Harder to Believe Than to Bear the World on One's Crown
After every image the hymn has offered — offerings without end, worlds within a mote of dust, a dragon king's cloud raining differently over fourteen realms — Foremost in Virtue closes with a final, startling claim: simply believing this teaching is harder to attain than superhuman feats of strength or endurance. With that, the chapter ends, the ten directions shake six times, and every buddha appears to touch his own crown in praise.
No Analogy Can Fully Display It
Foremost in Virtue steps back from the images themselves to acknowledge their own limits: every analogy in this long hymn has only briefly gestured at something no comparison could ever fully capture. What follows is a direct declaration of how rare true faith in this teaching actually is — rarer than the wish to become a śrāvaka, rarer even than heading toward the Great Vehicle itself.
「彼諸菩薩解脫門，一切譬諭無能顯，
我今以此諸譬諭，略說於其自在力。
第一智慧廣大慧，真實智慧無邊慧，
勝慧及以殊勝慧，如是法門今已說。
此法希有甚奇特，若人聞已能忍可，
能信能受能讚說，如是所作甚為難。
世間一切諸凡夫，信是法者甚難得，
若有勤修清淨福，以昔因力乃能信。
一切世界諸群生，少有欲求聲聞乘，
求獨覺者轉復少，趣大乘者甚難遇。
趣大乘者猶為易，能信此法倍更難，
況復持誦為人說，如法修行真實解！」
"Those very liberation-gates of the bodhisattvas — no analogy at all is able to fully display them; I have now, by means of these very analogies, only briefly told of their sovereign and unhindered power.
Foremost wisdom, vast wisdom, true wisdom, boundless wisdom, supreme wisdom, and preeminent wisdom — such is the Dharma-gate that has now already been told.
This Dharma is rare and exceedingly special; if a person, having heard it, is able to accept it, able to believe it, able to receive it, and able to praise and proclaim it — to do such a thing as this is exceedingly difficult.
Among every ordinary being throughout the world, one who believes this Dharma is exceedingly hard to find; only if there is one who has diligently cultivated pure blessings, by the power of causes from ages past, is he then able to believe it.
Among the multitude of beings throughout every world, few indeed wish to seek the śrāvaka vehicle; those who seek the path of the solitary awakened one are fewer still; and one who heads toward the Great Vehicle is exceedingly hard to encounter.
Yet even heading toward the Great Vehicle is still the easier thing; being able to believe this very Dharma is twice as difficult again — how much more so, then, upholding and reciting it, proclaiming it for others, practicing in accordance with it, and truly understanding it!"
Harder Than Bearing the World, Harder Than Serving Every Buddha
The hymn's final movement measures faith in this teaching against a series of superhuman feats — bearing the entire universe on one's own crown for a kalpa, holding up ten buddha-lands in empty space, giving every happiness to countless beings — and declares each of these, remarkable as they are, to fall short of what simple belief and recitation of this very chapter accomplish.
「有以三千大千界，頂戴一劫身不動，
彼之所作未為難，信是法者乃為難。
有以手擎十佛剎，盡於一劫空中住，
彼之所作未為難，能信此法乃為難。
十剎塵數眾生所，悉施樂具經一劫，
彼之福德未為勝，信此法者為最勝。
十剎塵數如來所，悉皆承事盡一劫，
若於此品能誦持，其福最勝過於彼。」
"There are those who bear the whole three-thousandfold great-thousandfold world upon their own crown for an entire kalpa, their body never moving — what such a one does is not yet the difficult thing; believing this very Dharma is the truly difficult thing.
There are those who hold up ten buddha-lands with their own hand, remaining within empty space for an entire kalpa — what such a one does is not yet the difficult thing; being able to believe this very Dharma is the truly difficult thing.
Giving every implement of happiness, for an entire kalpa, to as many living beings as there are motes of dust in ten buddha-lands — that one's own blessed merit is not yet the most supreme thing; believing this very Dharma is the most supreme thing.
Serving and attending upon as many Tathāgatas as there are motes of dust in ten buddha-lands, for an entire kalpa entirely — if one is able to recite and uphold this very chapter, that merit is the most supreme, surpassing even that."
The Ten Directions Shake, and Every Buddha Appears
時，賢首菩薩說此偈已，十方世界六返震動，魔宮隱蔽，惡道休息。十方諸佛普現其前，各以右手而摩其頂，同聲讚言：「善哉！善哉！快說此法！我等一切悉皆隨喜。」
At that time, when Foremost in Virtue Bodhisattva had finished speaking this verse, the worlds of the ten directions shook in six ways, the palaces of the māras were hidden from view, and the evil destinies came to rest. Every buddha throughout the ten directions universally appeared before him, each one touching his own crown with his right hand, and, in one voice, praising him, saying: "Excellent! Excellent! Well have you spoken this Dharma! All of us, every one, rejoice together in this."
The hymn's closing claim is easy to read too quickly: that believing this teaching is harder than superhuman feats of endurance and strength. Its logic becomes clearer alongside everything the chapter has spent sixty-odd Parts demonstrating — a mote of dust holding whole worlds, one cloud appearing in fourteen colors, a single act of faith at the very beginning already containing, in seed, everything that follows all the way to a buddha's own consecration. Bearing a mountain on one's crown asks only for physical endurance; believing that interpenetration without contradiction, and one undivided source appearing as boundless difference, are simply how reality actually works — asks for something rarer, a willingness to let go of the ordinary assumption that things must be one thing or another, here or there, but never both at once without division. The chapter's closing image — every buddha of the ten directions touching Foremost in Virtue's own crown, exactly as his own earlier hymn described the tenth-ground bodhisattva's consecration — quietly enacts, on him, the very teaching he has just finished delivering.
Part 67 Complete — Chapter Twelve Complete, Fascicle Fifteen Complete
This closes Part 67, the sūtra's twelfth chapter, "The Chapter of Bhadraśrī" (賢首品第十二), and fascicle fifteen: Foremost in Virtue's vast hymn on faith, the awakening-mind, the chain of causation to a buddha's own consecration, dozens of named lights, samādhis crossing every state of being, a chain of a fortiori analogies from a sea-spirit to a dragon king's rain cloud, and a closing declaration that faith in this very teaching outweighs even superhuman feats of strength. Part 68 opens fascicle sixteen with the sūtra's thirteenth chapter.