Letting Go of the View of Self
The training of Part 429 produces its effect, and the effect is a subtraction — everything that the view of the body leads with, gone. What replaces it is described in three lists, and the most striking passage in the Part is the shortest and least grand of them, a handful of clauses about being good to live with.
What Is Parted From, and What Follows
The view of the body is named as the head of the whole procession, and everything that follows it goes with it. Then the criterion for what to do next is set out with unusual bluntness — not by principle, but by what the Buddha has censured and praised.
「佛子！菩薩住此焰慧地，所有身見為首，我、人、眾生、壽命、蘊、界、處所起執著，出沒思惟；觀察治故，我所故，財物故，著處故，於如是等一切皆離。此菩薩若見業是如來所訶、煩惱所染，皆悉捨離；若見業是順菩薩道、如來所讚，皆悉修行。
"Child of the Buddha! For a bodhisattva abiding on this Blazing Ground, everything that the view of the body leads with — all clinging that arises toward a self, a person, a being, a life-span, toward the aggregates, the elements, and the sense-fields, and the thinking that rises and sinks along with it; whether by way of contemplation and its remedy, or as what is mine, or as goods and property, or as a place of attachment — from all such things as these they part entirely. If this bodhisattva sees that a deed is one the Tathāgata has censured, or is stained by the afflictions, they abandon it completely; and if they see that a deed accords with the bodhisattva path and is one the Tathāgata has praised, they practice it completely.
「佛子！此菩薩隨所起方便慧，修習於道及助道分，如是而得潤澤心、柔軟心、調順心、利益安樂心、無雜染心、求上上勝法心、求殊勝智慧心、救一切世間心、恭敬尊德無違教命心、隨所聞法皆善修行心。
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva, according with the skillful wisdom that has arisen in them, cultivates the path and the aids to the path, and thereby obtains a mind of moisture, a gentle mind, a mind attuned and compliant, a mind of benefit and ease, a mind free of defilement, a mind that seeks the ever higher and more surpassing Dharma, a mind that seeks surpassing wisdom, a mind that would rescue all the world, a mind that reveres the honored and virtuous and never disobeys their instruction, and a mind that well practices whatever Dharma it has heard.
此菩薩知恩、知報恩，心極和善，同住安樂，質直柔軟，無稠林行，無有我慢，善受教誨，得說者意。
This bodhisattva knows kindness and knows how to repay it; their mind is exceedingly harmonious and good; they are easy to live alongside, straightforward and gentle; they walk in no dense thicket; they hold no conceit; they receive instruction well, and they grasp the intent of the one who speaks.
身見為首 — the view of the body leads. The image is of a procession with a head, and everything named after it is retinue: self, person, being, life-span, then the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields, then the mine-making, the property, the places one attaches to. The sūtra does not list these as separate faults to be worked on individually. Remove what leads and the file behind it has nothing to follow.
The short passage about character is the one worth stopping at. After the thirty-seven factors of awakening, the absorptions, and the spiritual powers, the sūtra pauses to say that this person is pleasant company — 同住安樂, at ease to live alongside — that they are teachable, and that they understand what a speaker actually meant. 得說者意, grasping the intent of the one who speaks, is a small and entirely social competence, and it is placed here as an achievement of the fourth bodhisattva ground.
無稠林行 — walking in no dense thicket — reuses the image the sūtra has been applying to beings caught in wrong views and afflictions since Part 417. Here it describes a person's manner: no undergrowth in them, nothing tangled to get lost in. What was a description of a predicament has become a description of character.
Ten Kinds of Effort
Patience, pliancy, and quiescence accomplished, the bodhisattva turns toward the grounds still ahead — and what that turning produces is effort, named ten ways. The last of the ten is not about exertion at all.
此菩薩如是忍成就，如是調柔成就，如是寂滅成就，如是忍、調柔、寂滅成就；淨治後地業，作意修行時，得不休息精進、不雜染精進、不退轉精進、廣大精進、無邊精進、熾然精進、無等等精進、無能壞精進、成熟一切眾生精進、善分別道非道精進。
This bodhisattva, having thus accomplished patience, thus accomplished pliancy, thus accomplished quiescence — having thus accomplished patience, pliancy, and quiescence together — while purifying the work of the grounds that follow, and directing the mind to practice, attains effort that does not rest, effort undefiled, effort that does not turn back, effort vast, effort boundless, effort blazing, effort peerless, effort that cannot be destroyed, effort that ripens all beings, and effort that discerns well what is the path and what is not.
是菩薩心界清淨，深心不失，悟解明利，善根增長，離世垢濁，斷諸疑惑，明斷具足，喜樂充滿，佛親護念，無量志樂皆悉成就。
This bodhisattva's realm of mind is pure; the profound mind is not lost; their awakening and understanding are bright and keen; their wholesome roots increase; they are apart from the world's stain and turbidity; every doubt and confusion is cut off; clarity and decision are complete; delight and joy fill them; the buddhas themselves hold them in mind and guard them; and measureless aspirations are all accomplished.
「佛子！菩薩住此焰慧地，以願力故，得見多佛。所謂：見多百佛，見多千佛，見多百千佛，乃至見多百千億那由他佛。皆恭敬尊重，承事供養，衣服、臥具、飲食、湯藥，一切資生悉以奉施，亦以供養一切眾僧，以此善根皆悉迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。於彼佛所，恭敬聽法，聞已受持，具足修行。復於彼諸佛法中出家修道，又更修治深心信解，經無量百千億那由他劫，令諸善根轉復明淨。
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this Blazing Ground, by the power of vows, comes to see many buddhas. That is to say: they see many hundreds of buddhas, see many thousands of buddhas, see many hundreds of thousands of buddhas, on up to seeing many hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of buddhas. All of them they revere and honor, attend upon and make offerings to — robes, bedding, food and drink, and medicinal broths, every requisite of life presented as a gift — and they make offerings to the whole Saṅgha as well, dedicating all these wholesome roots to unsurpassed, perfect awakening. In the presence of those buddhas they listen reverently to the Dharma, and having heard it they receive and uphold it, practicing it in full. Moreover, within the Dharma of those buddhas they go forth and cultivate the path, and cultivate their profound faith and understanding still further; and passing through measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of kalpas, they cause their wholesome roots to grow brighter and purer still.
善分別道非道精進 — effort that discerns well what is the path and what is not. Nine kinds of effort describe how hard, how long, how purely; the tenth describes knowing where to point it. Placed last, it reads as the one that governs the rest, and it answers the failure diagnosed back in Part 418, where the traveller's whole difficulty was taking for the way out what was not the way out. Untiring effort in a wrong direction is what the ninth items of such lists never protect against.
Note the sequence in the opening clause: patience, then pliancy, then quiescence, then all three named again together. The repetition is the sūtra's way of marking that these are not three achievements but one condition described three ways — and it is that condition, not the effort, that comes first.
Part 430 Complete
This continues Arciṣmatī, the fourth of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 431 with two similes for what this ground's wholesome roots are like — gold that a goldsmith has worked into ornaments, which no other gold can match, and a maṇi jewel whose ring of pure light no other jewel equals and which no wind or rain can damage — and then which of the means of gathering and which pāramitā predominate here.