A Master of Illusion Leaves Nothing Undone
The hymn turns to a bodhisattva's own manifest activity — shattering the demon-kings' palaces, teaching from within a single hair's tip, and displaying birth, renunciation, awakening beneath a tree, and nirvāṇa itself, just as a master of illusion leaves nothing undone.
Manifesting Every Form, Like a Master of Illusion
The palaces of the demon-kings shattered, a light within which bodhisattvas sit teaching upon lotus flowers, and a body divided to fill every land — displaying birth, renunciation, awakening, and nirvāṇa in turn.
過去所有皆憶念，未來一切悉分別，
十方世界普入中，為度眾生令出離。
菩薩具足妙智光，善了因緣無有疑，
一切迷惑皆除斷，如是而遊於法界。
魔王宮殿悉摧破，眾生翳膜咸除滅，
離諸分別心不動，善了如來之境界。
三世疑網悉已除，於如來所起淨信，
以信得成不動智，智清淨故解真實。
為令眾生得出離，盡於後際普饒益，
長時勤苦心無厭，乃至地獄亦安受。
福智無量皆具足，眾生根欲悉了知，
及諸業行無不見，如其所樂為說法。
了知一切空無我，慈念眾生恒不捨，
以一大悲微妙音，普入世間而演說。
放大光明種種色，普照眾生除黑闇，
光中菩薩坐蓮華，為眾闡揚清淨法。
於一毛端現眾剎，諸大菩薩皆充滿，
眾會智慧各不同，悉能明了眾生心。
十方世界不可說，一念周行無不盡，
利益眾生供養佛，於諸佛所問深義。
於諸如來作父想，為利眾生修覺行，
智慧善巧通法藏，入深智處無所著。
隨順思惟說法界，經無量劫不可盡，
智雖善入無處所，無有疲厭無所著。
三世諸佛家中生，證得如來妙法身，
普為群生現眾色，譬如幻師無不作。
或現始修殊勝行，或現初生及出家，
或現樹下成菩提，或為眾生示涅槃。
菩薩所住希有法，唯佛境界非二乘，
身語意想皆已除，種種隨宜悉能現。
菩薩所得諸佛法，眾生思惟發狂亂，
智入實際心無礙，普現如來自在力。
此於世間無與等，何況復增殊勝行，
雖未具足一切智，已獲如來自在力。
已住究竟一乘道，深入微妙最上法，
善知眾生時非時，為利益故現神通。
分身遍滿一切剎，放淨光明除世闇，
譬如龍王起大雲，普雨妙雨悉充洽。
觀察眾生如幻夢，以業力故常流轉，
大悲哀愍咸救拔，為說無為淨法性。
Everything there has ever been in the past, they hold entirely in mind; everything there will be in the future, they discern entirely; into the worlds of the ten directions they enter universally, in order to cross living beings over and cause them to gain release. The bodhisattva is fully endowed with the wondrous light of wisdom, thoroughly understanding cause and condition without a trace of doubt; every confusion and delusion is entirely cut off and ended — thus do they wander throughout the Dharma-realm.
The palaces of the demon-kings are entirely shattered and destroyed; the cataracts veiling living beings' eyes are all removed and dissolved; free from every discrimination, their mind is unmoving, and they thoroughly understand the Tathāgata's own realm. The net of doubt across the three periods of time is entirely removed; toward the Tathāgata they give rise to a pure faith; through this faith they accomplish an unmoving wisdom, and because that wisdom is pure, they understand what is truly real.
So that living beings may gain release, they universally benefit them to the very furthest limit of time to come; through long ages of diligent toil and hardship their mind is never wearied, and they calmly endure even the hells themselves. Immeasurable merit and wisdom are entirely fulfilled within them; living beings' own faculties and desires they understand entirely, and their every karmic action, without exception, they see — and, in accordance with what each being delights in, they teach the Dharma to them.
Understanding fully that all things are empty and without self, they hold living beings forever in loving-kindness, never abandoning them; with a single subtle and wondrous voice of great compassion, they enter universally into the world and expound the Dharma. They emit a great light of every kind of color, universally illumining living beings and dispelling the darkness; within that light, bodhisattvas sit upon lotus flowers, expounding and proclaiming the pure Dharma for the assembly.
Upon the very tip of a single hair they manifest a multitude of lands, entirely filled with great bodhisattvas; the wisdom of each assembly there differs from the next, and yet every one of them is able to clearly understand living beings' own minds. Throughout the worlds of the ten directions, beyond all telling, in a single thought they travel entirely, leaving nothing untouched — benefiting living beings, making offerings to the buddhas, and inquiring of the buddhas themselves into the profound meaning.
Toward every Tathāgata they hold the thought of a father; for the benefit of living beings they cultivate the practice of awakening; through wisdom and skillful means they penetrate the Dharma-treasury, entering the place of profound wisdom while clinging to nothing at all. In accordance with it, they reflect upon and expound the Dharma-realm, and through immeasurable kalpas it can never be exhausted; though their wisdom skillfully enters it, it has no fixed place at all, and they are never wearied and cling to nothing.
Born within the very household of every buddha across the three periods of time, they realize and attain the Tathāgata's own wondrous Dharma-body; universally, for the sake of the multitudes of beings, they manifest every kind of form, just as a master of illusion leaves nothing undone. Sometimes they manifest the beginning of the supreme practice; sometimes they manifest their own birth and their going forth from home; sometimes they manifest the accomplishment of bodhi beneath a tree; and sometimes, for the sake of living beings, they display nirvāṇa itself.
The rare and wondrous Dharma the bodhisattva abides within belongs only to the Buddha's own realm, not to the two vehicles; every notion of body, speech, and mind has already been removed, and in every kind of way, as fits the occasion, they are able to manifest. The buddha-dharma the bodhisattva has attained, were living beings to try to fathom it by thought, would drive them to distraction; their wisdom enters the very reality-limit with a mind that meets no obstruction, universally manifesting the Tathāgata's own power of sovereign mastery.
In all the world there is nothing at all that equals this, still less anything that surpasses this supreme practice; though they have not yet fully perfected the all-knowing wisdom, they have already obtained the Tathāgata's own power of sovereign mastery. Already abiding in the ultimate path of the one vehicle, they enter deeply into the subtle and supreme Dharma; skillfully knowing the right and the wrong time for living beings, they manifest spiritual powers for the sake of benefiting them.
They divide their own body to fill every land completely, emitting a pure light that dispels the world's own darkness; just as a nāga-king raises up a great cloud and universally rains down a wondrous rain, drenching everything entirely. Contemplating living beings as like an illusion or a dream, ever turning through cyclic existence by the force of their own karma, they save and rescue them all with great compassion and pity, teaching them the pure, unconditioned nature of dharmas.
This stretch of the hymn compresses what elsewhere takes an entire chapter — the "eight aspects" of a buddha's manifest life, birth, renunciation, awakening beneath a tree, and passing into nirvāṇa, are named here almost in passing, as simply one more expression of a mind already equal to the Dharma-realm. The master-of-illusion simile carries real weight in this tradition: nothing here denies that these events occur, only that they occur exactly as a magical display occurs — vividly present, and empty of any fixed, independent self behind them.
Part 96 Complete
This closes Part 96. The closing hymn continues in Part 97.