Good-Wealth's Twelfth Teacher Is Named
Well-Seen sends Good-Wealth south to a land named Renown and a boy named Sovereign Lord, found on a river islet, and this departure carries an unusually long list of what Good-Wealth actually wants — ten distinct wishes spanning courage, power, vows, and a mind that never tires of good spiritual friends.
Ten Wishes, Carried on the Road
Rather than the usual bow and departure, Good-Wealth's own leave-taking from Well-Seen is filled out by an inner list of ten things he wants — courageous practice, great power of light, unsurpassed merit, firm vows, a vast mind, and above all an appetite for good spiritual friends that never wears thin.
「善男子！於此南方，有一國土，名曰：名聞；於河渚中，有一童子，名：自在主。汝詣彼問：菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道？」時，善財童子為欲究竟菩薩勇猛清淨之行，欲得菩薩大力光明，欲修菩薩無勝無盡諸功德行，欲滿菩薩堅固大願，欲成菩薩廣大深心，欲持菩薩無量勝行，於菩薩法心無厭足，願入一切菩薩功德，欲常攝御一切眾生，欲超生死稠林曠野，於善知識常樂見聞，承事供養無有厭倦；頂禮其足，遶無量匝，慇懃瞻仰，辭退而去。
"Good son, to the south of here, there is a land named Renown; on a river islet, there is a boy named Sovereign Lord. Go to him and ask: 'How does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices, and cultivate the bodhisattva path?'" At that time, the boy Good-Wealth, wishing to bring to completion the bodhisattva's own courageous and pure practice, wishing to attain the bodhisattva's own great power of light, wishing to cultivate the bodhisattva's own unsurpassed and inexhaustible meritorious practices, wishing to fulfill the bodhisattva's own firm and great vows, wishing to accomplish the bodhisattva's own vast and profound mind, wishing to uphold the bodhisattva's own measureless supreme practices, his mind never wearied or satisfied with the bodhisattva's own dharma, wishing to enter every bodhisattva's own merit, wishing to constantly gather in and guide every being, wishing to transcend the dense forest and vast wilderness of birth and death, forever delighting in seeing and hearing his good spiritual friends, and attending and making offerings to them without ever growing weary, bowed his head at his feet, circumambulated him countless times, gazed up at him earnestly, took his leave, and departed.
於善知識常樂見聞，承事供養無有厭倦 — forever delighting in seeing and hearing his good spiritual friends, and attending and making offerings to them without ever growing weary. Nine of these ten wishes describe qualities Good-Wealth wants for himself. Only this last one describes a relationship instead — proof that after eleven teachers, what he most wants is simply more of what has already carried him this far.
Part 990 Complete
This continues chapter thirty-nine, 入法界品, in fascicle sixty-five. Part 991 turns to Good-Wealth's arrival at the riverbank, where he finds Sovereign Lord playing at sand with ten thousand other boys, and asks him the same standing question.