The Blazing Ground Opens
Fascicle thirty-six begins, and the assembly's response has grown physical — the earth shakes, the oceans move, goddesses sing, and a deva king rains jewels. Then the fourth ground, and its character declares itself immediately. Where the third ground looked and the second disciplined, Arciṣmatī works, taking up the oldest and most practical training in Buddhism.
The Fourth Ground
The praise this time comes from a deva king rather than from the bodhisattvas, and what he says about the teaching is worth noting — not that it is profound, but that it is rare, and that he has come by it unexpectedly.
第四地
佛子聞此廣大行，可樂深妙殊勝地，心皆踊悅大歡喜，普散眾華供養佛。
演說如是妙法時，大地海水皆震動，一切天女咸歡喜，悉吐妙音同讚歎。
自在天王大欣慶，雨摩尼寶供養佛，讚言：「佛為我出興，演說第一功德行。
如是智者諸地義，於百千劫甚難得，我今忽然而得聞，菩薩勝行妙法音。
願更演說聰慧者，後地決定無餘道，利益一切諸天人，此諸佛子皆樂聞！」
The Fourth Ground
The children of the Buddha, hearing of this vast practice, of a ground delightful, profound, wondrous and surpassing, were exultant and greatly joyful in mind, and scattered flowers everywhere as an offering to the Buddha. While such a wondrous Dharma was being expounded, the great earth and the ocean waters all shook; every goddess rejoiced, and each sent forth a wondrous voice, praising together. The Sovereign Deva King, greatly delighted, rained down maṇi jewels as an offering to the Buddha, and praised him, saying: "The Buddha has arisen in the world for our sake, expounding the foremost practice of merit. The meaning of these grounds, taught by one so wise, is exceedingly hard to come by in a hundred thousand kalpas; and now, all at once, I have come to hear it — the wondrous Dharma-sound of the bodhisattva's supreme practice. We beg you, keen and wise one, to expound yet further the grounds that follow, the path resolved and without remainder, for the benefit of all gods and humans — these children of the Buddha all delight to hear it!"
勇猛大心解脫月，請金剛藏言：
「佛子！從此轉入第四地，所有行相願宣說！」
Vimuktacandra, valorous and of great mind, made request of Vajragarbha, saying:
"Child of the Buddha! We beg you to proclaim all the characteristics of practice by which one passes on from here into the fourth ground!"
爾時，金剛藏菩薩告解脫月菩薩言：「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩第三地善清淨已，欲入第四焰慧地，當修行十法明門。何等為十？所謂觀察眾生界、觀察法界、觀察世界、觀察虛空界、觀察識界、觀察欲界、觀察色界、觀察無色界、觀察廣心信解界、觀察大心信解界。菩薩以此十法明門，得入第四焰慧地。
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva said to Vimuktacandra Bodhisattva: "Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva who has well purified the third ground and wishes to enter the fourth, Arciṣmatī, the Blazing Ground, should cultivate ten gateways of Dharma-illumination. What are the ten? Namely: contemplating the realm of sentient beings, contemplating the dharma-realm, contemplating the world, contemplating the realm of empty space, contemplating the realm of consciousness, contemplating the realm of desire, contemplating the realm of form, contemplating the formless realm, contemplating the realm of faith and understanding in a broad mind, and contemplating the realm of faith and understanding in a great mind. By these ten gateways of Dharma-illumination a bodhisattva gains entry into the fourth ground, Arciṣmatī, the Blazing Ground.
The ten gateways are all one verb — 觀察, contemplating — applied to progressively less object-like objects. Beings, then the dharma-realm, then the world, then space, then consciousness; then the three realms of existence; and finally, twice, the realm of someone's faith and understanding. That last pair is the surprise. A person's own capacity to trust and comprehend is treated here as a domain to be examined, on the same footing as space and the world.
The deva king's praise contains a phrase easy to pass over: 我今忽然而得聞 — now, all at once, I have come to hear it. He does not claim to have earned this or sought it. Having just said the teaching is scarcely obtainable in a hundred thousand kalpas, he reports simply that it happened to him, unexpectedly, which is the accurate description of most encounters with anything that matters.
Ten Wisdoms, and the Fourfold Watching
The ten wisdoms are what qualify a bodhisattva for birth in the family of the Tathāgata. Then the ground turns to work that any practitioner in any Buddhist tradition would recognize — the four foundations of mindfulness, laid out in full, each in its inner, outer, and inner-and-outer form.
「佛子！菩薩住此焰慧地，則能以十種智成熟法故，得彼內法，生如來家。何等為十？所謂：深心不退故；於三寶中生淨信，畢竟不壞故；觀諸行生滅故；觀諸法自性無生故；觀世間成壞故；觀因業有生故；觀生死涅槃故；觀眾生國土業故；觀前際後際故；觀無所有盡故。是為十。
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this Blazing Ground, by means of ten kinds of wisdom that ripen the Dharma, obtains that inner Dharma and is born into the family of the Tathāgata. What are the ten? Namely: because the profound mind does not turn back; because pure faith is given rise to in the Three Jewels and is in the end never broken; because they contemplate the arising and ceasing of all formations; because they contemplate the own-nature of all dharmas as unarisen; because they contemplate the forming and the dissolving of worlds; because they contemplate that birth comes to be through the cause of deeds; because they contemplate birth-and-death and nirvāṇa; because they contemplate the deeds of beings and of lands; because they contemplate the earlier limit and the later limit; and because they contemplate that there is nothing at all, and exhaustion. These are the ten.
佛子！菩薩住此第四地，觀內身循身觀，勤勇念知，除世間貪憂；觀外身循身觀，勤勇念知，除世間貪憂；觀內外身循身觀，勤勇念知，除世間貪憂；如是，觀內受、外受、內外受循受觀，觀內心、外心、內外心循心觀，觀內法、外法、內外法循法觀，勤勇念知，除世間貪憂。
Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this fourth ground contemplates the inner body as body, diligent and valorous, mindful and knowing, removing covetousness and grief for the world; contemplates the outer body as body, diligent and valorous, mindful and knowing, removing covetousness and grief for the world; contemplates the inner and outer body as body, diligent and valorous, mindful and knowing, removing covetousness and grief for the world. And so likewise they contemplate inner feelings, outer feelings, and inner and outer feelings as feelings; contemplate the inner mind, the outer mind, and the inner and outer mind as mind; and contemplate inner dharmas, outer dharmas, and inner and outer dharmas as dharmas — diligent and valorous, mindful and knowing, removing covetousness and grief for the world.
The last of the ten wisdoms, 觀無所有盡, is the hardest to render and the most characteristic of this chapter. It sets two things side by side — that there is nothing at all, and exhaustion — and declines to resolve them into a single statement. The preceding nine have all been about how things work; this one is about their not being there to work.
What follows is the four foundations of mindfulness, and their appearance here is the significant fact. This is the oldest and plainest practice in the tradition, taught to beginners, and it arrives on the fourth of ten bodhisattva grounds — after the absorptions, the divine eye, the knowledge of others' minds, and a hundred thousand samādhis. The sequence is not an accident. What a beginner is given to do and what a bodhisattva of the fourth ground does are the same thing, and the difference is entirely in what the doing rests on.
循身觀 — contemplating the body as body. The construction insists on the object being taken as itself and not as something else: not the body as mine, not the body as attractive or repellent, but simply the body, watched. Everything the third ground established about the hollowness of the conditioned is what makes that plain seeing possible.
Part 428 Complete
This opens Arciṣmatī, the Blazing Ground, fourth of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 429 as the training continues through the remaining factors of awakening — the four right efforts, rousing effort so that unarisen evil does not arise and arisen good is not lost; the four bases of spiritual power, each resting on disenchantment, dispassion, and cessation and turning toward relinquishment; and then the five faculties and the five powers, given in the same form.