One Buddha, Every World at Once
The fourteenth chapter opens as each of the ten wisdom-named bodhisattvas rises in turn to offer a hymn. Dharma Wisdom Bodhisattva marvels first at the plain fact that every Jambudvīpa alike insists the Buddha is present within it — and then All Wisdom Bodhisattva immediately complicates the picture, warning that beholding the Buddha's form for even a hundred thousand kalpas is worthless without understanding what cannot be seen at all.
Dharma Wisdom Bodhisattva: The Buddha in Every Jambudvīpa
Dharma Wisdom Bodhisattva, surveying the ten directions, opens with wonder at what the assembly has just witnessed: bodhisattvas bearing identical names from worlds bearing identical names, each one insisting the very same Buddha is present in their own Jambudvīpa — a sovereign power that travels through every kind of body without any obstruction anywhere.
爾時,法慧菩薩承佛威神,普觀十方而說頌曰:
「佛放淨光明,普見世導師,
須彌山王頂,妙勝殿中住。
一切釋天王,請佛入宮殿,
悉以十妙頌,稱讚諸如來。
彼諸大會中,所有菩薩眾,
皆從十方至,化座而安坐。
彼會諸菩薩,皆同我等名,
所從諸世界,名字亦如是。
本國諸世尊,名號悉亦同,
各於其佛所,淨修無上行。
佛子汝應觀,如來自在力,
一切閻浮提,皆言佛在中。
我等今見佛,住於須彌頂,
十方悉亦然,如來自在力。
一一世界中,發心求佛道,
依於如是願,修習菩提行。
佛以種種身,遊行遍世間,
法界無所礙,無能測量者。
慧光恒普照,世闇悉除滅,
一切無等倫,云何可測知!」
At that time, Dharma Wisdom Bodhisattva, receiving the Buddha's own awesome spiritual power, universally surveyed the ten directions and spoke this verse, saying:
"The Buddha emits a pure light, universally beholding the world's own guide, seated at the summit of Mount Sumeru, the king of mountains, within the Hall of Wondrous Victory.
Every Śakra, king of the gods, invites the Buddha into his own palace, and, with ten wondrous verses, extols and praises the Tathāgata.
Within that very great assembly, every bodhisattva present has come from the ten directions, conjuring a throne and sitting there in peace.
Every bodhisattva in that assembly bears exactly the same name as we ourselves; and the worlds they come from bear exactly the same names as well.
The world-honored ones of their own original lands are, likewise, all called by exactly the same titles; each, at his own buddha's place, has purely cultivated the unsurpassed practice.
Son of the Buddha, you should observe the Tathāgata's own sovereign and unhindered power: every single Jambudvīpa alike says that the Buddha is present within it.
We now behold the Buddha, dwelling atop the summit of Mount Sumeru, and it is entirely so throughout the ten directions as well — such is the Tathāgata's own sovereign and unhindered power.
Within each and every single world, beings give rise to the resolve to seek the buddha-path, and, relying upon just such a vow, cultivate and practice the conduct of bodhi.
The Buddha, through every kind of body, travels and journeys throughout the whole world; the Dharma-realm holds nothing that obstructs him, and there is no one able to fathom or measure him.
The light of his wisdom forever and universally shines, and every darkness of the world is entirely extinguished; there is nothing at all that is his equal — how could he ever be fathomed!"
All Wisdom Bodhisattva: Seeing the Form Is Not Yet Seeing the Buddha
All Wisdom Bodhisattva answers with a sharper warning: one could behold the Tathāgata's own form continually for a hundred thousand kalpas and still, grasping at appearances rather than understanding that no dharma truly arises or ceases, remain blind to the Buddha entirely — for the Buddha's own true nature is precisely the empty, ungraspable nature of every dharma.
爾時,一切慧菩薩承佛威力,普觀十方而說頌言:
「假使百千劫,常見於如來,
不依真實義,而觀救世者。
是人取諸相,增長癡惑網,
繫縛生死獄,盲冥不見佛。
觀察於諸法,自性無所有,
如其生滅相,但是假名說。
一切法無生,一切法無滅,
若能如是解,諸佛常現前。
法性本空寂,無取亦無見,
性空即是佛,不可得思量。
若知一切法,體性皆如是,
斯人則不為,煩惱所染著。
凡夫見諸法,但隨於相轉,
不了法無相,以是不見佛。
牟尼離三世,諸相悉具足,
住於無所住,普遍而不動。
我觀一切法,皆悉得明了,
今見於如來,決定無有疑。
法慧先已說,如來真實性,
我從彼了知,菩提難思議。」
At that time, All Wisdom Bodhisattva, receiving the Buddha's own awesome power, universally surveyed the ten directions and spoke this verse, saying:
"Suppose one were to behold the Tathāgata continually for a hundred thousand kalpas, and yet, without relying upon the true and real meaning, merely observed the savior of the world — such a person grasps at every mark, and only increases the net of delusion and confusion, binding himself fast within the prison of birth-and-death, blind and benighted, unable to see the Buddha.
Contemplating and observing every dharma, one finds that their own nature has nothing at all to it; whatever marks of arising and ceasing they seem to have are merely provisional, conventional speech. Every dharma is without arising; every dharma is without ceasing; if one is able to understand it thus, every buddha forever stands manifest before one.
The nature of dharmas is fundamentally empty and tranquil, with nothing at all to grasp and nothing at all to see; emptiness of nature is itself the Buddha, something that can never be conceived or measured. If one knows that the very substance and nature of every dharma is, in every case, just such as this, this very person is then no longer stained or attached to by any affliction.
Ordinary beings, seeing every dharma, merely follow along with its marks and are turned about by them; not understanding that dharmas are without any mark at all, it is for this very reason that they do not see the Buddha. The Sage, free of the three periods of time, has every mark fully complete within him, abiding in that which has no abiding at all, universal and pervading, and yet unmoving.
I contemplate every dharma, and have come to understand every one of them entirely and clearly; now beholding the Tathāgata, I am decisively without any doubt at all. Dharma Wisdom has already spoken, before me, of the Tathāgata's own true and real nature; from him I have come to understand that bodhi is inconceivable."
The pairing of these two opening hymns sets the whole chapter's own method in motion. Dharma Wisdom's hymn is pure wonder at multiplicity without contradiction — the same Buddha, the same names, the same vows, replicated exactly across countless worlds. All Wisdom's hymn immediately supplies the necessary corrective: none of that wonder is worth anything if it stays at the level of appearance. His closing lines explicitly credit Dharma Wisdom's own teaching as the seed of his understanding — a small but telling detail, since it shows the ten hymns are not ten independent statements but a single unfolding conversation, each bodhisattva building on what the one before has already said.
Part 69 Complete
This closes Part 69. Chapter 14's sequence of hymns continues in Part 70 with Supreme Wisdom and Merit Wisdom bodhisattvas.