Kalpas Without Noticing the Time
The rivers finish their work — nothing stops them reaching the sea, and they run for ages without tiring. Then the sunlight in the sand returns, and it turns out to be about a person's own pores, in each of which buddhas are heard for kalpas with no sense of how long it has been.
Nothing Stops Them, and They Do Not Tire
Three more readings of the rivers: inexhaustible, unobstructed, and untiring — the last of them explicitly a matter of Samantabhadra's vows and all the kalpas to come.
如四大河，從無熱池既流出已，究竟無盡，入於大海；菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以大願力修菩薩行，自在知見無有窮盡，究竟入於一切智海。如四大河，入於大海，無能為礙令不入者；菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，常勤修習普賢行願，成就一切智慧光明，住於一切佛菩提法，入如來智無有障礙。如四大河，奔流入海，經於累劫亦無疲厭；菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以普賢行願，盡未來劫修菩薩行，入如來海不生疲厭。
As the four great rivers, once they have poured out of the Heatless Lake, are inexhaustible to the end and enter the great ocean, so it is with a bodhisattva mahāsattva: by the power of great vows they cultivate the bodhisattva's practice, their sovereign knowing and seeing is without end, and at last they enter the ocean of all-knowing wisdom. As the four great rivers enter the great ocean and nothing can obstruct them or keep them from entering, so it is with a bodhisattva mahāsattva: they constantly and diligently cultivate Samantabhadra's practices and vows, accomplish the radiance of all wisdom, abide in all the buddhas' dharma of awakening, and enter the Tathāgata's wisdom without any obstruction. As the four great rivers race into the sea and pass through kalpa upon kalpa without weariness, so it is with a bodhisattva mahāsattva: with Samantabhadra's practices and vows they cultivate the bodhisattva's practice to the end of all future kalpas, and enter the Tathāgata's ocean without ever growing weary.
無能為礙令不入者 — nothing can obstruct them or keep them from entering. The image is hydrological rather than heroic: water going downhill is not overcoming resistance, it is doing what water does. Three consecutive readings of the same rivers give inexhaustibility, unobstructedness and tirelessness, and none of them is described as an effort.
Buddhas in Every Pore
The sunlit sand is applied at last, and the surface it is applied to is the practitioner's own skin — where whole assemblies are attended without crowding and without any sense of duration.
佛子！如日光出時，無熱池中金沙、銀沙、金剛沙、瑠璃沙及餘一切種種寶物，皆有日影於中顯現；其金沙等一切寶物，亦各展轉而現其影，互相鑒徹，無所妨礙。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，住此三昧，於自身一一毛孔中，悉見不可說不可說佛剎微塵數諸佛如來，亦見彼佛所有國土道場眾會一一佛所聽法、受持、信解、供養，各經不可說不可說億那由他劫而不想念時節長短，其諸眾會亦無迫隘。
Child of the Buddha! When the sunlight comes forth, the golden sand, the silver sand, the diamond sand, the beryl sand and every other kind of precious thing in the Heatless Lake all show the sun's reflection within them; and the golden sand and all those precious things, turn by turn, each show one another's reflections as well, mirroring one another clearly with no obstruction. A bodhisattva mahāsattva is likewise: abiding in this samādhi, within each single pore of their own body they see buddhas, Tathāgatas, as numerous as the dust-motes of ineffably many buddha-lands; and they see too the lands of those buddhas and the assemblies at their awakening-sites, and in the presence of each single buddha they hear the Dharma, receive and uphold it, have faith in it and understand it, and make offerings — each of these passing through ineffably many koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, and yet they do not think of the length or shortness of the time, nor are those assemblies crowded at all.
何以故？以微妙心，入無邊法界故，入無等差別業果故，入不思議三昧境界故，入不思議思惟境界故，入一切佛自在境界故，得一切佛所護念故，得一切佛大神變故，得諸如來難得難知十種力故，入普賢菩薩行圓滿境界故，得一切佛無勞倦神通力故。
Why is this so? Because with a subtle mind they have entered the boundless dharma-realm; because they have entered the unequalled and differentiated fruits of karma; because they have entered the inconceivable domain of samādhi; because they have entered the inconceivable domain of deliberation; because they have entered the domain of all the buddhas' sovereign freedom; because they are held in mind by all the buddhas; because they have obtained all the buddhas' great transformations; because they have obtained the Tathāgatas' ten powers, hard to obtain and hard to know; because they have entered the domain in which Samantabhadra Bodhisattva's practice is fulfilled; and because they have obtained all the buddhas' power of spiritual penetration that never grows weary.
而不想念時節長短，其諸眾會亦無迫隘 — they do not think of the length or shortness of the time, nor are those assemblies crowded at all. Two ordinary discomforts are named and denied: boredom and press of bodies. The chapter's cosmology is enormous, and what it takes trouble to rule out are the two things that would actually make such an experience unpleasant.
入不思議思惟境界 — entered the inconceivable domain of deliberation. Among domains of samādhi and of the buddhas' freedom, this one is thinking. 思惟 is ordinary reflection, and it is listed as having its own inconceivable range — the chapter does not set thought aside in favour of absorption.
Part 527 Complete
This continues chapter twenty-seven, 十定品, The Ten Concentrations, in fascicle forty-two. Part 528 closes the ninth samādhi and the fascicle with a long series of concessions — able to enter and leave concentration in a thought, yet not abandoning long absorption; apart from every deluded discrimination, yet not forsaking appearances; knowing all dharmas ultimately empty, yet teaching beings — and the simile of open space, which holds everything and is neither existent nor non-existent.