Measureless Supporting Path, Measureless Cultivated Path
Ten kinds of measureless supporting path repeat the same ten measureless things named in the previous Part — space, the dharma-realm, a buddha's voice — this time applied to what a bodhisattva accumulates rather than the path itself. Ten kinds of measureless cultivated path then shift entirely into simile: an illusion, a dream, a shadow, an echo, a mirage, and the moon reflected in water.
Six Similes in a Single Entry
The fourth kind of measureless cultivated path breaks from single comparisons to stack six similes together — illusion, dream, shadow, echo, mirror-reflection, mirage, and the moon in water — treating them as one cumulative image for a cultivation free of every attachment, rather than choosing among them.
佛子！菩薩摩訶薩有十種無量助道。何等為十？所謂：如虛空界無量，菩薩集助道亦無量；如法界無邊，菩薩集助道亦無邊；如眾生界無盡，菩薩集助道亦無盡；如世界無際，菩薩集助道亦無際；如劫數說不可盡，菩薩集助道亦一切世間說不能盡；如眾生語言法無量，菩薩集助道出生智慧知語言法亦無量；如如來身無量，菩薩集助道遍一切眾生、一切剎、一切世、一切劫亦無量；如佛音聲無量，菩薩出一言音周遍法界，一切眾生無不聞知故，所集助道亦無量；如佛力無量，菩薩承如來力積集助道亦無量；如一切智智無量，菩薩積集助道亦如是無有量。是為十。若諸菩薩安住此法，則得如來無量智慧。
"Son of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of measureless supporting path. What are these ten? Namely: just as the realm of empty space is measureless, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path is likewise measureless; just as the dharma-realm is boundless, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path is likewise boundless; just as the realm of sentient beings is inexhaustible, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path is likewise inexhaustible; just as worlds are without limit, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path is likewise without limit; just as the number of kalpas can never be exhausted in the telling, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path likewise can never be exhausted in the telling by any world; just as the language of sentient beings is measureless, the wisdom a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path brings forth for knowing every language is likewise measureless; just as the tathāgata's own body is measureless, a bodhisattva's accumulated supporting path, pervading every sentient being, every land, every age, and every kalpa, is likewise measureless; just as a buddha's own voice is measureless, a bodhisattva brings forth a single voice that pervades the whole dharma-realm, so that every sentient being hears and understands it, and the supporting path thus accumulated is likewise measureless; just as a buddha's own power is measureless, a bodhisattva, sustained by the tathāgata's own power, accumulates a supporting path that is likewise measureless; and just as all-knowing wisdom itself is measureless, a bodhisattva accumulates a supporting path that is, in just the same way, without measure. These are the ten. If bodhisattvas abide within this dharma, they attain the tathāgata's own measureless wisdom.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩有十種無量修道。何等為十？所謂：不來不去修，身、語、意業無動作故；不增不減修，如本性故；非有非無修，無自性故；如幻如夢、如影如響、如鏡中像、如熱時焰、如水中月修，離一切執著故；空、無相、無願、無作修，明見三界而集福德不休息故；不可說、無言說、離言說修，遠離施設安立法故；不壞法界修，智慧現知一切法故；不壞真如實際修，普入真如實際虛空際故；廣大智慧修，諸有所作力無盡故；住如來十力、四無所畏、一切智智平等修，現見一切法無疑惑故。是為十。若諸菩薩安住此法，則得如來一切智無上善巧修。
Son of the Buddha! A bodhisattva-mahāsattva has ten kinds of measureless cultivated path. What are these ten? Namely: the cultivation of neither coming nor going, because their deeds of body, speech, and mind have no motion at all; the cultivation of neither increasing nor decreasing, because it is exactly as its original nature is; the cultivation of neither existing nor not existing, because it has no fixed, inherent nature; the cultivation like an illusion, like a dream, like a shadow, like an echo, like a reflection in a mirror, like a mirage in the heat, and like the moon in water, because it is free of every attachment; the cultivation of emptiness, signlessness, wishlessness, and non-action, because it clearly sees the three realms while accumulating merit without ever resting; the cultivation of the unspeakable, the wordless, and the speech-free, because it stays far from every dharma that is merely posited and constructed; the cultivation that never damages the dharma-realm, because its wisdom directly knows every dharma; the cultivation that never damages suchness and ultimate reality, because it universally enters suchness, ultimate reality, and the limit of empty space; the cultivation of vast wisdom, because the power behind everything it does is inexhaustible; and the cultivation of abiding in equality with the tathāgata's own ten powers, four fearlessnesses, and all-knowing wisdom, because it directly sees every dharma without any doubt. These are the ten. If bodhisattvas abide within this dharma, they attain the tathāgata's own unsurpassed, skillful cultivation of all-knowing wisdom.
如幻如夢、如影如響、如鏡中像、如熱時焰、如水中月修 — the cultivation like an illusion, like a dream, like a shadow, like an echo, like a reflection in a mirror, like a mirage in the heat, and like the moon in water. Elsewhere in this chapter such similes usually appear one at a time, each attached to its own entry; here all six are gathered into a single item, functioning less as six distinct comparisons than as one composite image built from repetition.
Part 754 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-seven. Part 755 opens ten kinds of adorned path, beginning with a bodhisattva who enters the meditative absorptions of form and formlessness without ever being born there because of it.