Hungry Ghosts Beside the Ganges
After two lists of reasons, the sūtra turns to image instead of explanation: starving ghosts standing at the very edge of a river they cannot see, and a sleeping man's vivid dream of Sumeru that no one else in his own assembly — seated in that very same place — can share.
Standing at the River's Edge, Unable to See It
These two similes share a single point despite their very different scale: physical proximity guarantees nothing. Ghosts can stand at the river's edge and see only a dry channel; an entire assembly can sit in one place while only a single sleeper journeys to Sumeru.
佛子！如恒河岸有百千億無量餓鬼，裸形飢渴，舉體焦然，烏鷲犲狼競來搏撮，為渴所逼，欲求水飲，雖住河邊而不見河；設有見者，見其枯竭。何以故？深厚業障之所覆故。彼大聲聞亦復如是，雖復住在逝多林中，不見如來廣大神力，捨一切智，無明瞖瞙覆其眼故，不曾種植薩婆若地諸善根故。
Buddha's child! It is like the bank of the Ganges river, where there are hundreds of thousands of millions of measureless hungry ghosts, naked, starving, and thirsting, their entire bodies scorched and burning, crows, vultures, jackals, and wolves competing to seize and tear at them; driven by thirst, wanting to find water to drink, though they stand right at the river's edge they cannot see the river at all, and if any of them does see something, what he sees is only a dried-up, empty channel. Why is this so? Because they are covered over by the deep, thick obstruction of their own karma. The great śrāvakas are exactly the same: though they too dwell within the Jeta Grove, they do not see the tathāgata's own vast spiritual power, having renounced all-knowing wisdom, their own eyes covered over by the cataract of their own ignorance, never having planted the roots of goodness that belong to the ground of all-knowledge.
譬如有人，於大會中昏睡安寢，忽然夢見須彌山頂帝釋所住善見大城，宮殿、園林種種嚴好，天子、天女百千萬億，普散天華遍滿其地，種種衣樹出妙衣服，種種華樹開敷妙華，諸音樂樹奏天音樂，天諸采女歌詠美音，無量諸天於中戲樂；其人自見著天衣服，普於其處住止周旋。其大會中一切諸人雖同一處，不知不見。何以故？夢中所見，非彼大眾所能見故。一切菩薩、世間諸王亦復如是，以久積集善根力故，發一切智廣大願故，學習一切佛功德故，修行菩薩莊嚴道故，圓滿一切智智法故，滿足普賢諸行願故，趣入一切菩薩智地故，遊戲一切菩薩所住諸三昧故，已能觀察一切菩薩智慧境界無障礙故，是故悉見如來世尊不可思議自在神變。一切聲聞諸大弟子，皆不能見，皆不能知，以無菩薩清淨眼故。
It is like a man who, in the midst of a great assembly, falls into a deep, drowsy sleep, and suddenly dreams that he is at the summit of Mount Sumeru, in the great city of Sudarśana where Śakra himself dwells, its palaces and gardens adorned in every wondrous way, with hundreds of thousands of millions of heavenly sons and heavenly maidens, heavenly flowers scattered everywhere covering the entire ground, garment-trees of every kind giving forth wondrous clothing, flower-trees of every kind blossoming with wondrous flowers, music-trees playing heavenly music, heavenly dancing-maidens singing in beautiful voices, and measureless devas taking their pleasure there; and the man sees himself wearing heavenly garments, moving freely and dwelling everywhere throughout that place. Yet everyone else in that great assembly, though occupying that very same place, neither knows nor sees any of it. Why is this so? Because what is seen within a dream is not something the rest of the assembly is able to see. Every bodhisattva and every world-ruler is exactly the same: because of the power of roots of goodness accumulated over a long time, because of the vast vow they have raised to attain all-knowing wisdom, because of having studied every buddha's own merit, because of having practiced the bodhisattva's own adorned path, because of having perfected the dharma of all-knowing, all-seeing wisdom, because of having fulfilled every one of Samantabhadra's own practices and vows, because of having entered every bodhisattva ground of wisdom, because of having freely moved through every samādhi in which the bodhisattvas abide, and because they are already able to observe the domain of every bodhisattva's own wisdom without any obstruction — for all these reasons, they see in full the World-Honored One's own inconceivable, sovereign spiritual transformation. Every one of the great śrāvaka disciples, however, is entirely unable to see it and entirely unable to know it, because they lack the bodhisattva's own pure eye.
其大會中一切諸人雖同一處，不知不見 — yet everyone else in that great assembly, though occupying that very same place, neither knows nor sees any of it. This line describes the sleeping man's own companions, but it describes the great śrāvakas with equal precision: they too occupy the very same Jeta Grove as this entire transformation, and share none of it.
Part 852 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty. Part 853 turns to two further similes — medicinal herbs on a mountain seen only by a physician, and a buried treasure found only by a man wise and fortunate enough to dig for it.