The Dream and the Mountain Echo
Three more images unfold: a dream in which a hundred million thousand years can pass while a single night still has not ended, a mountain valley or palace hall whose echo answers every sound without discriminating among them, and a mirage that only deepens the thirst of whoever chases it, mistaking it for water.
Chasing a Mirage Only Deepens the Thirst
The mirage image closes this run with a detail sharper than the usual warning against illusion: chasing it does not simply fail to satisfy — it makes the thirst worse with every pursuit. The bodhisattva's compassion is introduced immediately after as the only way out of a cycle that, left to itself, only intensifies.
如人睡夢中，造作種種事，
雖經億千歲，一夜未終盡。
菩薩住法性，示現一切事，
無量劫可極，一念智無盡。
譬如山谷中，及以宮殿間，
種種皆響應，而實無分別。
"It is like a person asleep in a dream, creating every kind of affair; though a hundred million thousand years may pass within it, a single night has still not yet come to an end.
The bodhisattva abides in the very nature of dharma, manifesting every affair; measureless kalpas may be brought to their very limit, and yet the wisdom of a single thought is never exhausted.
It is like within a mountain valley, or between the halls of a palace, where every kind of sound is echoed back in response, and yet there is truly no discrimination at all within it.
菩薩住法性，能以自在智，
廣出隨類音，亦復無分別。
如有見陽焰，想之以為水，
馳逐不得飲，展轉更增渴。
眾生煩惱心，應知亦如是；
菩薩起慈愍，救之令出離。
The bodhisattva abides in the very nature of dharma, and through sovereignly free wisdom, widely brings forth sounds fitting every kind of being, likewise without any discrimination at all.
It is like one who sees a mirage and takes it to be water, chasing after it and never able to drink, only growing thirstier and thirstier the more they pursue it.
The afflicted mind of sentient beings should be known to be just the same; the bodhisattva gives rise to compassion, rescuing them and causing them to escape.
馳逐不得飲，展轉更增渴 — chasing after it and never able to drink, only growing thirstier and thirstier the more they pursue it. Most of the illusion-metaphors in this sequence describe a neutral misperception; this one names a specific mechanism of harm — the pursuit itself is what worsens the very thirst it was meant to satisfy, making the mirage more dangerous than simple emptiness would be.
Part 816 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-eight, 離世間品, in fascicle fifty-nine. Part 817 continues the verse, moving from the five aggregates seen as foam, bubbles, and a plantain trunk to the mind abiding in truth and expounding the middle way between existence and nonexistence.