The Jewel That Never Runs Dry
Three similes for a power that gives without depleting itself — a wish-fulfilling jewel, the endless arising of ordinary thought, rain thick as cart-axles that never empties the cloud — followed by ten gates this samādhi opens, all known within a single moment of thought.
The Jewel That Never Runs Dry
Part 535 closed on ten reasons nothing here has an edge. Part 536 opens with the first of three similes for what a power like that actually looks like in use.
佛子！如如意珠，隨有所求一切皆得，求者無盡，意皆滿足，而珠勢力終不匱止。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，入此三昧，知心如幻，出生一切諸法境界，周遍無盡，不匱不息。何以故？菩薩摩訶薩成就普賢無礙行智，觀察無量廣大幻境，猶如影像無增減故。
Sons of the Buddha! It is like a wish-fulfilling jewel: whatever is sought is entirely obtained; those who seek from it are without end, and their wishes are all satisfied, yet the jewel's power never runs dry and never ceases. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: entering this samādhi, knowing mind to be like an illusion, he gives rise to the realms of all dharmas, pervading everywhere without end, never running dry and never ceasing. Why is this so? Because the bodhisattva-mahāsattva has accomplished Samantabhadra's unobstructed wisdom of practice, observing measureless and vast illusory realms that are like reflections — neither increasing nor decreasing.
如意珠 — the wish-fulfilling jewel, cintāmaṇi. 如意, "as the mind wishes," is also the name this site translates under — 如意禪修中心, the Ru-Yi Meditation Center. The sūtra's own image for a giving that never depletes itself happens to share its name with the project doing the giving here.
Minds Without End, Rain Without End
Two more similes follow the jewel, neither about giving directly — one about the ordinary mind's endless arising, one about rain that never empties the cloud it falls from.
佛子！譬如凡夫，各別生心，已生、現生及以當生，無有邊際，無斷無盡；其心流轉，相續不絕，不可思議。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，入此普幻門三昧，無有邊際，不可測量。何以故？了達普賢菩薩普幻門無量法故。
Sons of the Buddha! It is just as with ordinary beings: each of them individually gives rise to thoughts, already arisen, presently arising, and yet to arise, without limit, unbroken and inexhaustible; their minds flow on, continuing without interruption, inconceivably. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: entering this samādhi of the universal gate of illusion, he too is without limit and immeasurable. Why is this so? Because he has fully comprehended the measureless dharmas of Samantabhadra's universal gate of illusion.
佛子！譬如難陀跋難陀、摩那斯龍王及餘大龍降雨之時，滴如車軸，無有邊際；雖如是雨，雲終不盡，此是諸龍無作境界。
Sons of the Buddha! It is like when the nāga kings Nanda and Upananda, Manasvin, and the other great nāgas send down rain: the drops fall as thick as cart-axles, without limit; and though it rains like this, the clouds never run dry — this is the effortless realm of those nāgas.
此是諸龍無作境界 — this is the effortless realm of those nāgas. 無作, effortless or unconstructed, is the pivot the whole triad of similes turns on: an ordinary mind's endless thought is called 不可思議, inconceivable, but not effortless; a nāga's rain is called effortless precisely because rain is simply what such a being does. The samādhi is being compared to the second kind of inexhaustibility, not the first.
Known in a Single Thought
From similes the text turns to a direct list of gates, and then to what it is like, moment to moment, for the bodhisattva who has entered them.
菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，住此三昧，入普賢菩薩諸三昧門、智門、法門、見諸佛門、往諸方門、心自在門、加持門、神變門、神通門、幻化門、諸法如幻門、不可說不可說諸菩薩充滿門，親近不可說不可說佛剎微塵數如來正覺門，入不可說不可說廣大幻網門，知不可說不可說差別廣大佛剎門，知不可說不可說有體性、無體性世界門，知不可說不可說眾生想門，知不可說不可說時差別門，知不可說不可說世界成壞門，知不可說不可說覆住、仰住諸佛剎門，於一念中皆如實知。
The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: abiding in this samādhi, he enters bodhisattva Samantabhadra's gates of samādhi, gates of wisdom, gates of dharma, gates of seeing every buddha, gates of going to every direction, gates of a mind sovereign and free, gates of empowerment, gates of spiritual transformation, gates of spiritual powers, gates of magical transformation, and gates by which all dharmas are like illusions; the gate filled with ineffably ineffable bodhisattvas; the gate of drawing near to the perfect enlightenment of tathāgatas as numerous as the dust-motes of ineffably ineffable buddha-lands; the gate of entering an ineffably ineffable, vast net of illusion; the gate of knowing ineffably ineffable, distinct and vast buddha-lands; the gate of knowing ineffably ineffable worlds with substantial nature and without substantial nature; the gate of knowing the perceptions of ineffably ineffable beings; the gate of knowing ineffably ineffable distinctions of time; the gate of knowing the formation and destruction of ineffably ineffable worlds; and the gate of knowing ineffably ineffable buddha-lands resting face-down and face-up — and within a single thought-moment, he knows every one of them exactly as it is.
如是入時，無有邊際，無有窮盡，不疲不厭，不斷不息，無退無失；於諸法中不住非處，恒正思惟，不沈不舉；求一切智常無退捨，為一切佛剎照世明燈，轉不可說不可說法輪；以妙辯才諮問如來無窮盡時，示成佛道無有邊際，調伏眾生恒無廢捨，常勤修習普賢行願未曾休息，示現無量不可說不可說色相身無有斷絕。
When he enters in this way, he is without limit and without exhaustion, without fatigue and without weariness, without interruption and without pause, without regression and without loss; amid all dharmas he never abides in a wrong place, ever rightly contemplating, neither sinking into dullness nor rising into agitation; seeking all-knowing wisdom, he never regresses or abandons it, becoming a bright lamp illuminating the world for every buddha-land, turning ineffably ineffable Dharma-wheels; with sublime eloquence he questions the tathāgatas without end, displays the accomplishment of the buddha-path without limit, tames beings without ever abandoning the task, constantly and diligently cultivates the practices and vows of Samantabhadra without ever resting, and manifests measureless, ineffably ineffable bodies of form and mark, without cease.
不沈不舉 — neither sinking into dullness nor rising into agitation. The standard pair of faults a meditator is warned against, 沈 (dullness, torpor) and 掉舉 (agitation, restlessness) abbreviated here to 舉. Even inside a description this vast, the text still describes an actual meditative balance, not only cosmic scale.
Part 536 Complete
This continues chapter twenty-seven, 十定品, The Ten Concentrations, in fascicle forty-three. Part 537 returns to simile — a burning fire that keeps alight as long as fuel is given it — as the text compares the bodhisattva's observation of the realms of beings, dharmas, and worlds to a flame that never goes out on its own.