Ten Kinds of Ever-Heightening Profound Mind, Ten Kinds of Diligent Cultivation
Ten kinds of ever-heightening profound mind describe a mind that keeps rising rather than settling — mastery, leadership, never resting — before ten kinds of diligent cultivation ground each of the standard six pāramitās in a specific practice, from austere asceticism content with little, to universally taking on every sentient being's suffering without weariness because every dharma is known to be empty.
Emptiness as the Ground of Endurance
The eighth diligent cultivation pairs an abstract insight directly with an extreme practice: because every dharma is known to be empty, a bodhisattva is able to take on every sentient being's suffering in their place without ever growing weary — the emptiness is not a retreat from suffering but precisely what makes bearing it without limit possible.
佛子！菩薩摩訶薩有十種增上深心。何等為十？所謂：不退轉增上深心，積集一切善根故；離疑惑增上深心，解一切如來密語故；正持增上深心，大願大行所流故；最勝增上深心，深入一切佛法故；為主增上深心，一切佛法自在故；廣大增上深心，普入種種法門故；上首增上深心，一切所作成辦故；自在增上深心，一切三昧神通變化莊嚴故；安住增上深心，攝受本願故；無休息增上深心，成熟一切眾生故。是為十。若諸菩薩安住此法，則得一切諸佛無上清淨增上深心。
"Son of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of ever-heightening profound mind. What are these ten? Namely: an ever-heightening profound mind of non-regression, because it accumulates every root of goodness; an ever-heightening profound mind free of doubt, because it understands every tathāgata's own secret speech; an ever-heightening profound mind of right upholding, because it flows forth from great vows and great practice; an ever-heightening profound mind of the utmost excellence, because it penetrates deeply into every buddha-dharma; an ever-heightening profound mind of mastery, because it is sovereignly free within every buddha-dharma; a vast, ever-heightening profound mind, because it universally enters every kind of dharma-gate; an ever-heightening profound mind that leads the way, because it brings everything it does to completion; a sovereignly free, ever-heightening profound mind, because it adorns itself with every samādhi, every spiritual penetration, and every transformation; an ever-heightening profound mind of abiding, because it gathers in its original vow; and a never-resting, ever-heightening profound mind, because it brings every sentient being to maturity. These are the ten. If bodhisattvas abide within this dharma, they attain the unsurpassed, pure, ever-heightening profound mind of every buddha.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩有十種勤修。何等為十？所謂：布施勤修，悉捨一切，不求報故；持戒勤修，頭陀苦行，少欲知足，無所欺故；忍辱勤修，離自他想，忍一切惡，畢竟不生恚害心故；精進勤修，身、語、意業未曾散亂，一切所作皆不退轉，至究竟故；禪定勤修，解脫三昧，出現神通，離一切欲煩惱鬪諍諸眷屬故；智慧勤修，修習積聚一切功德無厭倦故；大慈勤修，知諸眾生無自性故；大悲勤修，知諸法空，普代一切眾生受苦無疲厭故；覺悟如來十力勤修，了達無礙示眾生故；不退法輪勤修，轉至一切眾生心故。是為十。若諸菩薩安住此法，則得如來無上大智慧勤修。
Son of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of diligent cultivation. What are these ten? Namely: diligent cultivation of giving, because they give up everything entirely, seeking no reward; diligent cultivation of precepts, because they practice austere asceticism, having few desires and knowing contentment, deceiving no one; diligent cultivation of patience, because, free of any notion of self and other, they endure every evil and never once give rise to a mind of hatred or harm; diligent cultivation of vigor, because their deeds of body, speech, and mind are never once distracted, and everything they do never regresses, reaching its ultimate end; diligent cultivation of meditative concentration, because, through the samādhi of liberation, they manifest spiritual penetrations and stay far from every desire, affliction, quarrel, and entanglement of retinue; diligent cultivation of wisdom, because they cultivate and accumulate every merit without ever growing weary; diligent cultivation of great loving-kindness, because they know that every sentient being has no fixed, inherent nature; diligent cultivation of great compassion, because, knowing every dharma is empty, they universally take on every sentient being's suffering in their place without ever growing weary; diligent cultivation of awakening to the tathāgata's own ten powers, because they penetrate them without obstruction and reveal them to sentient beings; and diligent cultivation of the never-regressing wheel of dharma, because they turn it until it reaches the mind of every sentient being. These are the ten. If bodhisattvas abide within this dharma, they attain the tathāgata's own unsurpassed, great, diligent cultivation of wisdom.
大悲勤修，知諸法空，普代一切眾生受苦無疲厭故 — diligent cultivation of great compassion, because, knowing every dharma is empty, they universally take on every sentient being's suffering in their place without ever growing weary. The reason given here is not that suffering is somehow unreal and therefore easy to bear — it is that emptiness removes any limit on how much can be taken on, since there is no fixed self to exhaust.
Part 745 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-six. Part 746 opens ten kinds of definite understanding, beginning with the utmost definite understanding rooted in planting reverent roots of goodness.