Why the Śrāvakas Cannot See
Having stated that the great śrāvakas cannot see any part of this transformation, the sūtra now explains why, in nineteen consecutive reasons, each one naming a root of goodness the śrāvakas never cultivated — closing with the claim that all of this belongs to a domain the two vehicles do not share.
Nineteen Roots of Goodness Never Cultivated
Not one of these nineteen reasons blames the śrāvakas for anything they did; each one names something they never did — never praising a buddha-land's own merit, never urging others toward awakening, never coming to know that every dharma is like an illusion and every bodhisattva like a dream.
何以故？以善根不同故，本不修習見佛自在善根故，本不讚說十方世界一切佛剎清淨功德故，本不稱歎諸佛世尊種種神變故，本不於生死流轉之中發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心故，本不令他住菩提心故，本不能令如來種性不斷絕故，本不攝受諸眾生故，本不勸他修習菩薩波羅蜜故，本在生死流轉之時不勸眾生求於最勝大智眼故，本不修習生一切智諸善根故，本不成就如來出世諸善根故，本不得嚴淨佛剎神通智故，本不得諸菩薩眼所知境故，本不求超出世間不共菩提諸善根故，本不發一切菩薩諸大願故，本不從如來加被之所生故，本不知諸法如幻、菩薩如夢故，本不得諸大菩薩廣大歡喜故。如是皆是普賢菩薩智眼境界，不與一切二乘所共。
Why is this so? Because their roots of goodness are not the same; because they never cultivated the root of goodness that lets one see a buddha's own sovereign freedom; because they never praised and proclaimed the pure merit of every buddha-land throughout the ten directions; because they never extolled and praised the various spiritual transformations of every buddha, every world-honored one; because, amid the flow of birth and death, they never gave rise to the mind set on unsurpassed, perfect awakening; because they never caused others to abide in the mind of awakening; because they were never able to keep the tathāgata's own lineage from being cut off; because they never gathered in and embraced sentient beings; because they never urged others to cultivate the bodhisattva's own pāramitās; because, amid the flow of birth and death, they never urged sentient beings to seek the most excellent eye of great wisdom; because they never cultivated the roots of goodness that give rise to all-knowing wisdom; because they never accomplished the roots of goodness by which a tathāgata appears in the world; because they never attained the spiritual wisdom that adorns and purifies a buddha-land; because they never attained the domain known by the bodhisattvas' own eye; because they never sought the roots of goodness for the awakening that transcends the world and is not shared with it; because they never gave rise to any of the bodhisattvas' own great vows; because they were never born from the tathāgata's own empowering grace; because they never knew that every dharma is like an illusion, and that a bodhisattva is like a dream; and because they never attained the vast, great joy of the great bodhisattvas. All of this is the domain of Samantabhadra's own wisdom-eye, not shared in common with either of the two vehicles.
本不知諸法如幻、菩薩如夢故 — because they never knew that every dharma is like an illusion, and that a bodhisattva is like a dream. This reason lands directly on the very knowledge the arriving bodhisattvas were said to hold in common two parts earlier — that beings, buddhas, worlds, and rebirth are each like an illusion, reflection, or dream. What separates seeing from not seeing here is not merit accumulated elsewhere, but this specific way of knowing, never cultivated.
Part 850 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty. Part 851 turns to a second list of reasons, describing what the śrāvakas lack outright — no such roots of goodness, no such wisdom-eye, no such samādhi — before the sūtra explains their path itself as the deeper cause.