Why Some Can See and Others Cannot
The vision reaches down to a point the size of a single hair's tip, and outward into the mind of every sentient being, without ever once disturbing the world it moves through — and yet, exactly as before, only certain beings in this assembly are able to see any part of it.
A Cause Planted Long Before This Moment
Just as with the great śrāvakas earlier in this fascicle, the ability to see this vision is traced back to something already in place before this very gathering began — a root of goodness, a past teaching, a shared planting of merit in the presence of some earlier buddha.
如此會中，菩薩大眾見於如是諸佛如來甚深三昧大神通力；如是盡法界、虛空界，東、西、南、北、四維、上、下一切方海中，依於眾生心想而住，始從前際至今現在，一切國土身、一切眾生身、一切虛空道，其中一一毛端量處，一一各有微塵數剎種種業起次第而住，悉有道場菩薩眾會，皆亦如是見佛神力，不壞三世，不壞世間，於一切眾生心中現其影像，隨一切眾生心樂出妙言音，普入一切眾會中，普現一切眾生前，色相有別，智慧無異，隨其所應開示佛法，教化調伏一切眾生未曾休息。其有見此佛神力者，皆是毘盧遮那如來於往昔時善根攝受，或昔曾以四攝所攝，或是見聞憶念親近之所成熟，或是往昔教其令發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，或是往昔於諸佛所同種善根，或是過去以一切智善巧方便教化成熟。
Within this very assembly, the bodhisattvas saw this same profound samādhi and great spiritual superknowledge of every buddha and tathāgata; and just so, throughout the entire dharma-realm and the realm of empty space, in every ocean of directions — east, west, south, north, the four intermediate directions, above, and below — abiding according to the thoughts and conceptions of every sentient being, from the very beginning down to this present moment, within every land's own body, every sentient being's own body, and every path through empty space, within every single point the size of a hair's tip, there was, in each and every one, lands as numerous as motes of dust, each abiding according to the sequence in which its own various karma arose, and every one of them had its own site of awakening and its own bodhisattva assembly, all likewise seeing the Buddha's own spiritual power, without disturbing the three times, and without disturbing the world, manifesting its own reflected image within the mind of every sentient being, and, according to what every sentient being's own mind delights in, giving forth a wondrous sound, universally entering every assembly, universally manifesting before every sentient being, its form and appearance differing from place to place, yet its wisdom never differing at all, revealing the buddha's own dharma exactly as fits each one, teaching and taming every sentient being without ever once resting. As for those who were able to see this spiritual power of the Buddha, every one of them had, in ages past, been gathered in by Vairocana Tathāgata's own root of goodness, or had once, in the past, been gathered in through the four means of attraction, or had been brought to maturity through seeing, hearing, remembering, or drawing close to him, or had, in ages past, been taught by him to give rise to the mind set on unsurpassed, perfect awakening, or had, in ages past, planted the same roots of goodness together with him in the presence of every buddha, or had, in the past, been taught and brought to maturity through the skillful means of all-knowing wisdom.
不壞三世，不壞世間 — without disturbing the three times, and without disturbing the world. Even at its most vast — reaching every point the size of a hair's tip throughout every land and every being's own mind — this vision leaves ordinary time and the ordinary world entirely intact; whatever separates those who can see it from those who cannot, it was never a matter of the vision overwhelming or replacing anything.
Part 870 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-one. Part 871 turns to what the bodhisattvas who can see this vision then enter into — the tathāgata's own dharma-body, form-body, and every one of his own perfected pāramitās.