Blazing, and Not Burned
The seventh ground's capacity is stated at its most extreme here. This bodhisattva can enter the deepest cessation moment by moment and decline to complete it, and can display being everything they are not — a śrāvaka, a follower of Māra, a teacher of another path — without any of it being other than display.
Sailing the Real Limit
Vimuktacandra's question is technical and the answer is precise about timing: available from the sixth ground, and on this one performed in every thought-moment, entered and left, without ever being completed.
解脫月菩薩言：「佛子！菩薩從何地來，能入滅定？」金剛藏菩薩言：「佛子！菩薩從第六地來，能入滅定。今住此地，能念念入，亦念念起，而不作證。故此菩薩名為：成就不可思議身、語、意業，行於實際而不作證。譬如有人乘船入海，以善巧力不遭水難；此地菩薩亦復如是，乘波羅蜜船行實際海，以願力故而不證滅。
Vimuktacandra Bodhisattva said: "Child of the Buddha! From which ground onward is a bodhisattva able to enter the attainment of cessation?" Vajragarbha Bodhisattva said: "Child of the Buddha! From the sixth ground onward a bodhisattva is able to enter the attainment of cessation. Now, abiding on this ground, they are able to enter it in thought after thought and to rise from it in thought after thought, and yet they do not realize it. Therefore this bodhisattva is called one who accomplishes inconceivable action of body, of speech and of mind, walking within the real limit and yet not realizing it. It is like a person who takes ship upon the ocean and, by the strength of skillful means, meets with no calamity in the water; a bodhisattva of this ground is likewise — riding the ship of the pāramitās they travel the ocean of the real limit, and by the power of vows they do not realize cessation.
能念念入，亦念念起，而不作證 — able to enter it in thought after thought and to rise from it in thought after thought, and yet not realize it. The attainment of cessation is the deepest of the meditative states, in which perception and feeling stop. This bodhisattva passes through it continuously, at the speed of thought, without ever letting it finish. Whatever the seventh ground's difficulty is, it is not a lack of capacity.
The ship is the right vessel for this. One does not cross an ocean by avoiding the water; the ship is in the water the whole way, and what keeps the traveller safe is not distance but 善巧力. 行實際海 — travelling the ocean of the real limit — makes the real limit something one moves across rather than arrives at.
Nine Displays
Nine clauses, each pairing an appearance with the reality behind it — and they escalate. The first few are the ordinary paradoxes of a bodhisattva's life; by the sixth the bodhisattva is appearing in Māra's own domain, and by the eighth as a teacher of another path entirely.
「佛子！此菩薩得如是三昧智力，以大方便，雖示現生死，而恒住涅槃；雖眷屬圍遶，而常樂遠離；雖以願力三界受生，而不為世法所染；雖常寂滅，以方便力而還熾然，雖然不燒；雖隨順佛智，而示入聲聞、辟支佛地；雖得佛境界藏，而示住魔境界；雖超魔道，而現行魔法；雖示同外道行，而不捨佛法；雖示隨順一切世間，而常行一切出世間法；
"Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva, having gained such power of samādhi and of wisdom, by great skillful means: though they display birth and death, yet they constantly abide in nirvāṇa; though surrounded by a retinue, yet they constantly delight in seclusion; though by the power of vows they take birth within the three realms, yet they are not stained by worldly dharmas; though constantly quiescent, yet by the power of skillful means they blaze up again — and blazing, are not burned; though they accord with a buddha's wisdom, yet they display entering the grounds of the śrāvakas and the pratyekabuddhas; though they have obtained the treasury of a buddha's domain, yet they display abiding within Māra's domain; though they have passed beyond the path of Māra, yet they manifest the practice of Māra's dharmas; though they display conduct the same as that of the non-Buddhist teachers, yet they do not abandon the buddha-dharma; though they display according with every world, yet they constantly practice every supramundane dharma;
所有一切莊嚴之事，出過一切天、龍、夜叉、乾闥婆、阿脩羅、迦樓羅、緊那羅、摩睺羅伽、人及非人、帝釋、梵王、四天王等之所有者，而不捨離樂法之心。
and all the adornments they possess surpass what belongs to gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kinnaras, mahoragas, humans and non-humans, to Śakra, to the Brahmā kings and to the Four Heavenly Kings — and yet they never abandon the mind that delights in the Dharma.
「佛子！菩薩成就如是智慧，住遠行地，以願力故，得見多佛。所謂：見多百佛，乃至見多百千億那由他佛。於彼佛所，以廣大心、增勝心，供養恭敬，尊重讚歎，衣服、飲食、臥具、醫藥，一切資生悉以奉施，亦以供養一切眾僧，以此善根迴向阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。復於佛所恭敬聽法，聞已受持，獲如實三昧智慧光明，隨順修行。於諸佛所護持正法，常為如來之所讚喜，一切二乘所有問難無能退屈，利益眾生，法忍清淨。如是經無量百千億那由他劫，所有善根轉更增勝。
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva who accomplishes such wisdom and abides upon the Far-Reaching Ground, by the power of vows, comes to see many buddhas. That is to say: they see many hundreds of buddhas, on up to seeing many hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of buddhas. In the presence of those buddhas, with a vast mind and an ever more surpassing mind, they make offerings and revere them, honor and praise them — robes, food and drink, bedding, and medicine, every requisite of life presented as a gift — and they make offerings to the whole Saṅgha as well, dedicating these wholesome roots to unsurpassed, perfect awakening. Further, in the presence of the buddhas they listen reverently to the Dharma, and having heard it they receive and uphold it, obtaining the radiance of the wisdom of the samādhi of things as they truly are, and practicing in accord with it. In the presence of the buddhas they guard and uphold the true Dharma, and are constantly praised and delighted in by the tathāgatas; no question or challenge of any of the two vehicles can make them retreat or falter; they benefit beings, and their forbearance in the Dharma is pure. Passing thus through measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of nayutas of kalpas, all their wholesome roots grow ever more surpassing.
雖常寂滅，以方便力而還熾然，雖然不燒 — though constantly quiescent, by the power of skillful means they blaze up again; and blazing, are not burned. The line turns on 然, which means both "to blaze" and "thus, so". Fire has run through the whole chapter as the image of the afflictions, and the seventh ground takes it back: this bodhisattva can be on fire on purpose, as a means, and the burning does not consume them.
雖示同外道行，而不捨佛法 — though they display conduct the same as that of the non-Buddhist teachers, yet they do not abandon the buddha-dharma. This is as far as the principle can be pushed. The fifth ground had them learning the world's arts and the sixth had them unafraid of any doctrine; here they can appear to have gone over entirely. What makes it display rather than defection is stated in the second half of each clause and nowhere else — from outside, there would be nothing to see.
Note where the sequence ends. After Māra's domain and the non-Buddhist path, the last thing named is adornments finer than any god's — and the qualification attached is not about power but about appetite: 而不捨離樂法之心, they never abandon the mind that delights in the Dharma. Splendour is the temptation the list closes on.
Part 452 Complete
This continues Dūraṅgamā, the seventh of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 453 with two similes for this ground's wholesome roots — true gold inlaid and set about with every fine jewel, which no other ornament can match, and sunlight, which the light of the stars and moon cannot equal and which dries up all the mire of Jambudvīpa — after which the ground's station is named and its pāramitā given.