Verse Recap, Then the Dharma-Wheel Begins
Samantabhadra restates the whole teaching on perfect awakening in six verses — the ocean's mirror, empty space unmoved by any world's rise or fall, the conjured mind conjuring a buddha — before a new question opens the chapter's final section: how the tathāgata turns the dharma-wheel through nine ways of turning, none of which actually arises, moves, or ever settles anywhere at all.
Nine Ways of Turning Nothing at All
Six verses fold the whole teaching on perfect awakening into a single closing image — a lotus opening under measureless light — before the chapter turns to its final topic: nine parallel descriptions of how the tathāgata turns the dharma-wheel, each one paired with the reason that turning is, in the same breath, no turning at all.
爾時，普賢菩薩摩訶薩欲重明此義而說頌言：「正覺了知一切法，無二離二悉平等，自性清淨如虛空，我與非我不分別。
如海印現眾生身，以此說其為大海；菩提普印諸心行，是故說名為正覺。
譬如世界有成敗，而於虛空不增減；一切諸佛出世間，菩提一相恒無相。
如人化心化作佛，化與不化性無異；一切眾生成菩提，成與不成無增減。
佛有三昧名善覺，菩提樹下入此定，放眾生等無量光，開悟群品如蓮敷。
如三世劫剎眾生，所有心念及根欲，如是數等身皆現，是故正覺名無量。
"At that time, wishing to restate this meaning once more, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Samantabhadra spoke these verses: 'Perfect awakening knows every dharma completely, without duality, apart from duality, entirely equal; its own nature is pure like empty space, making no distinction between self and non-self.
Just as the ocean stamps and reflects the bodies of every sentient being, and for this reason is spoken of as "the great ocean," awakening universally stamps the mental activity of every being, and for this reason is called "perfect awakening."
Just as world-systems form and collapse, yet empty space is neither increased nor decreased by it, every buddha likewise appears in the world, while awakening's single mark remains forever the mark of having no mark.
Just as a person's conjured mind conjures a buddha, and the conjured and unconjured share the very same nature, so too every sentient being's attaining of awakening, whether attained or not attained, is without increase or decrease.
The Buddha has a samādhi named skillful awakening; beneath the bodhi tree he enters this concentration, releasing measureless light equal to every sentient being, opening and awakening every kind of being the way a lotus unfolds.
Just as there are the kalpas, lands, and sentient beings of the three times, and all their mental activity, faculties, and desires, bodies equal in number to all of these appear entirely — and this is why perfect awakening is called measureless.'"
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩應云何知如來、應、正等覺轉法輪？佛子！菩薩摩訶薩應如是知如來以心自在力無起無轉而轉法輪，知一切法恒無起故；以三種轉斷所應斷而轉法輪，知一切法離邊見故；離欲際、非際而轉法輪，入一切法虛空際故；無有言說而轉法輪，知一切法不可說故；究竟寂滅而轉法輪，知一切法涅槃性故；以一切文字、一切言語而轉法輪，如來音聲無處不至故；知聲如響而轉法輪，了於諸法真實性故；於一音中出一切音而轉法輪，畢竟無主故；無遺無盡而轉法輪，內外無著故。佛子！譬如一切文字語言，盡未來劫說不可盡；佛轉法輪亦復如是，一切文字安立顯示，無有休息，無有窮盡。佛子！如來法輪悉入一切語言文字而無所住。譬如書字，普入一切事、一切語、一切算數、一切世間出世間處而無所住；如來音聲亦復如是，普入一切處、一切眾生、一切法、一切業、一切報中而無所住。一切眾生種種語言，皆悉不離如來法輪。何以故？言音實相即法輪故。佛子！菩薩摩訶薩於如來轉法輪應如是知
"Sons of the Buddha! How should bodhisattva-mahāsattvas come to know how the tathāgata, the worthy one, the perfectly and fully awakened one, turns the dharma-wheel? Sons of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva should know in this way: the tathāgata, through the sovereign power of his own mind, turns the dharma-wheel without any arising and without any turning at all, because he knows that every dharma is forever without arising; he turns the dharma-wheel through the three kinds of turning that cut off whatever should be cut off, because he knows that every dharma is apart from extreme views; he turns the dharma-wheel apart from both the limit of desire and the absence of a limit, because he enters the empty-space-like limit of every dharma; he turns the dharma-wheel without any speech at all, because he knows that every dharma cannot be spoken; he turns the dharma-wheel through ultimate stillness and extinction, because he knows that every dharma has the nature of nirvāṇa; he turns the dharma-wheel through every written word and every spoken language, because the tathāgata's voice reaches every place without exception; he turns the dharma-wheel knowing that sound is like an echo, because he fully understands the true nature of every dharma; he turns the dharma-wheel by producing every sound within a single sound, because in the end there is no master over any of it; and he turns the dharma-wheel leaving nothing out and exhausting nothing, because he clings to neither what is within nor what is without. Sons of the Buddha! It is like how every written word and every spoken language, though spoken of throughout every future kalpa, could never be exhausted; the Buddha's turning of the dharma-wheel is likewise so: every word is established and displayed without rest and without end. Sons of the Buddha! The tathāgata's dharma-wheel enters entirely into every language and every written word, and yet abides nowhere at all. It is like written characters, which enter universally into every affair, every language, every calculation, and every mundane and transcendent place, and yet abide nowhere; the tathāgata's voice is likewise so, entering universally into every place, every sentient being, every dharma, every karma, and every karmic result, and yet abiding nowhere at all. Every sentient being's language of every kind never departs at all from the tathāgata's dharma-wheel. Why is this? Because the true reality of speech and sound is itself the dharma-wheel. Sons of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva should come to know the tathāgata's turning of the dharma-wheel in just this way."
言音實相即法輪故 — because the true reality of speech and sound is itself the dharma-wheel. The nine-fold list never actually describes an event that happens; each clause names a mode of turning and, in the same breath, the reason that mode is not really a turning at all — a structure identical to the chapter's earlier double-edged claims about domain, conduct, and awakening, now applied to teaching itself: even the act of speaking the dharma is folded back into the same groundlessness everything else in this chapter has already been shown to share.
Part 674 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-seven, 如來出現品, in fascicle fifty-two. Part 675 continues the dharma-wheel section by asking where the tathāgata's dharma-wheel is actually born from, comparing the boundless variety of his teaching voice to a single samādhi from which countless distinct sounds arise at once.