The Ground of Direct Presence Opens
Fascicle thirty-seven begins, and the singers this time say something doctrinal. Then the sixth ground, entered not by a practice but by a way of seeing — ten statements that all dharmas are the same, ending in the sūtra's famous run of similes and in a candid note about what this bodhisattva has not yet attained.
The Sixth Ground
The maidens sang about long waiting before the fifth ground. Here they sing about the nature of dharmas, and then compress the six pāramitās into two lines apiece — each one defined by what is understood rather than by what is done.
第六地
菩薩既聞諸勝行，其心歡喜雨妙華，放淨光明散寶珠，供養如來稱善說。
百千天眾皆欣慶，共在空中散眾寶，華鬘瓔珞及幢幡，寶蓋塗香咸供佛。
自在天王并眷屬，心生歡喜住空中，散寶成雲持供養，讚言：「佛子快宣說！」
無量天女空中住，共以樂音歌讚佛，音中悉作如是言：「佛語能除煩惱病。
法性本寂無諸相，猶如虛空不分別，超諸取著絕言道，真實平等常清淨。
若能通達諸法性，於有於無心不動。為欲救世勤修行，此佛口生真佛子。
The Sixth Ground
The bodhisattvas, having heard of these supreme practices, were glad in mind and rained down wondrous flowers; sending out pure radiance and scattering jeweled pearls, they made offerings to the Tathāgata and called it well spoken. A hundred thousand hosts of gods were all delighted; together in open space they scattered every jewel — flower garlands and necklaces, banners and pennants, jeweled canopies and anointing incense — all of it as offerings to the Buddha. The Sovereign Deva King together with his retinue, gladness arising in their minds, stood in open space; scattering jewels that formed into clouds, they held them up as offerings and praised him, saying: "Child of the Buddha, proclaim it, and gladly!" Measureless celestial maidens stood in the air and together sang the Buddha's praises with the sound of music; and within those sounds all these words were made: "The Buddha's words are able to remove the sickness of the afflictions. The nature of dharmas is fundamentally still and without any characteristics; like empty space, it does not discriminate; transcending all grasping and attachment, cutting off the way of words — truly the same, and constantly pure. Whoever is able to penetrate the nature of dharmas, their mind does not stir toward existence or toward non-existence. Wishing to rescue the world, they cultivate diligently — such a one is a true child of the Buddha, born from the Buddha's mouth.
不取眾相而行施，本絕諸惡堅持戒，解法無害常堪忍，知法性離具精進，
已盡煩惱入諸禪，善達性空分別法，具足智力能博濟，滅除眾惡稱大士。」
如是妙音千萬種，讚已默然瞻仰佛。
解脫月語金剛藏：「以何行相入後地？」
Grasping at no characteristics, they practice giving; having cut off every evil at the root, they firmly keep the precepts; understanding that dharmas do no harm, they are constantly patient; knowing the nature of dharmas to be apart, they are complete in effort; having exhausted the afflictions, they enter the absorptions; well penetrating the emptiness of nature, they discriminate the dharmas; complete in the power of wisdom, they are able to succor widely; and extinguishing every evil, they are called a great being." Such wondrous sounds, in a thousand myriad kinds — having offered their praise, they fell silent and gazed up at the Buddha. Vimuktacandra said to Vajragarbha: "By what characteristics of practice does one enter the ground that follows?"
The maidens' account of the pāramitās is worth reading closely, because each one is grounded in a piece of understanding rather than in an exertion. Giving is not grasping at characteristics; patience is understanding that dharmas do no harm; effort is knowing the nature of dharmas to be apart. This is the sixth ground announcing its own character before it has been named — what changes here is not what a bodhisattva does but what they see while doing it.
此佛口生真佛子 — a true child of the Buddha, born from the Buddha's mouth. The phrase has run through the whole chapter as a form of address, 佛子, and here the maidens say where such a child comes from. Not from lineage or ordination, but from what was spoken; and the condition named just before it is a mind that does not stir toward existence or non-existence.
Ten Kinds of Sameness
The gateway to this ground is a single sustained observation made ten ways. Nine of the ten give a reason for sameness; the ninth abandons reasons entirely and offers eight images instead.
爾時，金剛藏菩薩告解脫月菩薩言：「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩已具足第五地，欲入第六現前地，當觀察十平等法。何等為十？所謂：一切法無相故平等，無體故平等，無生故平等，無成故平等，本來清淨故平等，無戲論故平等，無取捨故平等，寂靜故平等，如幻、如夢、如影、如響、如水中月、如鏡中像、如焰、如化故平等，有、無不二故平等。菩薩如是觀一切法自性清淨，隨順無違，得入第六現前地，得明利隨順忍，未得無生法忍。
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva said to Vimuktacandra Bodhisattva: "Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva who is already complete in the fifth ground, and who wishes to enter the sixth, Abhimukhī, the Ground of Direct Presence, should contemplate ten dharmas of sameness. What are the ten? Namely: all dharmas are the same because they are without characteristics; the same because they are without substance; the same because they are unarisen; the same because they are unmade; the same because they are originally pure; the same because they are without frivolous discourse; the same because there is in them no grasping and no rejecting; the same because they are quiescent; the same because they are like an illusion, like a dream, like a shadow, like an echo, like the moon in water, like an image in a mirror, like a mirage, like a conjuration; and the same because existence and non-existence are not two. Contemplating thus that all dharmas are pure in their own nature, and according with this without contradiction, the bodhisattva gains entry into the sixth ground, Abhimukhī, the Ground of Direct Presence, and obtains the bright and keen forbearance of conformity — though they have not yet obtained the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas.
「佛子！此菩薩摩訶薩如是觀已，復以大悲為首、大悲增上、大悲滿足，觀世間生滅，作是念：『世間受生皆由著我，若離此著，則無生處。』
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva mahāsattva, having contemplated in this way, then with great compassion at the head, great compassion preeminent, and great compassion fulfilled, contemplates the arising and ceasing of the world, and thinks: 'The world's taking of birth is entirely due to attachment to a self; were this attachment gone, there would be no place of birth at all.'
平等 has been used on every ground so far, but here it is doing something more radical. It is not that dharmas should be regarded evenly; it is that they are the same, and ten reasons are given. Each reason is a property none of them possesses — no characteristics, no substance, no arising, no making. Sameness of this kind is not a resemblance discovered by comparison. It is what is left when there is nothing by which one thing could differ from another.
The ninth item breaks the pattern and gives eight similes in place of a reason, and they are carefully varied: an illusion and a conjuration are produced by someone; a dream and a mirage are produced by no one; a shadow, an echo, the moon in water and an image in a mirror all require something real nearby that they are not. Between them they cover most of the ways something can appear without being what it appears to be.
未得無生法忍 — they have not yet obtained the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas. The sūtra keeps doing this, and it is a mark of its seriousness. Having just said that this bodhisattva sees all dharmas as unarisen, it immediately distinguishes that seeing from the capacity to bear it. What is obtained here is 明利隨順忍, a bright and keen forbearance that conforms; the deeper acceptance is still ahead.
Part 440 Complete
This opens Abhimukhī, the Ground of Direct Presence, sixth of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 441 as the bodhisattva reflects on how ordinary beings, clinging to a self and seeking existence and non-existence, plant seeds in the field of their own deeds — with karma as the field and consciousness the seed, ignorance the covering darkness, craving the water that moistens it, and conceit the flood that irrigates — and the twelve links grow from there.