The Great Pavilion Transforms
The Buddha never answers the assembly's unspoken request in words. He answers it by entering a samādhi, and the world itself begins to change: the great adorned pavilion where he sits grows suddenly vast and without limit, its every surface reshaped into vajra ground, jeweled pillars, and nets of maṇi light.
A Reply Given Without a Word
Rather than answer the assembly's shared, silent request in speech, the World-Honored One takes great compassion itself as his body, gate, and foremost guide, and enters a single samādhi — and it is this act of entering, not any statement, that begins to reshape the entire scene around him.
爾時，世尊知諸菩薩心之所念，大悲為身，大悲為門，大悲為首，以大悲法而為方便，充遍虛空，入師子頻申三昧；入此三昧已，一切世間普皆嚴淨。
At that time, the World-Honored One, knowing the thought that was in the minds of all the bodhisattvas, took great compassion as his own body, great compassion as his own gate, great compassion as his own foremost guide, and took the dharma of great compassion as his own skillful means, filling and pervading the whole of empty space; he then entered the Lion's Stretching-Forth Samādhi. Once he had entered this samādhi, the entire world everywhere became adorned and purified.
于時，此大莊嚴樓閣忽然廣博無有邊際。金剛為地，寶王覆上，無量寶華及諸摩尼普散其中處處盈滿。瑠璃為柱，眾寶合成，大光摩尼之所莊嚴，閻浮檀金如意寶王周置其上以為嚴飾。危樓逈帶，閣道傍出，棟宇相承，窓闥交映，階、墀、軒、檻種種備足，一切皆以妙寶莊嚴；其寶悉作人、天形像，堅固妙好，世中第一，摩尼寶網彌覆其上。於諸門側悉建幢幡，咸放光明普周法界。道場之外，階隥、欄楯，其數無量不可稱說，靡不咸以摩尼所成。
At that moment, this great, adorned pavilion suddenly grew vast, without any boundary or limit. Its ground was made of vajra, covered above by kings among jewels, with measureless jeweled flowers and every kind of maṇi gem scattered throughout it, filling every single place. Its pillars were made of lapis lazuli, formed from a multitude of gems joined together, adorned with great, radiant maṇi gems, with jambūnada-gold wish-fulfilling jewel kings placed all around above them as further ornament. Towering structures encircled it at a distance, elevated walkways extended outward from its sides, ridgepole met ridgepole in unbroken succession, and window reflected door in crossing light; its steps, courtyards, verandas, and balustrades of every kind were all fully provided, every one of them adorned with wondrous jewels — and these very jewels all took on the forms of humans and devas, solid and wondrously fine, foremost in the entire world, with nets of maṇi gems spread out to cover everything above. At the sides of every gate were raised banners and pennants, every one of them emitting light that universally pervaded the dharma-realm. Beyond the site of awakening itself, its steps and railings numbered beyond measure, beyond any description — and not a single one of them was made of anything but maṇi gems.
師子頻申三昧 — the Lion's Stretching-Forth Samādhi. Named for the way a lion rouses itself before it acts, this samādhi is entered here not as a private absorption but as the very means by which the Buddha answers the assembly: the pavilion's transformation that follows is itself the response, arising directly from the entering rather than from any word spoken afterward.
Part 834 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty. Part 835 turns from the great pavilion to the Jeta Grove itself, as the Buddha's spiritual power causes it, too, to grow vast beyond measure.