The Many Gates, Meeting Each Being Where They Are
The hymn turns from offering to teaching itself: sixteen gates of practice, a wondrous samādhi that follows each being's own delight, and a bodhisattva who takes on beauty, music, kingship, and poverty alike to reach whoever each of these can reach — closing on the most difficult gate of all, manifesting old age, sickness, and death for beings whom ease itself has made unreachable.
Sixteen Gates, and the Samādhi of Following Delight
Abiding within samādhi, the bodhisattva gathers living beings in through sixteen named gates of practice — from offering and giving to the Mahāyāna's own sovereignty — matching the remedy to each being's own affliction, delight, and conduct. A further samādhi, "Following Delight," lets him manifest in whatever way each being can actually receive.
「菩薩住在三昧中，種種自在攝眾生，
悉以所行功德法，無量方便而開誘。
或以供養如來門，或以難思布施門，
或以頭陀持戒門，或以不動堪忍門。
或以苦行精進門，或以寂靜禪定門，
或以決了智慧門，或以所行方便門。
或以梵住神通門，或以四攝利益門，
或以福智莊嚴門，或以因緣解脫門。
或以根力正道門，或以聲聞解脫門，
或以獨覺清淨門，或以大乘自在門。
或以無常眾苦門，或以無我壽者門，
或以不淨離欲門，或以滅盡三昧門。
隨諸眾生病不同，悉以法藥而對治；
隨諸眾生心所樂，悉以方便而滿足；
隨諸眾生行差別，悉以善巧而成就。
如是三昧神通相，一切天人莫能測。
有妙三昧名隨樂，菩薩住此普觀察，
隨宜示現度眾生，悉使歡心從法化。」
"The bodhisattva, abiding within samādhi, gathers in living beings through every kind of sovereign, unhindered means; entirely by means of the merit and dharma of his own practice, he opens and guides them through immeasurable skillful means.
Sometimes through the gate of making offering to the Tathāgata, sometimes through the gate of inconceivable giving, sometimes through the gate of ascetic practice and upholding the precepts, sometimes through the gate of unshakable forbearance.
Sometimes through the gate of austere practice and diligence, sometimes through the gate of tranquil meditative concentration, sometimes through the gate of decisive and penetrating wisdom, sometimes through the gate of practiced skillful means.
Sometimes through the gate of the brahma-abidings and spiritual powers, sometimes through the gate of the four means of attraction and their benefit, sometimes through the gate of merit and wisdom as adornment, sometimes through the gate of causes, conditions, and liberation.
Sometimes through the gate of the faculties, the powers, and the true path, sometimes through the gate of the śrāvaka's own liberation, sometimes through the gate of the solitary awakened one's own purity, sometimes through the gate of the Mahāyāna's own sovereignty.
Sometimes through the gate of impermanence and every suffering, sometimes through the gate of non-self and the absence of any life-span, sometimes through the gate of impurity and the leaving behind of desire, sometimes through the gate of the samādhi of cessation.
According to whatever illness each different living being has, he entirely treats and remedies it with the medicine of the Dharma; according to whatever each living being's own mind takes pleasure in, he entirely satisfies it through skillful means; according to whatever distinction there is in each living being's own conduct, he entirely brings it to accomplishment through skillful expedients. Such are the marks of this samādhi and these spiritual powers — neither the gods nor the people of the world are able to fathom them.
There is a wondrous samādhi named 'Following Delight'; the bodhisattva, abiding within it, universally observes and contemplates, manifesting according to whatever is fitting to ferry living beings across, causing every one of them, with a joyful mind, to be transformed by the Dharma."
Whatever Each Being Can Receive
The hymn now shows what this samādhi looks like in practice: relieving famine, giving away wealth and even a throne, taking on beauty and music to reach those who love beauty and music, and sharing directly in the world's own suffering — down to manifesting the giving up of home itself for those who cannot yet imagine wanting to leave it.
「劫中饑饉災難時，悉與世間諸樂具，
隨其所欲皆令滿，普為眾生作饒益。
或以飲食上好味，寶衣嚴具眾妙物，
乃至王位皆能捨，令好施者悉從化。
或以相好莊嚴身，上妙衣服寶瓔珞，
華鬘為飾香塗體，威儀具足度眾生。
一切世間所好尚，色相顏容及衣服，
隨應普現愜其心，𢔌樂色者皆從道。
迦陵頻伽美妙音，俱枳羅等妙音聲，
種種梵音皆具足，隨其心樂為說法。
八萬四千諸法門，諸佛以此度眾生，
彼亦如其差別法，隨世所宜而化度。
眾生苦樂利衰等，一切世間所作法，
悉能應現同其事，以此普度諸眾生。
一切世間眾苦患，深廣無涯如大海，
與彼同事悉能忍，令其利益得安樂。
若有不識出離法，不求解脫離諠憒，
菩薩為現捨國財，常樂出家心寂靜。
家是貪愛繫縛所，欲使眾生悉免離，
故示出家得解脫，於諸欲樂無所受。
"In times of famine and calamity within the kalpa, he entirely gives the world every implement of happiness, causing whatever each being desires to be entirely fulfilled, universally acting for the enrichment and benefit of living beings.
Sometimes with food and drink of the finest flavor, with jeweled robes and every kind of fine adornment and wondrous thing, even down to a king's own throne, he is able to give away all of it, causing those who delight in generosity to be entirely transformed by it.
Sometimes with a body adorned by the major and minor marks, with the finest and most wondrous garments and jeweled garlands, adorned with flower wreaths and the body anointed with fragrance, his own deportment fully complete, he ferries living beings across.
Whatever the whole world takes delight in and esteems — form, appearance, countenance, and clothing — he universally manifests accordingly, pleasing their very minds, so that all those who delight in beauty of form come to follow the path.
With the beautiful, wondrous voice of the kalaviṅka bird, and the wondrous sound of the kokila bird and the rest, every kind of pure, brahma-like voice fully complete, he teaches the Dharma according to each mind's own delight.
The eighty-four thousand gates of the Dharma — every buddha ferries living beings across by means of these; he too, according to each of these very same distinct dharmas, transforms and ferries them across according to what is fitting for the world.
Living beings' own suffering and pleasure, gain and loss, and every deed that is done throughout the world — he is entirely able to manifest in accordance with them, sharing in their very same affairs, and by this he universally ferries every living being across.
Every affliction and calamity throughout the whole world, profound and vast without any shore, like the great ocean — sharing in these very same affairs, he is entirely able to bear them, causing living beings to be benefited and to attain peace and happiness.
If there are those who do not know the Dharma of renunciation, who do not seek liberation or freedom from the world's own clamor, the bodhisattva manifests for their sake the giving up of kingdom and wealth, forever delighting in leaving home, his mind tranquil and still.
The household is the very place where craving and attachment bind one fast; wishing to cause living beings to be entirely freed from it, he therefore manifests leaving home and attaining liberation, receiving nothing at all from any of the pleasures of desire."
Manifesting Old Age, Sickness, and Death
The hymn's final image in this movement is its most severe: for those whose lifespan is immeasurable and whose ease has left them with no reason to seek the path, the bodhisattva manifests the very things that ordinarily drive beings toward the Dharma — old age, sickness, and death themselves — becoming, for them, what suffering itself would otherwise have to be.
「菩薩示行十種行，亦行一切大人法，
諸仙行等悉無餘，為欲利益眾生故。
若有眾生壽無量，煩惱微細樂具足，
菩薩於中得自在，示受老病死眾患。
或有貪欲瞋恚癡，煩惱猛火常熾然，
菩薩為現老病死，令彼眾生悉調伏。
如來十力無所畏，及以十八不共法，
所有無量諸功德，悉以示現度眾生。
記心教誡及神足，悉是如來自在用，
彼諸大士皆示現，能使眾生盡調伏。」
"The bodhisattva manifests the practice of the ten kinds of conduct, and likewise practices every dharma of the great being; every practice of the sages and the rest, with nothing left out — all of this is for the sake of benefiting living beings.
If there are living beings whose lifespan is immeasurable, whose afflictions are subtle and slight, and whose happiness is fully complete, the bodhisattva, sovereign and unhindered among them, manifests the undergoing of old age, sickness, death, and every such affliction.
Where there is greed, hatred, and delusion, and the fierce fire of affliction forever blazing, the bodhisattva, for their sake, manifests old age, sickness, and death, causing those living beings to be entirely tamed and subdued.
The Tathāgata's own ten powers, his fearlessnesses, and the eighteen unshared qualities, and every immeasurable merit there is — he manifests all of these entirely, in order to ferry living beings across.
Mind-reading, admonishing instruction, and miraculous powers of movement — these are all the Tathāgata's own sovereign and unhindered functions; every one of those great beings manifests them entirely, able to cause living beings to be tamed and subdued completely."
This is one of the more striking turns in the hymn: rather than treating old age, sickness, and death only as what practice delivers beings from, the verse treats them here as themselves a form of skillful means — something the bodhisattva can manifest deliberately, for the sake of beings whose long lifespan and ease have left them with nothing pressing enough to shake them loose. It is a reminder that in this sūtra's own logic, even suffering is not simply an obstacle standing outside compassion's reach; it can become one of compassion's own instruments, offered rather than merely endured. Read alongside the sixteen gates and the many forms — beauty, music, kingship, poverty — this passage completes the picture: there is, in the end, no register of experience, however unwelcome, that lies outside what the bodhisattva is willing to become in order to reach someone.
Part 53 Complete
This closes Part 53. Foremost in Virtue's hymn continues in Part 54 with the bodhisattva taking on the guise of ordinary trades and even other paths entirely — merchant, physician, and, most surprisingly, the ascetic practices of rival traditions — carrying fascicle fourteen to its own close.