None in All the World Can Know It
The verse finishes the seventh ground, and with it fascicle thirty-seven. Ten pāramitās in five lines, seven grounds in two, and then the strange central admission — that this ground can be called neither with afflictions nor without them, because the one on it walks free of them and is still not satisfied.
Ten Pāramitās, and Seven Grounds
The verse now compresses harder than anywhere else in the chapter. Each of the ten pāramitās is given a single clause; then each of the first seven grounds is given four characters, and the whole ascent to the eighth is laid out in eight lines.
觀察此法得明了，廣為群迷興利益，入眾生界無有邊，佛教化業亦無量。
國土諸法與劫數，解欲心行悉能入，說三乘法亦無限，如是教化諸群生。
菩薩勤求最勝道，動息不捨方便慧，一一迴向佛菩提，念念成就波羅蜜。
發心迴向是布施，滅惑為戒不害忍，求善無厭斯進策，於道不動即修禪，
忍受無生名般若，迴向方便希求願，無能摧力善了智，如是一切皆成滿。
"Contemplating these dharmas, they come to understand them clearly, and widely raise up benefit for the deluded multitude; they enter the realm of beings, which has no bound, and the buddhas' work of teaching and transforming is likewise measureless. Lands, and all dharmas, and the number of the kalpas; understandings, desires, and the conduct of the mind — into all of these they can enter, and their expounding of the dharma of the three vehicles is also without limit, and thus they teach and transform the multitudes of beings. The bodhisattva diligently seeks the most surpassing path; moving or at rest, they never let go of skillful means and wisdom; each single thing they dedicate to the buddhas' awakening, and thought after thought they bring the pāramitās to completion. To rouse the mind and to dedicate — that is giving; to extinguish confusion is morality, and not to harm is patience; to seek the good without weariness is the spur of effort; to be unmoved upon the path is the cultivation of meditative absorption; to accept and bear the unarisen is called wisdom; dedication and skillful means, and longing and seeking, is the vow; what cannot be crushed is power, and skilful comprehension is knowledge — and all of these in this way are brought to fulfilment.
初地攀緣功德滿，二地離垢三諍息，四地入道五順行，第六無生智光照，
七住菩提功德滿，種種大願皆具足，以是能令八地中，一切所作咸清淨。
此地難過智乃超，譬如世界二中間，亦如聖王無染著，然未名為總超度。
若住第八智地中，爾乃逾於心境界，如梵觀世超人位，如蓮處水無染著。
On the first ground, taking hold of conditions, the merits are fulfilled; on the second the defilements are left behind, and on the third contention comes to rest; the fourth enters the path and the fifth accords with it; on the sixth the light of the wisdom of non-arising shines; and abiding on the seventh, the merits of awakening are fulfilled and every kind of great vow is complete — and by this they cause all that is done upon the eighth ground to be entirely pure. This ground is hard to pass beyond, and only wisdom crosses it, as one crosses the space that lies between two world-systems; and though they are like a sage king, unstained by anything, this is still not called crossing wholly over. When they abide within the eighth, the ground of knowledge, only then do they pass beyond the realm of mind — as Brahmā, gazing down upon the world, is beyond the human station, and as a lotus standing in the water is unstained by it.
譬如世界二中間 — the space that lies between two world-systems. Indian cosmology places at the junction of any two world-spheres a region of unlit emptiness, belonging to neither. The seventh ground is that region: no longer the effortful practice of the first six, not yet the effortless eighth, and lit by nothing but the traveller's own wisdom.
Note the honesty of 然未名為總超度 — this is still not called crossing wholly over. The chapter has spent two whole Parts describing a bodhisattva who has surpassed the two vehicles entirely, and it now says plainly that the crossing is not finished. 總 is the operative character: not "crossed" but "crossed altogether".
Neither With Afflictions Nor Without
Then the line that has given this ground its reputation, and the four closing similes — the king's son, the ship at sea, the gold with jewels set into it, and the sun drying up the water of craving.
此地雖超諸惑眾，不名有惑非無惑，以無煩惱於中行，而求佛智心未足。
世間所有眾技藝，經書詞論普明了，禪定三昧及神通，如是修行悉成就。
菩薩修成七住道，超過一切二乘行，初地願故此由智，譬如王子力具足。
成就甚深仍進道，心心寂滅不取證；譬如乘船入海中，在水不為水所溺。
Though on this ground they have passed beyond the whole host of confusions, it is called neither a ground with afflictions nor a ground without them, for they walk within it having no afflictions, and yet their mind, seeking the buddhas' wisdom, is not yet satisfied. All the many arts and crafts there are in the world, and the scriptures, the compositions and the treatises, they understand throughout; the dhyānas, the samādhis, and the spiritual powers — all such practice as this they bring to accomplishment. The bodhisattva perfects the path of the seventh abiding and passes beyond every practice of the two vehicles; on the first ground it was through vows, here it is through knowledge, just as a king's son comes into the fullness of his strength. Having accomplished what is most profound, they still advance upon the path, mind after mind at peace, yet they do not grasp at realization — like one who boards a ship and enters the ocean, in the water and yet not drowned by the water.
方便慧行功德具，一切世間無能了，供養多佛心益明，如以妙寶莊嚴金。
此地菩薩智最明，如日舒光竭愛水，又作自在天中主，化導群生修正智。
若以勇猛精勤力，獲多三昧見多佛，百千億數那由他，願力自在復過是。
此是菩薩遠行地，方便智慧清淨道，一切世間天及人，聲聞獨覺無能知。」
Complete in the merits of the practice of skillful means and wisdom, which nothing in all the world can comprehend, they make offerings to many buddhas and their minds grow brighter still — as when fine jewels are set into gold as its adornment. The wisdom of a bodhisattva on this ground is the brightest of all, as the sun spreads its light and dries up the water of craving; and they become a lord among the Sovereign Devas, guiding and transforming the multitudes of beings to cultivate right knowledge. Should they use the power of courageous and diligent effort, they gain many samādhis and behold many buddhas, a hundred thousand koṭis in number, nayutas of them — and by the sovereign freedom of their vow-power, more even than this. This is the bodhisattva's Far-Reaching Ground, the pure path of skillful means and wisdom; and in all the world, gods and humans, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas alike, are unable to know it."
不名有惑非無惑 — called neither a ground with afflictions nor a ground without them. The prose in Part 450 gave this with an explanation attached; the verse gives it bare, then supplies as its reason not a doctrine but a dissatisfaction — 而求佛智心未足, the mind seeking the buddhas' wisdom is not yet satisfied. What keeps the seventh ground from being simply afflictionless is not any remaining fault but an appetite.
在水不為水所溺 — in the water and yet not drowned by the water. The ship simile is the whole ground in a line, and it depends on the ship being in the water and not above it. Nothing here is escaped; the relation to it is changed.
Part 454 Complete — Fascicle 37 Complete
Dūraṅgamā, the Far-Reaching Ground, is finished, and with it fascicle thirty-seven. Seven of the Ten Grounds are now complete. Part 455 opens fascicle thirty-eight and 十地品第二十六之五, in which Vimuktacandra asks how a bodhisattva who has fulfilled the seventh ground enters the eighth — Acalā, the Immovable Ground, where the practice at last becomes effortless, and where the buddhas must rouse the bodhisattva from a stillness they would otherwise rest in.