bodhisattva, "Whoever can throw himself into a great mass of fire, to him shall I give the treasure of the Buddha's Dharma!" — hearing it, they throw themselves in without fear. Even were fire to fill the three-thousandfold world, and they had to cast themselves down into it from the Brahmā realm, for the sake of seeking the Dharma this would not be hard — how much less the slight sufferings of the human world! From the first arousing of the intention until buddhahood is gained, whatever suffering of Avīci lies between, for the sake of hearing the Dharma they can bear all of it — how much more the painful things among humans!
此等皆捨未為難，但以聞法為最難 — to give away even these is not the hard thing; it is the hearing of the Dharma that is hardest of all. The line rewards a second reading, because the obvious sense is not quite the one that fits. It is not saying that hearing costs more than a body. It is saying that the giving, however extreme, is the easy half of the transaction — and that what is genuinely difficult is the thing being bought.
Which is consistent with everything the third ground has said. Part 421 opened by finding the conditioned world hollow, so parting with any of it costs a bodhisattva on this ground very little. What remains hard is what always was: actually receiving a teaching, and being changed by it. The body is only what one pays.
Prabhākarī Closes
The last four stanzas gather up the ground in order — what hearing produces, what the buddhas give, where the bodhisattva is born, and what they attain there — before Vajragarbha sets it down.
聞已如理正思惟，獲得四禪無色定，四等五通次第起，不隨其力而受生。
菩薩住此見多佛，供養聽聞心決定，斷諸邪惑轉清淨，如鍊真金體無減。
Having heard, they rightly consider it as it truly is, and obtain the four dhyānas and the formless concentrations; the four immeasurables and the five spiritual powers arise in due order — and they do not take rebirth by the force of these. A bodhisattva abiding here sees many buddhas, makes offerings and listens, and their mind becomes resolute; cutting off every wrong confusion, they grow purer still — as true gold refined loses nothing of its substance.
住此多作忉利王，化導無量諸天眾，令捨貪心住善道，一向專求佛功德。
佛子住此勤精進，百千三昧皆具足，見百千佛相嚴身，若以願力復過是。
一切眾生普利益，彼諸菩薩最上行，如是所有第三地，我依其義已解釋。」
Abiding here they most often become a king of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven, guiding and transforming measureless hosts of gods, causing them to give up the mind of craving and abide in the good path, single-mindedly seeking the merit of a buddha. A child of the Buddha abiding here practices with diligent effort and is fully endowed with a hundred thousand samādhis; they behold a hundred thousand buddhas, their bodies adorned with the marks — and by the power of vows, more even than this. Universally benefiting all sentient beings — such is the highest practice of those bodhisattvas; and such is the whole of the third ground, which I have now explained according to its meaning."
The verse compresses the third ground's refusal into four characters — 不隨其力而受生 — and places it directly after the list of what has just been attained. Four dhyānas, four formless states, four immeasurables, five powers: an inventory that would define a whole religious life elsewhere, and the very next clause declines its natural consequence.
如鍊真金體無減 — as true gold refined loses nothing of its substance. The verse's phrasing differs slightly from the prose's 稱兩不減, weight not diminished, and says the same thing about a different quantity. Across three grounds the goldsmith has now been used three ways: fire that burns away, alum that draws out, and refinement that costs the gold nothing. The progression is not about better methods. It is about a reader gradually being told that nothing real was ever at risk.
Vajragarbha's closing formula is worth comparing with the first ground's. There he said he had given 少分, a small portion, and that koṭis of kalpas could not exhaust the telling. Here he says only 我依其義已解釋 — I have explained it according to its meaning. The apology has quietly dropped away, though nothing about the difficulty has changed.
Fascicle 35 Complete
This completes fascicle thirty-five, which carried two of the Ten Grounds in full — Vimalā, the Ground Free of Defilement, and Prabhākarī, the Luminous Ground. Chapter 26 continues in fascicle thirty-six with 十地品第二十六之三, opening the fourth ground, Arciṣmatī, the Blazing Ground (焰慧地), which is entered by ten gateways of Dharma-illumination — contemplating the realm of beings, the dharma-realm, the world, space, consciousness, and the realms of desire, form, and formlessness — after which ten kinds of wisdom bring the bodhisattva to birth in the family of the Tathāgata.