The Wind That Builds Worlds, the Sea That Refuses Nothing
The chain of analogies turns from gods and titans to the elements themselves: the great wind, which never studied a single pāramitā, yet raises up oceans and mountains and heavenly palaces; ordinary sound, which already delights the mind without any teaching behind it; and the sea, whose one rare quality is to refuse nothing at all that flows into it.
The Wind That Never Studied a Single Pāramitā
The wind builds the oceans, mountains, and palaces of the world, raises clouds and disperses them, ripens every grain — and does all of this without ever having studied a single pāramitā or a single one of the Buddha's own merits.
「無量億劫勤修學，得是無上菩提智，
云何不於一念中，普知一切眾生心！
眾生業報不思議，以大風力起世間，
巨海諸山天宮殿，眾寶光明萬物種。
亦能興雲降大雨，亦能散滅諸雲氣，
亦能成熟一切穀，亦能安樂諸群生。
風不能學波羅蜜，亦不學佛諸功德，
猶成不可思議事，何況具足諸願者！」
"Across immeasurable hundreds of millions of kalpas, diligently cultivating and learning, one attains this unsurpassed wisdom of bodhi — how could one not, then, within a single thought, universally know the mind of every living being!
Living beings' own karmic recompense is inconceivable; through the power of the great wind, the world itself arises — the vast oceans, every mountain, the palaces of the heavens, every jeweled radiance, and the seeds of the ten thousand things.
It is also able to raise up clouds and send down great rain, and is also able to disperse and dissolve every mass of cloud; it is also able to bring every grain to ripeness, and is also able to bring peace and happiness to the multitude of beings.
The wind is unable to study the pāramitās, nor does it study any of the Buddha's own merits, and yet it still accomplishes such inconceivable feats as these — how much more so, then, one fully endowed with every vow!"
Ordinary Sound, and the Sea's Own Seal of Equality
Human voices, birdsong, thunder, and the sound of the sea already please the mind without any teaching in them at all; and the sea itself, alone among things, refuses nothing that flows into it — a natural figure for the bodhisattva's own inexhaustible practice, which likewise never grows weary or satisfied.
「男子女人種種聲，一切鳥獸諸音聲，
大海川流雷震聲，皆能稱悅眾生意。
況復知聲性如響，逮得無礙妙辯才，
普應眾生而說法，而不能令世間喜！
海有希奇殊特法，能為一切平等印，
眾生寶物及川流，普悉包容無所拒。
無盡禪定解脫者，為平等印亦如是，
福德智慧諸妙行，一切普修無厭足。」
"The various sounds of men and women, every sound and voice of birds and beasts, the sound of the great sea, of flowing rivers, and of pealing thunder — all of these are able to please and delight the minds of living beings.
How much more so, then, one who further knows sound's own nature to be like an echo, having attained an unobstructed and wondrous eloquence, universally responding to living beings and teaching the Dharma, unable to bring joy to the world!
The sea has a rare and distinctive quality of its own: it is able to serve as a seal of equality for all things; living beings, treasures, and every flowing river — it universally embraces every one of them, rejecting nothing at all.
One of inexhaustible meditative concentration and liberation is likewise such a seal of equality; every kind of blessed merit, wisdom, and wondrous practice, he universally cultivates all of them, never growing weary or satisfied."
The wind analogy is the sharpest of this whole chain: everything before it — the sea-spirit, the woman, the illusionist, Śakra, Brahmā — was at least a being with a mind, however afflicted. The wind has none at all, and yet builds the very oceans and mountains the rest of the chain has been describing. The argument's logic reaches its natural limit here: if intentionless force can raise up worlds, then intention informed by wisdom and vow can surely do no less. The sea's "seal of equality" then supplies the chain's closing image for what that vow actually looks like in practice — not selective generosity, but the specific discipline of refusing nothing, treating a king's jewel and a river's silt with the very same welcome.
Part 64 Complete
This closes Part 64. Foremost in Virtue's hymn continues in Part 65 with an extended vision of the great dragon king's own rain cloud — its color shifting as it passes over each of the six heavens and every realm of beings, each one seeing it in the hue that most delights them.