The Bodhisattva as Lotus and Tree
The verse's extended metaphor sequence opens here: a lotus with loving-kindness for its root and wisdom for its stamens, a wondrous tree whose seed is faith and whose fruit is all-knowing wisdom, a lion king whose roar of dharma terrifies every māra, and a caravan leader guiding the lost through the wilderness of birth-and-death into a city free of fear.
A Tree Whose Fruit Is All-Knowing Wisdom
The tree metaphor builds outward from the ground itself: an upright mind is the soil, faith the seed, loving-kindness and compassion the root, wisdom the trunk, skillful means the branches, the five pāramitās the foliage, meditative absorption the leaves, spiritual superknowledge the blossoms, and all-knowing wisdom, finally, the fruit — with the bodhisattva's most excellent power climbing over it all like a vine whose shade covers the three realms.
其心無高下，求道無厭倦，
普使諸眾生，住善增淨法。
智慧普饒益，如樹如河泉，
亦如於大地，一切所依處。
菩薩如蓮華，慈根安隱莖，
智慧為眾蘂，戒品為香潔。
佛放法光明，令彼得開敷，
不著有為水，見者皆欣樂。
"His mind holds no height and no lowness; he seeks the path without ever growing weary; he universally causes every sentient being to abide in goodness and increase in pure dharma.
His wisdom universally benefits all, like a tree, like a river's spring, and also like the great earth itself — the place on which everything depends.
The bodhisattva is like a lotus flower: loving-kindness its root, peace its stem, wisdom its many stamens, the precepts its clean fragrance. The buddha emits the light of dharma, causing it to open and bloom; it is unstained by the water of conditioned existence, and whoever sees it rejoices.
菩薩妙法樹，生於直心地，
信種慈悲根，智慧以為身，
方便為枝幹，五度為繁密，
定葉神通華，一切智為果，
最上力為蔦，垂陰覆三界。
菩薩師子王，白淨法為身。
四諦為其足，正念以為頸，
慈眼智慧首，頂繫解脫繒，
勝義空谷中，吼法怖眾魔。
菩薩為商主，普見諸群生，
在生死曠野，煩惱險惡處，
魔賊之所攝，癡盲失正道，
示其正直路，令入無畏城。
The bodhisattva is a wondrous tree of dharma, growing from the ground of an upright mind: faith its seed, loving-kindness and compassion its root, wisdom its trunk, skillful means its branches and boughs, the five pāramitās its lush foliage, meditative absorption its leaves, spiritual superknowledge its blossoms, and all-knowing wisdom its fruit. The most excellent power is its climbing vine, its shade hanging down to cover the three realms.
The bodhisattva is a lion king, the pure, white dharma his own body: the four truths his feet, right mindfulness his neck, loving-kindness his eyes and wisdom his head, liberation tied about his crown like a ribbon; within the valley of ultimate meaning's own emptiness, he roars the dharma, and every māra trembles in fear.
The bodhisattva is a caravan's leader, universally seeing the multitude of beings lost within the vast wilderness of birth-and-death, in a place of perilous, evil affliction, seized by bandits of māra, blind with ignorance and having strayed from the right path; he shows them the straight and upright road, leading them into the city free of fear.
頂繫解脫繒 — liberation tied about his crown like a ribbon. Woven into the lion-king image alongside the four truths as feet and right mindfulness as neck, this single detail turns liberation itself into an ornament worn rather than a distant destination, already part of the body that walks toward it.
Part 804 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-nine. Part 805 continues the verse's metaphor sequence with the bodhisattva as a physician curing the three poisons, a dharma-king who bestows the treasures of awakening, and a wheel of dharma armed with precepts as its hub and wisdom as its blade.