The Rain of Dharma, Recapped in Verse
Samantabhadra announces he will now speak of the tathāgata's body, speech, and mind, but first compresses the entire rain-cloud teaching just given in prose into a rapid sequence of verse pairs — measureless causes, four wind-wheels, a rain too vast for narrow minds, uncountable drops, and one flavor producing manifold results, each paired line for line with its dharma counterpart.
Ten Marks, Compressed to a Handful of Couplets
Where the prose gave each mark its own extended treatment, the verse pairs a single simile-line with a single dharma-line and moves on — the same ten-mark structure, run through at speed.
導師所現於身業，語業心業諸境界，轉妙法輪般涅槃，一切善根我今說。
譬如世界初安立，非一因緣而可成，無量方便諸因緣，成此三千大千界。
如來出現亦如是，無量功德乃得成，剎塵心念尚可知，十力生因莫能測。
譬如劫初雲澍雨，而起四種大風輪，眾生善根菩薩力，成此三千各安住。
十力法雲亦如是，起智風輪清淨意，昔所迴向諸眾生，普導令成無上果。
如有大雨名洪澍，無有處所能容受，唯除世界將成時，清淨虛空大風力。
如來出現亦如是，普雨法雨充法界，一切劣意無能持，唯除清淨廣大心。
譬如空中澍大雨，無所從來無所去，作者受者悉亦無，自然如是普充洽。
十力法雨亦如是，無去無來無造作，本行為因菩薩力，一切大心咸聽受。
"What the guiding teacher displays in his own bodily karma, and the domains of his verbal karma and mental karma, his turning of the wondrous dharma-wheel and entering final nirvāṇa, and every wholesome root — I shall now speak of these.
It is like when a world is first established: it is never accomplished through a single cause and condition, but through measureless skillful means and every cause and condition does this great trichiliocosm come to be formed.
The tathāgata's appearance is likewise just the same, only accomplished through measureless merit; the thoughts within a mote of dust may yet be known, but the cause giving rise to the ten powers cannot be fathomed.
It is like, at the very start of a kalpa, when clouds pour down rain and four kinds of great wind-wheels arise; through the wholesome roots of sentient beings and the power of bodhisattvas, this trichiliocosm comes to dwell each in its place.
The cloud of the ten powers' own dharma is likewise just the same, giving rise to a wind-wheel of wisdom and a pure intention; dedicating the merit of sentient beings from ages past, it universally guides them to attain the unsurpassed fruit.
There is a great rain named Vast Torrent, which no place at all is able to receive, except only when a world is about to be formed.
The tathāgata's appearance is likewise just the same, universally raining down the rain of dharma to fill the dharma-realm; every inferior mind is unable to hold it, except only a mind that is pure and vast.
It is like when, in the sky, a great rain pours down, coming from no place, going to no place; there is no maker of it and no receiver of it either, and yet it naturally comes to pervade everywhere in just this way.
The dharma-rain of the ten powers is likewise just the same, without going, without coming, without any maker at all; through the power of a bodhisattva's original practice as its cause, every great mind entirely receives it.
譬如空雲澍大雨，一切無能數其滴，唯除三千自在王，具功德力悉明了。
善逝法雨亦如是，一切眾生莫能測，唯除於世自在人，明見如觀掌中寶。
譬如空雲澍大雨，能滅能起亦能斷，一切珍寶悉能成，三千所有皆分別。
十力法雨亦如是，滅惑起善斷諸見，一切智寶皆使成，眾生心樂悉分別。
譬如空中雨一味，隨其所雨各不同，豈彼雨性有分別，然隨物異法如是。
如來法雨非一異，平等寂靜離分別，然隨所化種種殊，自然如是無邊相。
譬如世界初成時，先成色界天宮殿，次及欲天次人處，乾闥婆宮最後成。
如來出現亦如是，先起無邊菩薩行，次化樂寂諸緣覺，次聲聞眾後眾生。
It is like when, from the clouds in the sky, a great rain pours down, and nothing at all is able to count its every drop, except only the sovereign king of the trichiliocosm, endowed with the power of merit to understand it entirely.
The well-gone one's own dharma-rain is likewise just the same; every sentient being is unable to fathom it, except only one who has attained sovereign mastery in the world, who sees it clearly, as though beholding a jewel held in the palm.
It is like when, from the clouds in the sky, a great rain pours down, able to extinguish, able to raise up, and also able to cut off; every treasure can thereby be brought to completion, and everything in the trichiliocosm is thereby distinguished.
The dharma-rain of the ten powers is likewise just the same, extinguishing affliction, raising up what is wholesome, and cutting off every view; every jewel of wisdom is thereby brought to completion, and the delight of every sentient being's own mind is thereby distinguished.
It is like when, in the sky, rain of a single flavor falls, and yet, wherever it rains, its results each differ — is it that the very nature of that rain makes such discrimination? No; it is only that, according to the thing it falls upon, the result differs in just this way.
The tathāgata's own rain of dharma is neither one nor different; it is equal, tranquil, and free of discrimination, and yet, according to whomever it transforms, its manifold distinctions naturally appear in just this way, with boundless forms.
It is like when a world is first being formed: first the heavenly palaces of the form realm are formed, next those of the desire realm, next the dwelling-places of humans, and the palaces of the gandharvas are formed last of all.
The tathāgata's appearance is likewise just the same: first he gives rise to the boundless practice of bodhisattvas, next he transforms the pratyekabuddhas who delight in tranquility, next the assembly of śrāvakas, and every other sentient being last of all.
豈彼雨性有分別，然隨物異法如是 — is it that the very nature of that rain makes such discrimination? No; it is only that, according to the thing it falls upon, the result differs in just this way. The verse pauses here to ask and answer its own question directly, a rhetorical move not used anywhere in this chapter's prose version of the same simile — making explicit, in a way the prose left implicit, that the manifold results are a fact about what receives the rain, never a fact about the rain, or the dharma, itself.
Part 646 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-seven, 如來出現品, in fascicle fifty. Part 647 continues the verse recitation with its closing lines, before Samantabhadra opens an entirely new section on how a bodhisattva should behold the tathāgata's own body.