Chapter Thirty-Three Continues
Fascicle forty-seven opens with chapter thirty-three still underway. A new list begins — ten kinds of vast buddha-work, explicitly said to be beyond the knowledge of every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha of all three times — and the first two items retell a buddha's descent and birth through the very similes fascicle forty-four spent an entire chapter naming.
Beyond Even a Śrāvaka's Knowledge
This new list opens with an unusual qualification: not simply vast and inconceivable, but specifically unknowable to śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas of every era, reachable only through the tathāgata's own power.
「佛子！諸佛世尊有十種廣大佛事，無量無邊，不可思議，一切世間諸天及人皆不能知，去、來、現在所有一切聲聞、獨覺亦不能知，唯除如來威神之力。何等為十？所謂：「一切諸佛於盡虛空遍法界一切世界兜率陀天，皆現受生，修菩薩行，作大佛事，無量色相，無量威德，無量光明，無量音聲，無量言辭，無量三昧，無量智慧所行境界，攝取一切人、天、魔、梵、沙門、婆羅門、阿脩羅等，大慈無礙，大悲究竟，平等饒益一切眾生，或令生天，或令生人，或淨其根，或調其心，或時為說差別三乘，或時為說圓滿一乘，普皆濟度，令出生死，是為第一廣大佛事。
"Sons of the Buddha! The buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, have ten kinds of vast buddha-work, measureless and boundless, inconceivable, which no god or human throughout the entire world is able to know, and which not even any śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha of the past, future, or present is able to know, except through the tathāgata's own majestic spiritual power. What are these ten? They are: every buddha, throughout every world filling the whole of empty space and the entire dharma-realm, manifests taking birth in the Tuṣita heaven, cultivating bodhisattva practice, carrying out great buddha-work, with measureless forms and colors, measureless majestic virtue, measureless light, measureless voice, measureless speech, measureless samādhi, and a sphere of activity of measureless wisdom, gathering in every human, god, māra, brahmā, śramaṇa, brāhmaṇa, asura, and the like; with great loving-kindness unobstructed and great compassion brought to its ultimate end, equally benefiting every sentient being — causing some to be born among the gods, causing some to be born among humans, purifying the faculties of some, taming the minds of others; sometimes teaching the distinct three vehicles, sometimes teaching the perfect and complete single vehicle, universally delivering and saving all, causing them to depart from birth and death — this is the first vast buddha-work.
A Birth Seen as Illusion
The second vast buddha-work retells the descent into the womb using nine similes — illusion, magical creation, reflection, space, mirage, the moon in water, dream, echo, lightning — the very images the acceptances of chapter twenty-nine spent an entire chapter unpacking one at a time.
「佛子！一切諸佛從兜率天降神母胎，以究竟三昧觀受生法如幻、如化、如影、如空、如熱時焰、如水中月、如夢所見、如響、如電，雖現受生而心無染著，於諸境界不生二相，善巧方便，令諸眾生離諸垢染，具清淨心，成就上品最勝善根，是為第二廣大佛事。
Every buddha, descending in spirit from the Tuṣita heaven into a mother's womb, observes through ultimate samādhi that the dharma of taking birth is like an illusion, like a magical creation, like a reflection, like empty space, like heat-shimmer in the time of summer, like the moon in water, like what is seen in a dream, like an echo, like lightning; though manifesting the taking of birth, their mind is never tainted or attached, and no dual mark arises with regard to any sphere of experience; through skillful means, they cause sentient beings to depart from every defilement, to be endowed with a pure mind, and to accomplish the finest, most supreme wholesome roots — this is the second vast buddha-work.
如幻、如化、如影、如空、如熱時焰、如水中月、如夢所見、如響、如電 — like an illusion, like a magical creation, like a reflection, like empty space, like heat-shimmer, like the moon in water, like what is seen in a dream, like an echo, like lightning. Seven of these nine images are the exact similes the Ten Kinds of Acceptance named one by one across fascicle forty-four — illusion, mirage, dream, echo, reflection, magical creation, space — now compressed into a single descriptive list applied to the single most concrete event in a buddha's story: being born. The moon in water and lightning are the only additions, joining a set of comparisons this translation has been tracking since Part 555.
Part 593 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-three, 佛不思議法品, in fascicle forty-seven. Part 594 continues the ten kinds of vast buddha-work, with a buddha's wholesome roots already purified before birth, and their renunciation of a palace built to be renounced.