Seven Cubits, or a Thousand
The bodhisattva sees themselves in all those assemblies — teaching, listening, standing in space, never tired — and discriminates none of it. Then the buddha-body is described the way a sculptor's manual would, by colour and by measurement, beginning at the height of a man.
Seeing One's Own Body There
Eighteen clauses, all beginning 亦自見身 — and they mix the exalted with the practical: entering suchness, entering the destinies, knowing skillful means, and not getting tired.
亦見諸佛於彼眾會道場中，示現種種相、種種時、種種國土、種種變化、種種神通、種種莊嚴、種種自在、種種形量、種種事業。菩薩摩訶薩亦見自身往彼眾會，亦自見身在彼說法，亦自見身受持佛語，亦自見身善知緣起，亦自見身住在虛空，亦自見身住於法身，亦自見身不生染著，亦自見身不住分別，亦自見身無有疲倦，亦自見身普入諸智，亦自見身普知諸義，亦自見身普入諸地，亦自見身普入諸趣，亦自見身普知方便，亦自見身普住佛前，亦自見身普入諸力，亦自見身普入真如，亦自見身普入無諍，亦自見身普入諸法。
They see too the buddhas in those assemblies at the awakening-sites, displaying every kind of mark, every kind of season, every kind of land, every kind of transformation, every kind of spiritual penetration, every kind of adornment, every kind of sovereign freedom, every kind of form and extent, and every kind of work. And the bodhisattva mahāsattva also sees their own body going to those assemblies; sees their own body expounding the Dharma there; sees their own body receiving and upholding the Buddha's words; sees their own body knowing dependent arising well; sees their own body standing in open space; sees their own body abiding in the Dharma-body; sees their own body giving rise to no defilement or attachment; sees their own body not abiding in discrimination; sees their own body without weariness; sees their own body entering universally into all the wisdoms; sees their own body knowing universally all the meanings; sees their own body entering universally into all the grounds; sees their own body entering universally into all the destinies; sees their own body knowing universally all skillful means; sees their own body abiding universally in the presence of the buddhas; sees their own body entering universally into all the powers; sees their own body entering universally into suchness; sees their own body entering universally into non-contention; and sees their own body entering universally into all dharmas.
如是見時，不分別國土，不分別眾生，不分別佛，不分別法，不執著身，不執著身業，不執著心，不執著意。譬如諸法，不分別自性，不分別音聲，而自性不捨、名字不滅；菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，不捨於行，隨世所作，而於此二無所執著。「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩見佛無量光色、無量形相，圓滿成就，平等清淨；一一現前，分明證了。
When they see in this way, they do not discriminate lands, do not discriminate beings, do not discriminate buddhas, and do not discriminate dharmas; they do not cling to the body, nor to the works of the body, nor to mind, nor to thought. It is as with dharmas themselves, which do not discriminate their own nature and do not discriminate sound, and yet their own nature is not abandoned and their names are not annulled; a bodhisattva mahāsattva is likewise — they do not forsake practice, and they do what the world does, and toward these two they cling to nothing. "Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva sees the buddhas' measureless light and colour and measureless forms and marks, perfectly accomplished, even and pure; each stands present before them and is clearly realized.
亦自見身無有疲倦 — sees their own body without weariness. Among entering suchness and abiding in the Dharma-body, this clause is about stamina, and it is not out of place: what the ninth ground called 無厭倦, never wearying, is here something one sees about oneself from inside a concentration.
不捨於行，隨世所作，而於此二無所執著 — they do not forsake practice, and they do what the world does, and toward these two they cling to nothing. Practice and ordinary conduct are named as the two things one might cling to, and the sūtra treats them as symmetrical dangers. The comparison just given is exact: dharmas do not hold their own natures, and their natures are not lost.
Colour, and Measure
The colours run from the blaze of the sun to deep blue-black and the great blue maṇi; the sizes begin at seven cubits — roughly a tall man — and reach a thousand.
或見佛身種種光明，或見佛身圓光一尋，或見佛身如盛日色，或見佛身微妙光色，或見佛身作清淨色，或見佛身作黃金色，或見佛身作金剛色，或見佛身作紺青色，或見佛身作無邊色，或見佛身作大青摩尼寶色。或見佛身其量七肘，或見佛身其量八肘，或見佛身其量九肘，或見佛身其量十肘，或見佛身二十肘量，或見佛身三十肘量，如是乃至一百肘量、一千肘量。
They may see the buddha-body with every kind of radiance; or see the buddha-body with a halo a fathom wide; or see the buddha-body coloured like the blazing sun; or see the buddha-body of a subtle and wondrous coloured light; or see the buddha-body made pure in colour; or see the buddha-body the colour of yellow gold; or see the buddha-body the colour of vajra; or see the buddha-body a deep blue-black; or see the buddha-body of boundless colour; or see the buddha-body the colour of the great blue maṇi jewel. They may see the buddha-body seven cubits in measure; or eight cubits; or nine cubits; or ten cubits; or twenty cubits; or thirty cubits; and so on up to a hundred cubits and a thousand cubits.
圓光一尋 — a halo a fathom wide. 一尋 is the span of a man's outstretched arms, and the fathom-wide aura is the oldest description of the Buddha's radiance in the tradition, older than any of this sūtra's cosmic scales. The list of sizes then begins at seven cubits, the height attributed to him in the earliest accounts, and grows from there.
Part 509 Complete
This continues chapter twenty-seven, 十定品, The Ten Concentrations, in fascicle forty-one. Part 510 continues the measuring upward — a krośa, a yojana, ten and a hundred and a thousand yojanas, Jambūdvīpa, the four continents, the chiliocosms, and great chiliocosms beyond speaking — and then the light-net whose extent equals the dharma-realm, illumining everything within it.