Gold Polished with Clam Shell
The fifth ground's goldsmith is no longer purifying or shaping — the gold is finished, and what remains is to bring up its shine. The second simile reaches much further: the lights in the sky, held in place by nothing but moving air, which is exactly why nothing can dislodge them.
Two Similes
Having gone forth and become someone who can hold what they have heard, the bodhisattva stays on this ground for an enormous span. The two images that follow describe what happens to their goodness across it.
復於彼諸佛法中而得出家；既出家已，又更聞法，得陀羅尼，為聞持法師。住此地中，經於百劫，經於千劫，乃至無量百千億那由他劫，所有善根轉更明淨。
Moreover, within the Dharma of those buddhas they go forth; and having gone forth, they hear the Dharma further still, obtain dhāraṇī, and become a Dharma-teacher who has heard and retains. Abiding on this ground for a hundred kalpas, for a thousand kalpas, on up to measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of kalpas, all their wholesome roots grow brighter and purer still.
佛子！譬如真金，以硨磲磨瑩，轉更明淨；此地菩薩所有善根亦復如是，以方便慧思惟觀察，轉更明淨。佛子！菩薩住此難勝地，以方便智成就功德，下地善根所不能及。
Child of the Buddha! It is like true gold polished with clam shell, which grows brighter and purer still; the wholesome roots of a bodhisattva on this ground are likewise — by the wisdom of skillful means they consider and contemplate them, and they grow brighter and purer still. Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this Ground Difficult to Conquer accomplishes merit by the wisdom of skillful means, such as the wholesome roots of the lower grounds cannot match.
佛子！如日月星宿、宮殿光明，風力所持，不可沮壞，亦非餘風所能傾動；此地菩薩所有善根亦復如是，以方便智隨逐觀察，不可沮壞，亦非一切聲聞、獨覺世間善根所能傾動。此菩薩，十波羅蜜中，禪波羅蜜偏多；餘非不修，但隨力隨分。
Child of the Buddha! It is like the light of the palaces of the sun, the moon, and the constellations, which is held up by the force of wind so that it cannot be brought down, nor can any other wind shake it; the wholesome roots of a bodhisattva on this ground are likewise — by the wisdom of skillful means they follow and contemplate them, so that they cannot be brought down, nor can they be shaken by any worldly wholesome roots of the śrāvakas or the pratyekabuddhas. In this bodhisattva, among the ten pāramitās, the pāramitā of meditative absorption predominates. It is not that they fail to cultivate the others, but they do so according to their strength and according to their share.
硨磲磨瑩 — polished with clam shell. Across five grounds the goldsmith's operation has changed each time: fire, alum, refining without loss, working into ornaments, and now burnishing. Nothing is being removed here and nothing added; the gold is finished, and the work is bringing out what it already is. That the abrasive is a shell rather than a tool is part of it — the polish comes from something ordinary and found.
The second simile is the more remarkable, and its logic is easy to miss. 風力所持，不可沮壞，亦非餘風所能傾動 — held up by the force of wind, it cannot be brought down, nor can any other wind shake it. What holds the sun and moon in the sky is not a foundation but a current; and precisely because they rest on moving air rather than on anything fixed, no wind can displace them. Stability here comes from having nothing rigid to break.
Note who is named as unable to shake this bodhisattva: not Māra, not the afflictions, but 一切聲聞、獨覺世間善根 — the worldly wholesome roots of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. The threat this ground has passed beyond is not evil but a smaller good, sincerely pursued. It is the same concern the second and third grounds raised about those content with a lesser vehicle, now stated as something that can no longer move them.
A King of Tuṣita
The station rises to the heaven from which buddhas descend, and its work is stated in a single phrase that gathers up the whole ground — settling beings in what is actually true.
「佛子！是名：略說菩薩摩訶薩第五難勝地。菩薩住此地，多作兜率陀天王，於諸眾生所作自在，摧伏一切外道邪見，能令眾生住實諦中。布施、愛語、利行、同事——如是一切諸所作業，皆不離念佛，不離念法，不離念僧，乃至不離念具足一切種、一切智智。復作是念：『我當於眾生中為首、為勝、為殊勝、為妙、為微妙、為上、為無上，乃至為一切智智依止者。』
"Child of the Buddha! This is called, spoken in brief, the bodhisattva mahāsattva's fifth ground, Sudurjayā, the Ground Difficult to Conquer. A bodhisattva abiding on this ground most often becomes a king of the Tuṣita heaven, sovereign in what they do for beings, crushing every wrong view of the non-Buddhist teachers, and able to settle beings within the real truth. Giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside others — in all such deeds as these they never depart from the recollection of the Buddha, never depart from the recollection of the Dharma, never depart from the recollection of the Saṅgha, and so on up to never departing from the recollection of being fully endowed with all modes and with all-knowing wisdom itself. And they think further: 'Among beings I ought to be the foremost, the best, the most excellent, the wondrous, the subtly wondrous, the superior, the unsurpassed — and so on up to being that upon which all-knowing wisdom itself relies.'
此菩薩若發勤精進，於一念頃，得千億三昧，見千億佛，知千億佛神力，能動千億佛世界，乃至示現千億身，一一身示千億菩薩以為眷屬；若以菩薩殊勝願力自在示現，過於此數，百劫、千劫乃至百千億那由他劫不能數知。」
Should this bodhisattva rouse diligent effort, in the space of a single thought they attain a thousand koṭis of samādhis, see a thousand koṭis of buddhas, know the spiritual power of a thousand koṭis of buddhas, and are able to shake a thousand koṭis of buddha-worlds, and so on up to manifesting a thousand koṭis of bodies, each single body displaying a thousand koṭis of bodhisattvas as its retinue. And if by the surpassing power of a bodhisattva's own vows they display themselves with sovereign freedom, it goes beyond this number — a hundred kalpas, a thousand kalpas, on up to a hundred thousand million nayutas of kalpas could not count it or know it."
能令眾生住實諦中 — able to settle beings within the real truth. This is the fifth ground's station doing the ground's own work, as each station has. Part 434 gave this bodhisattva fourteen truths and then admitted the knowing was still by faith and understanding; what the Tuṣita king does with that knowledge is not proclaim it but settle people in it. The verb is the same one used throughout for establishing beings somewhere they can stand.
And the ground where the truths were learned turns out to have meditative absorption as its predominant pāramitā, not wisdom. The truths of Part 434 were not reached by analysis; 禪 is what made the seeing steady enough for them to be seen.
Part 437 Complete
This continues Sudurjayā, the fifth of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 438, which closes the ground, as Vajragarbha's verse arms the bodhisattva for battle — mindfulness the bow and the faculties its keen arrows, right effort the horse and the bases of power the chariot, the five strengths a firm cuirass — and has them roar the lion's roar of no-self among humankind, breaking the enemy that is the afflictions.