A Fire That Consumes Every Blade of Grass
The medicine-king tree's every growth-stage is named for a bodhisattva's own cultivation, closing the seventh mark; a kalpa-ending fire that cannot leave even a single blade of grass unburned becomes the measure for a wisdom that cannot fail to know a single being, land, kalpa, or dharma; and two winds — one that shatters worlds, one that holds that destruction back — become two wisdom-winds, one that extinguishes affliction and one that skillfully spares immature bodhisattvas from being extinguished along with it.
Nothing Left Unburned, Nothing Left Unknown
The tree's own growth becomes a map of bodhisattva cultivation; a fire that cannot spare a single blade of grass becomes the measure of an omniscience that cannot fail to know a single thing; and two winds, one destructive and one protective, become two wisdoms that together extinguish affliction without extinguishing the beings not yet ready to lose it.
佛子！如來智慧大藥王樹，其根生時，令一切菩薩生不捨眾生大慈悲根；其莖生時，令一切菩薩增長堅固精進深心莖；其枝生時，令一切菩薩增長一切諸波羅蜜枝；其葉生時，令一切菩薩生長淨戒頭陀功德少欲知足葉；其華生時，令一切菩薩具諸善根相好莊嚴華；其果生時，令一切菩薩得無生忍乃至一切佛灌頂忍果。佛子！如來智慧大藥王樹唯於二處不能為作生長利益，所謂：二乘墮於無為廣大深阬及壞善根非器眾生溺大邪見貪愛之水；然亦於彼曾無厭捨。佛子！如來智慧無有增減，以根善安住，生無休息故。佛子！是為如來心第七相，諸菩薩摩訶薩應如是知。
"Sons of the Buddha! When the tathāgata's own great medicine-king tree of wisdom gives rise to its root, it causes every bodhisattva to give rise to the root of great loving-kindness and compassion that never abandons sentient beings; when it gives rise to its stem, it causes every bodhisattva to increase the stem of firm, resolute diligence and deep resolve; when it gives rise to its branches, it causes every bodhisattva to increase the branches of every perfection; when it gives rise to its leaves, it causes every bodhisattva to grow the leaves of pure precepts, ascetic practice, merit, few desires, and knowing contentment; when it gives rise to its flowers, it causes every bodhisattva to be endowed with the flowers of every wholesome root and excellent mark of adornment; and when it gives rise to its fruit, it causes every bodhisattva to attain the fruit of the forbearance of non-arising, up to the fruit of the anointing forbearance of every buddha. Sons of the Buddha! The tathāgata's own great medicine-king tree of wisdom is unable to bring about the benefit of growth in only two places — namely, in the vast and deep pit into which the two lesser vehicles fall through the unconditioned, and in the great waters of wrong view and craving in which beings unfit as vessels, their wholesome roots ruined, are drowning — and yet, even toward those places, it has never once felt weariness or given up. Sons of the Buddha! The tathāgata's wisdom neither increases nor decreases, because its root dwells securely and gives rise to growth without ever resting. Sons of the Buddha! This is the seventh mark of the tathāgata's mind — bodhisattva-mahāsattvas should know it thus.
「復次，佛子！譬如三千大千世界劫火起時，焚燒一切草木叢林，乃至鐵圍、大鐵圍山皆悉熾然無有遺餘。「佛子！假使有人手執乾草投彼火中，於意云何，得不燒不？」答言：「不也。」「佛子！彼所投草容可不燒；如來智慧分別三世一切眾生、一切國土、一切劫數、一切諸法，無不知者；若言不知，無有是處。何以故？智慧平等悉明達故。佛子！是為如來心第八相，諸菩薩摩訶薩應如是知。「復次，佛子！譬如風災壞世界時，有大風起，名曰：散壞，能壞三千大千世界，鐵圍山等皆成碎末。復有大風，名為：能障，周匝三千大千世界障散壞風，不令得至餘方世界。佛子！若令無此能障大風，十方世界無不壞盡。如來、應、正等覺亦復如是，有大智風，名為：能滅，能滅一切諸大菩薩煩惱習氣；有大智風，名為：巧持，巧持其根未熟菩薩不令能滅大智風輪斷其一切煩惱習氣。佛子！若無如來巧持智風，無量菩薩皆墮聲聞、辟支佛地；由此智故，令諸菩薩超二乘地，安住如來究竟之位。佛子！是為如來心第九相，諸菩薩摩訶薩應如是知。
"Furthermore, Sons of the Buddha! It is like when the kalpa-fire arises to consume the great trichiliocosm: it burns every grass, tree, and thicket, and even the encircling mountains and the great encircling mountains blaze entirely without anything left remaining. "Sons of the Buddha! Suppose there were a person who took dry grass in hand and threw it into that fire — what do you think, could it possibly escape burning?" He answered: "No, it could not." "Sons of the Buddha! That thrown grass could conceivably escape burning; but that the tathāgata's own wisdom, which distinguishes every sentient being, every land, every count of kalpas, and every dharma of the three times, should fail to know any of them — this could never be the case. Why is this? Because that wisdom is equal and entirely clear and penetrating. Sons of the Buddha! This is the eighth mark of the tathāgata's mind — bodhisattva-mahāsattvas should know it thus. "Furthermore, Sons of the Buddha! It is like when the disaster of wind destroys a world: a great wind arises, named Scattering Destruction, able to destroy the great trichiliocosm, reducing the encircling mountains and all else to fragments and dust. There is further a great wind, named Able to Obstruct, which surrounds the great trichiliocosm, holding back the wind of scattering destruction and not allowing it to reach any other world. Sons of the Buddha! Were there no such great obstructing wind, there would be no world of the ten directions left unentirely destroyed. The tathāgata, the worthy one, the perfectly and fully awakened one, is likewise just the same: there is a great wind of wisdom, named Able to Extinguish, able to extinguish the habitual afflictions of every great bodhisattva; and there is a great wind of wisdom, named Skillfully Sustaining, which skillfully sustains bodhisattvas whose own faculties are not yet ripe, so that the wind-wheel of great wisdom able to extinguish does not cause it to sever every one of their habitual afflictions. Sons of the Buddha! Without the tathāgata's own skillfully sustaining wind of wisdom, measureless bodhisattvas would all fall into the ground of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha; it is through this wisdom that bodhisattvas are caused to surpass the ground of the two lesser vehicles and dwell securely in the tathāgata's own ultimate station. Sons of the Buddha! This is the ninth mark of the tathāgata's mind — bodhisattva-mahāsattvas should know it thus.
巧持其根未熟菩薩不令能滅大智風輪斷其一切煩惱習氣 — skillfully sustaining bodhisattvas whose own faculties are not yet ripe, so that the wind-wheel of great wisdom able to extinguish does not cause it to sever every one of their habitual afflictions. The ninth mark's second wind is a genuine restraint placed on the first: the tathāgata possesses a wisdom fully capable of extinguishing every affliction at once, yet deliberately holds a portion of that power back for beings whose own practice has not caught up to it — an affliction left temporarily unremoved, here, is not a limitation of the wisdom but a deliberate act of the same wisdom protecting what it has not yet finished preparing.
Part 665 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-seven, 如來出現品, in fascicle fifty-one. Part 666 continues with the tenth and final mark, an enormous scripture the size of the entire universe, folded up and hidden within a single mote of dust.