Every Buddha Within a Mote of Dust
The verse moves from the boundlessness of a single mote of dust — within which every buddha throughout the ten directions is seen — to the boundlessness of a single sentient being, whose own body is shown to arise from measureless causes and conditions, closing on a claim as compressed as anything in this sūtra: one faculty is every faculty.
One Faculty Is Every Faculty
Having already shown one mote of dust containing every buddha and one sentient being arising from measureless causes, the verse applies the same structure to the faculties themselves: each one distinct, each one arranged in an unconfused sequence, and yet — through the unfolding power of cause and condition — one faculty simply is every faculty.
於一微塵中,普見一切佛;
十方一切處,無處而不有。
國土眾生法,次第悉皆見;
經無量劫數,究竟不可盡。
菩薩知眾生,廣大無有邊;
彼一眾生身,無量因緣起。
如知一無量,一切悉亦然;
隨其所通達,教諸未學者。
"Within a single mote of dust, he universally sees every buddha; throughout every place of the ten directions, there is no place at all where this is not so.
Every land, every sentient being, and every dharma, he sees each and every one of them in sequence; passing through measureless numbers of kalpas, it can never be exhausted.
The bodhisattva knows sentient beings to be vast and boundless; and that a single sentient being's own body arises from measureless causes and conditions.
Just as he knows the one to be measureless, so too is this true of all; according to whatever he has penetrated and understood, he teaches those who have not yet learned it.
悉知眾生根,上中下不同;
亦知根轉移,應化不應化;
一根一切根,展轉因緣力,
微細各差別,次第無錯亂。
又知其欲解,一切煩惱習;
亦知去來今,所有諸心行。
了達一切行,無來亦無去;
既知其行已,為說無上法。
He fully knows the faculties of sentient beings, superior, middling, and inferior, each different; and he also knows how faculties shift and change, and which beings are fit to be transformed and which are not; one faculty is every faculty, through the unfolding power of cause and condition; each subtle distinction is different from the rest, and their sequence is never confused.
He also knows their own desires and understanding, and every habitual affliction; and he also knows, throughout past, future, and present, every mental activity there is.
Fully understanding that every activity is without coming and without going; and having known this activity, he then teaches the unsurpassed dharma.
一根一切根,展轉因緣力 — one faculty is every faculty, through the unfolding power of cause and condition. Coming directly after a line insisting each faculty is distinct and never confused with another, this line does not contradict that distinctness; it locates the identity of "one" and "all" in the causal power connecting them, not in erasing their differences.
Part 814 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-nine. Part 815 continues the verse, moving from attaining awakening within a single thought to the bodhisattva's own spiritual power able to travel to boundless lands in a single moment without stirring even the width of a hair's tip.