Though, and Yet
The seventh ground is entered by ten things, and every one of them is a contradiction the bodhisattva declines to resolve. Though far removed from the three realms, they adorn them. Though they have put out the fire of the afflictions, they light it again for others' sake. The singers in the air have already stated the pattern before Vajragarbha names it.
The Seventh Ground
The praise here is unusually specific about a single quality — doing something fully while holding nothing of it. Four stanzas in a row turn on that, and each finds a different place to locate it.
第七地
是時天眾心歡喜，散寶成雲在空住，普發種種妙音聲，告於最勝清淨者：
「了達勝義智自在，成就功德百千億，人中蓮華無所著，為利群生演深行。」
自在天王在空中，放大光明照佛身，亦散最上妙香雲，普供除憂煩惱者。
爾時天眾皆歡喜，悉發美音同讚述：「我等聞斯地功德，則為已獲大善利。」
天女是時心慶悅，競奏樂音千萬種，悉以如來神力故，音中共作如是言：
The Seventh Ground
At that time the hosts of gods were glad in mind; scattering jewels that formed into clouds, they stood within the air, and sending forth everywhere every kind of wondrous sound, they addressed the most supreme and pure one: "Comprehending ultimate meaning, sovereign in wisdom, accomplished in a hundred thousand koṭis of merits — a lotus among humankind, attached to nothing — for the benefit of the multitude you expound this profound practice." The Sovereign Deva King, within the air, sent out a great radiance that shone upon the Buddha's body, and scattered clouds of the most supreme and wondrous incense, making universal offering to the one who removes grief and affliction. At that time the hosts of gods all rejoiced, and each sending forth a beautiful voice they praised together: "We, having heard the merits of this ground, have thereby already gained a great and good benefit." The celestial maidens then, delighted in mind, vied in playing a thousand myriad kinds of music; and by the Tathāgata's spiritual power, within those sounds these words were made together:
「威儀寂靜最無比，能調難調世應供，已超一切諸世間，而行於世闡妙道。
雖現種種無量身，知身一一無所有，巧以言辭說諸法，不取文字音聲相。
往詣百千諸國土，以諸上供供養佛，智慧自在無所著，不生於我佛國想。
雖勤教化諸眾生，而無彼己一切心；雖已修成廣大善，而於善法不生著。
以見一切諸世間，貪恚癡火常熾然，於諸想念悉皆離，發起大悲精進力。」
一切諸天及天女，種種供養稱讚已，悉共同時默然住，瞻仰人尊願聞法。
時解脫月復請言：「此諸大眾心清淨，第七地中諸行相，唯願佛子為宣說！」
"Of a bearing still and beyond all compare, able to tame what is hard to tame, worthy of the world's offerings; having passed beyond every world, and yet moving within the world to set forth the wondrous path. Though manifesting measureless bodies of every kind, they know each body to be nothing at all; skillfully expounding the dharmas in words, they grasp at no mark of letter or of sound. Going to a hundred thousand lands, they make supreme offerings to the buddhas; sovereign in wisdom and attached to nothing, they give rise to no notion of a buddha-land as their own. Though they diligently teach and transform beings, they hold no mind at all of other and of self; though they have cultivated and accomplished vast goodness, toward good dharmas they give rise to no attachment. Because they see that in every world the fires of greed, hatred and delusion burn constantly, they are wholly apart from all notions and thoughts, and rouse the power of great compassion and of effort." All the gods and the celestial maidens, having made their various offerings and praises, all together at once fell silent and stood, gazing up at the Honored One among humankind and wishing to hear the Dharma. Then Vimuktacandra asked once again: "The minds of this great assembly are pure; the characteristics of practice within the seventh ground — we beg you, child of the Buddha, to proclaim them!"
已超一切諸世間，而行於世闡妙道 — having passed beyond every world, and yet moving within the world. The singers state the seventh ground's whole structure in one line, before Vajragarbha has begun. Everything that follows will have this shape: a completed departure and a continued presence, held at the same time.
雖已修成廣大善，而於善法不生著 — though they have cultivated and accomplished vast goodness, toward good dharmas they give rise to no attachment. Of the four things named as unheld — bodies, words, buddha-lands, and now goodness itself — this is the one that is hardest and comes last. Attachment to one's own virtue is the form of grasping that a long practice specifically produces.
Six Pairs
Vajragarbha's answer is a list of ten, and each item has the same grammar: 雖 … 而 …, though this, yet that. What is being described is not a compromise between the two halves but the capacity to have both at full strength.
爾時，金剛藏菩薩告解脫月菩薩言：「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩具足第六地行已，欲入第七遠行地，當修十種方便慧起殊勝道。何等為十？所謂：雖善修空、無相、無願三昧，而慈悲不捨眾生，雖得諸佛平等法，而樂常供養佛；雖入觀空智門，而勤集福德；雖遠離三界，而莊嚴三界；雖畢竟寂滅諸煩惱焰，而能為一切眾生起滅貪、瞋、癡煩惱焰；雖知諸法如幻、如夢、如影、如響、如焰、如化、如水中月、如鏡中像、自性無二，而隨心作業無量差別；
Then Vajragarbha Bodhisattva said to Vimuktacandra Bodhisattva: "Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva who is complete in the practice of the sixth ground, and who wishes to enter the seventh, Dūraṅgamā, the Far-Reaching Ground, should cultivate ten kinds of skillful means and wisdom that rouse the surpassing path. What are the ten? Namely: though they cultivate well the samādhis of emptiness, of signlessness and of wishlessness, yet in loving-kindness and compassion they do not abandon beings; though they attain the buddhas' dharma of sameness, yet they delight in constantly making offerings to the buddhas; though they enter the gateway of the wisdom that contemplates emptiness, yet they diligently gather merit; though they are far removed from the three realms, yet they adorn the three realms; though they have utterly quenched the flames of the afflictions, yet for the sake of all beings they are able to rouse and to extinguish the flames of greed, of hatred and of delusion; though they know that all dharmas are like an illusion, like a dream, like a shadow, like an echo, like a mirage, like a conjuration, like the moon in water, like an image in a mirror, and without duality in their own nature, yet they act according to mind in measureless different ways;
雖畢竟寂滅諸煩惱焰，而能為一切眾生起滅貪、瞋、癡煩惱焰 — though they have utterly quenched the flames of the afflictions, yet for the sake of all beings they are able to rouse and to extinguish those flames. The fifth pair is the most startling of the six, and the verb 起 is not a slip. A bodhisattva who no longer has greed, hatred or delusion can produce their appearance when a being needs to be met by someone who does — and can put them out again. What was extinguished has become something available for use.
Note how the pairs are constructed. The first half of each is an achievement of the earlier grounds — emptiness cultivated, the three realms left behind, dharmas seen as illusion — and the second half is precisely what that achievement would seem to rule out. The seventh ground is not adding new attainments. It is establishing that none of the previous six need cost anything.
The eight similes from Part 440 return here word for word, and the clause attached to them has changed. There they proved that all dharmas are the same; here, 而隨心作業無量差別, the same illusory dharmas are the medium in which the bodhisattva works, in measureless different ways. Knowing a thing is a dream turns out to be compatible with doing careful work inside it.
Part 447 Complete
This opens Dūraṅgamā, the Far-Reaching Ground, seventh of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 448 with the remaining four pairs — knowing lands to be like empty space while adorning buddha-lands with pure practice, knowing a buddha's dharma-body to have no body while adorning a body with the marks, knowing a buddha's voice to be empty and beyond words while producing every pure sound beings need, and knowing the three times to be a single thought while cultivating through kalpas without number.