Day Does Not Arise, Night Does Not Cease
The third concentration is the shortest of the ten and consists almost entirely of a list of durations — an instant, a watch of the night, five days, a hundred years, kalpas that cannot be spoken. Then one image explains why none of it is worth discriminating.
Fascicle Forty-One Opens
The duration of an absorption is enumerated from the smallest measure upward, and every scale is given equal grammatical weight.
大方廣佛華嚴經卷第四十一
于闐國三藏實叉難陀奉制譯
十定品第二十七之二
The Great and Vast Buddha's Flower Ornament Sūtra, Fascicle Forty-One
Translated by imperial command by Śikṣānanda, Tripiṭaka Master of the Kingdom of Khotan
Chapter Twenty-Seven, The Ten Concentrations, Part Two
「佛子！云何為菩薩摩訶薩次第遍往諸佛國土神通三昧？佛子！此菩薩摩訶薩過於東方無數世界，復過爾所世界微塵數世界，於彼諸世界中入此三昧，或剎那入，或須臾入，或相續入，或日初分時入，或日中分時入，或日後分時入，或夜初分時入，或夜中分時入，或夜後分時入，或一日入，或五日入，或半月入，或一月入，或一年入，或百年入，或千年入，或百千年入，或億年入，或百千億年入，或百千那由他億年入，或一劫入，或百劫入，或百千劫入，或百千那由他億劫入，或無數劫入，或無量劫入，或無邊劫入，或無等劫入，或不可數劫入，或不可稱劫入，或不可思劫入，或不可量劫入，或不可說劫入，或不可說不可說劫入，若久、若近、若法、若時，種種不同。
"Child of the Buddha! What is the bodhisattva mahāsattva's samādhi of spiritual penetration in going in order throughout all the buddha-lands? Child of the Buddha! This bodhisattva mahāsattva passes beyond numberless worlds to the east, and beyond worlds as numerous as the dust-motes of those worlds again, and within those worlds enters this samādhi — entering for an instant, or for a moment, or entering continuously; entering in the first part of the day, in the middle part of the day, or in the last part of the day; entering in the first watch of the night, the middle watch, or the last watch; entering for a day, or for five days, or for half a month, or for a month, or for a year, or for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a hundred thousand years, or a koṭi of years, or a hundred thousand koṭis of years, or a hundred thousand nayutas of koṭis of years; entering for a kalpa, or a hundred kalpas, or a hundred thousand kalpas, or a hundred thousand nayutas of koṭis of kalpas; for numberless kalpas, measureless kalpas, boundless kalpas, kalpas without equal, kalpas that cannot be counted, kalpas that cannot be reckoned, kalpas that cannot be conceived, kalpas that cannot be measured, kalpas that cannot be spoken, or kalpas ineffably ineffable — whether long or short, whether by dharma or by time, differing in every kind of way.
或剎那入…或不可說不可說劫入 — from entering for an instant to entering for ineffably ineffable kalpas. The list is a single grammatical series with thirty-odd terms, and the sūtra never marks a change of register between the watch of a night and a kalpa beyond speaking. The point is made by the syntax before it is made by the argument.
The Sun's Circuit
What the bodhisattva does with all those durations is refuse to make anything of them — and the refusals are careful, denying both halves of four pairs before the image arrives.
菩薩於彼不生分別，心無染著，不作二、不作不二，不作普、不作別，雖離此分別而以神通方便從三昧起，於一切法不忘不失至於究竟。譬如日天子周行照曜，晝夜不住；日出名晝，日沒名夜，晝亦不生，夜亦不滅。菩薩摩訶薩於無數世界入神通三昧，入三昧已，明見爾所無數世界亦復如是。佛子！是為菩薩摩訶薩第三次第遍往諸佛國土神通大三昧善巧智。
Toward all of that the bodhisattva gives rise to no discrimination, and their mind has no defilement or attachment: they do not make it two, and do not make it not-two; they do not make it universal, and do not make it particular. And though they are apart from such discrimination, yet by spiritual penetration and skillful means they rise from the samādhi, and in all dharmas they neither forget nor lose anything, on to the very end. It is like the deva-son of the sun, who travels his circuit shining, never resting by day or night: when the sun comes up it is called day, and when the sun goes down it is called night — and yet day is not born, and night does not cease. A bodhisattva mahāsattva enters the samādhi of spiritual penetration in numberless worlds, and having entered it, sees clearly that those numberless worlds are likewise. Child of the Buddha! This is the bodhisattva mahāsattva's skillful knowledge in the third great samādhi, spiritual penetration in going in order throughout all the buddha-lands.
日出名晝，日沒名夜，晝亦不生，夜亦不滅 — when the sun comes up it is called day, and when it goes down it is called night; and yet day is not born, and night does not cease. Nothing has come into being; something has been named. The sun's own motion is uninterrupted, 晝夜不住, and day and night are what that motion looks like from a fixed spot on the ground — which is exactly what all those durations of absorption are.
不作二、不作不二 — they do not make it two, and do not make it not-two. Non-duality is refused alongside duality. This is the chapter's characteristic caution: having said that the great samādhis take one everywhere, it declines to let the practitioner settle into "all is one" as a resting place.
Part 502 Complete
This opens fascicle forty-one and 十定品第二十七之二, and completes the third of the ten great samādhis. Part 503 begins the fourth, the samādhi of the Conduct of the Pure and Profound Mind — offerings made to buddhas as numerous as beings, and the discovery that even a buddha's appearing in the world and entering nirvāṇa cannot be found as a thing, like the shimmer of heat at midday that looks like water from far off and is gone when approached.