Neither With nor Without
Vimuktacandra asks the sharpest question in the chapter — is this bodhisattva's practice defiled or pure? — and Vajragarbha answers with a simile about a king who rides past poverty untouched, and then declines to answer the question as asked. The seventh ground turns out to be exactly the place where neither word applies.
The Gap Between
The first simile sets up the difficulty, and the question that follows is the one the whole seventh ground has been inviting.
佛子！譬如有二世界，一處雜染，一處純淨，是二中間難可得過，唯除菩薩有大方便神通願力。佛子！菩薩諸地亦復如是，有雜染行，有清淨行，是二中間難可得過，唯除菩薩有大願力方便智慧乃能得過。」解脫月菩薩言：「佛子！此七地菩薩，為是染行？為是淨行？」金剛藏菩薩言：「佛子！從初地至七地，所行諸行皆捨離煩惱業，以迴向無上菩提故，分得平等道故，然未名為超煩惱行。
Child of the Buddha! It is as though there were two worlds, one place defiled and one place wholly pure, and the space between the two were hard to cross — except that a bodhisattva has great skillful means, spiritual power, and the strength of vows. Child of the Buddha! The bodhisattva grounds are likewise: there is defiled practice and there is pure practice, and the space between the two is hard to cross — except that a bodhisattva, having the strength of great vows and skillful means and wisdom, is able to cross it." Vimuktacandra Bodhisattva said: "Child of the Buddha! Is the practice of this seventh-ground bodhisattva defiled, or is it pure?" Vajragarbha Bodhisattva said: "Child of the Buddha! From the first ground to the seventh, all the practices they carry out abandon the karma of the afflictions, because they are dedicated to unsurpassed awakening and because they have gained a portion of the path of sameness; and yet it is not called a practice that has passed beyond the afflictions.
佛子！譬如轉輪聖王乘天象寶遊四天下，知有貧窮困苦之人，而不為彼眾患所染，然未名為超過人位；若捨王身，生於梵世，乘天宮殿，見千世界，遊千世界，示現梵天光明威德，爾乃名為超過人位。佛子！菩薩亦復如是，始從初地至於七地，乘波羅蜜乘遊行世間，知諸世間煩惱過患，以乘正道故，不為煩惱過失所染，然未名為超煩惱行；若捨一切有功用行，從第七地入第八地，乘菩薩清淨乘遊行世間，知煩惱過失不為所染，爾乃名為超煩惱行，以得一切盡超過故。
Child of the Buddha! It is as though a wheel-turning sage king, riding the jewel of a heavenly elephant, travelled the four continents and knew that there were people poor and hard-pressed, and yet was not stained by their many troubles — and still this would not be called passing beyond the human station. But if he were to lay down the body of a king and be born in the Brahmā world, riding a heavenly palace, seeing a thousand worlds and travelling through a thousand worlds, displaying the radiance and majesty of a Brahmā — then it would be called passing beyond the human station. Child of the Buddha! So it is with a bodhisattva: from the first ground up to the seventh they ride the vehicle of the pāramitās and travel through the world, knowing the afflictions and faults of every world, and because they ride the right path they are not stained by the failings of the afflictions — and yet it is still not called a practice that has passed beyond the afflictions. But if they set down all practice that involves effort, and from the seventh ground enter the eighth, riding the pure vehicle of a bodhisattva and travelling through the world, knowing the failings of the afflictions and not being stained by them — then it is called a practice that has passed beyond the afflictions, since they have gained a complete passing beyond of all of it.
The king simile is doing something subtler than it first appears. The king is not stained by the poverty he rides past, and that is not presented as a virtue — it is the problem. He remains a human being among human beings, unaffected because he is riding above it. Not being stained while still occupying the same category is not yet transcendence, and the sūtra says so twice, in the same words, for the king and for the bodhisattva.
若捨一切有功用行 — if they set down all practice that involves effort. What crosses the gap is not more effort but the laying down of effort, which is exactly what Part 449 said the seventh ground exists to complete. The two worlds are separated by something no exertion can bridge, because exertion is what is on this side of it.
Neither Word Fits
Having explained why the seventh ground has not yet crossed, the sūtra states its condition directly — and does so by refusing both available descriptions, with a reason for each refusal.
佛子！此第七地菩薩盡超過多貪等諸煩惱眾住此地，不名有煩惱者，不名無煩惱者。何以故？一切煩惱不現行故，不名有者；求如來智心未滿故，不名無者。
Child of the Buddha! This seventh-ground bodhisattva, having entirely passed beyond the hosts of afflictions such as great greed, abides upon this ground and is called neither one who has afflictions nor one who is without them. And why? Because no affliction is active in them, they are not called one who has them; and because the mind that seeks a tathāgata's wisdom is not yet fulfilled, they are not called one who is without them.
「佛子！菩薩住此第七地，以深淨心，成就身業，成就語業，成就意業。所有一切不善業道——如來所訶，皆已捨離；一切善業——如來所讚，常善修行。世間所有經書、技術，如五地中說，皆自然而行，不假功用。
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva abiding on this seventh ground, with a mind deep and pure, accomplishes the action of body, accomplishes the action of speech, and accomplishes the action of mind. Every course of unwholesome action that the Tathāgata has censured they have already abandoned; and every good action that the Tathāgata has praised they constantly and well practice. All the scriptures and crafts of the world, as described on the fifth ground, they carry out spontaneously, without recourse to effort.
不名有煩惱者，不名無煩惱者 — called neither one who has afflictions nor one who is without them. The two reasons are of different kinds, and that is the point. The first is empirical: nothing is active, so the word "has" does not describe them. The second is not about afflictions at all — 求如來智心未滿, the mind that seeks a buddha's wisdom is not yet fulfilled — so the word "without" is withheld on the grounds of something still wanted rather than something still present. To be wholly without afflictions would mean having nothing left to seek.
皆自然而行，不假功用 — carried out spontaneously, without recourse to effort. The worldly arts of Part 436, which the fifth ground had to learn item by item, are performed here without being worked at. It is the first appearance of 不假功用 in the ten grounds, on the ground where effort is being completed, and it applies to the most mundane material in the whole chapter.
Part 450 Complete
This continues Dūraṅgamā, the seventh of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 451 as the sūtra says this bodhisattva is a great teacher throughout the three-thousandfold world, unequalled by anyone but a tathāgata and the bodhisattvas of the eighth ground and above — and then names the samādhis of this ground, beginning with the samādhi of skillful contemplation and discernment.