The Ten Grounds

Vairocana Buddha said: "Thousand Buddhas — listen. You have asked what these ten grounds mean. Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva who enters the Ground of Equal Nature teaches the true dharma and transforms through it; every practice comes to full flower, freely applying the fruit of the four heavens by no fixed method, dwelling in a buddha's pure land complete with spiritual powers, the ten powers, the ten epithets, and the eighteen unshared qualities. With boundless vows and fearless eloquence, every treatise and every practice is now entered. Born into the Buddha's own family, seated on the ground of buddha-nature, no obstruction and no ordinary cause-and-effect is any longer received — only great joy remains. From one buddha-land they enter countless buddha-lands; from one kalpa they enter countless kalpas; what could not be said becomes sayable, and every dharma is seen clearly, seen both forward and in reverse, always entering the two truths while standing within the ultimate truth. With a single wisdom they know the sequence of all ten grounds, showing each thing to sentient beings while their own mind remains constantly within the middle way. With a single wisdom they know every distinct buddha-land and every teaching a Buddha has spoken, and yet body and mind stay unchanged. With a single wisdom they know the twelve links of dependent origination and the seeds of the ten unwholesome deeds, and yet abide constantly in the wholesome path. With a single wisdom they see that existence and nonexistence are not two separate marks. With a single wisdom they enter the ten branches of meditative absorption and practice the thirty-seven factors of the path, while manifesting bodies throughout the six destinies. With a single wisdom they know every form in every direction, each arising and receiving its own retribution, and yet no thought is ever bound; light meets light and illuminates everything, and so the patient acceptance of the unborn and the wisdom of emptiness stand constantly before them. From the first ground to the second, all the way to the realm of buddhahood, every dharma-gate between is practiced at once. This barely indicates the ocean-treasury of merit, practice, and vow belonging to the Ground of Equal Nature — a single drop from that ocean, no more than the tip of a hair."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Wholesome Wisdom brings every wholesome root to pure clarity — that is, loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, and wisdom. Every merit here is rooted in a wisdom that, from the very first contemplation, enters the skillful path of the wisdom of great emptiness: seeing that no being is exempt from the truth of suffering, that every being with a mind experiences consciousness arising from the sword-and-staff of the three lower destinies and all their pain — this is called the truth of suffering. As for the three marks of suffering: first, the body's initial sensation, arising from the two conditions of sword-and-staff and the body's own form, is the condition for the suffering of activity itself. Next, a feeling arises at the level of mind, conditioned by that first bodily sensation, taking in the sword-and-staff and the body's own wounds — this is felt as pain doubled upon pain, and because it doubles, it is called the suffering of suffering. Next, sensation and mental formation arise together, conditioned toward the body's own decay and injury, giving rise to a felt sense of loss — this is the condition of the suffering of decay. Three sensations, arising in sequence, give rise to three minds — this is why it is called suffering upon suffering. … And so I, within this very ground, enter the samādhi of the path of teaching and transformation, manifesting bodies of every kind throughout the six destinies, and with ten forms of eloquence expound the gateways of the dharma. … Pressed upon, sensation arises the way a spark leaps from struck stone: in body and mind, moment by moment, arising and ceasing; the body scatters, decays, and transforms, and consciousness enters into the very condition of that decay. Conditions gather and disperse, the mind suffers and is afflicted, and in the wake of what is felt, attachment clings on, unwilling to let go, moment after moment — this is the suffering of decay. The three realms, in their entirety, are nothing but this truth of suffering. Looking further, one sees that ignorance accumulates boundless states of mind, producing every kind of karma, one link joined to the next, habit-cause compounding gathered-cause — this is called the truth of origination. Right view, liberation, the wisdom that knows the emptiness of emptiness, mind after mind — this is called, through wisdom, the truth of the path. Every karmic fruit exhausted, every cause exhausted, one clear illumination of the essential nature itself, the subtle wisdom of cessation as a single truth — wisdom, complete, is called the root. All the nature of wisdom, arising from emptiness, entering contemplation — this is the first wholesome root. The second is the contemplation that relinquishes every form of craving and attachment, practising a relinquishment that is itself equal and empty, observing every dharma without any object to hold onto — a single perception at the very edge of emptiness: 'I see every land in the ten directions as ground I myself once used, in some life now past. The waters of the four great oceans are waters I once used. Every fire that has ever ended an age is a fire I once used in some body now past. Every wheel of wind is breath I once used. Now, entering this ground, my dharma-body complete, I let go of that former body — in the end, I no longer receive the impure, fragmented body made of the four elements.' This is the relinquishment root, complete. The third is the contemplation, turned toward every being still to be transformed, of the joy of gods and humans, the joy of the ten grounds, the joy of freedom from the fear of the ten unwholesome deeds, the joy of the wondrous flower samādhi, up to the very joy of buddhahood itself. Whoever contemplates in this way completes the root of loving-kindness. A bodhisattva abiding in this ground is at that time free of delusion, free of greed, free of anger; entering the single wisdom of the truth of equality, the root of every practice, they wander through every buddha-world, manifesting boundless dharma-bodies. This is explained fully in the Chapter on the Heavenly Flower of All Sentient Beings."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Radiant Light knows, through the discerning wisdom of samādhi, every dharma-teaching of the buddhas across all three times — the words, meanings, and phrases of the twelve divisions of the teaching: repeated verse, prophecy, plain narration, spontaneous verse, teaching given unasked, precept and discipline, parable, accounts of buddha-realms, stories of past lives, right and proper exposition, the never-before-told, and philosophical discourse. This essential nature of the dharma is itself called the ultimate meaning. Within these distinct words and phrases, every conditioned thing is shown arising bit by bit: first entering consciousness in the womb, the four elements increasing to form body and mind — this is called the six abodes; sensation arising truly at the level of the six sense-faculties, not yet distinguishing pleasure from pain, is called contact-consciousness; consciousness once it distinguishes pleasure and pain is called the three feelings; feeling, clung to again and again without end, becomes craving; taking a view of self, grasping at precepts, wholesome and unwholesome existence — the first moment of consciousness is called birth, its last moment is called death. These ten categories are the suffering present before us. To contemplate cause, condition, and fruit is itself the middle way of practice — long ago I already left this behind, for it has no essential nature of its own. Entering the spiritual power of radiant light, with total command of retention and eloquence, mind after mind moving through emptiness, I manifest, throughout the buddha-lands of the ten directions, the unfolding and transformation of a hundred, a thousand kalpas, cultivating spiritual power within these lands, paying homage before each Buddha and receiving the teaching. I again manifest bodies throughout the six destinies, and in a single sound expound boundless categories of dharma, so that each being, according to its own portion, hears exactly the teaching its own mind desires — the single sound of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and no-self, though lands differ and bodies and minds are each transformed differently. This barely opens, to the width of a single hair, the Ground of Wondrous Flower-Light — as is explained fully in the Chapter on the Thousand Samādhis of Understanding and Contemplating the Dharma."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of the Known accords with what is real and illuminates the conventional at once — neither cut off nor eternal, arising, abiding, and ceasing all at the same instant, each life, each moment, each existence appearing differently through its own distinct causes. Within the middle way of cause and condition, nothing is one or two, good or evil, ordinary being or buddha — and yet buddha-realm and ordinary realm are each still distinguished; this is called the conventional truth. … And so the buddhas, entering the samādhi of light meeting light as a flower, manifest countless buddhas, place a hand upon the practitioner's head, and teach the dharma in a single voice; through a hundred thousand such awakenings, the practitioner never once leaves concentration — abiding in it, savoring it, absorbed in it, for a single kalpa, a thousand kalpas. … Then, within the buddhas' own light, the hand is again placed upon the crown, and the aspects of transcending, advancing, and moving onward arise: the practitioner does not sink, does not retreat, does not fall, and does not linger — the dharma of the crown-samādhi, the patient acceptance of the highest joy, is brought to its complete and final end. They then enter every buddha-land, cultivating boundless categories of merit, every practice itself radiant, entering skillful means, teaching and transforming every being, enabling them to see that the essential nature of buddhahood is permanence, bliss, self, and purity. One who lives and abides in this ground, practising and teaching in this way, grows gradually deeper and more subtle, the flower-like contemplative wisdom entering the middle way of the essential nature itself, every dharma-gate brought to fulfillment — indestructible, like the diamond. This meaning has already been made clear above, in the Chapter on the Course of the Sun and Moon."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Wisdom's Light gives rise, through a single skillful wisdom, to ten kinds of power, and from them, every meritorious action: the power of knowing what is fitting and what is not, discerning wholesome action from unwholesome; the power of knowing karma itself, wholesome and unwholesome alike; the power of knowing what every being in the six destinies desires and aspires to; the power of knowing the differing natures of beings across the six destinies; the power of knowing which faculties, wholesome or unwholesome, belong to which being; the power of knowing what is wrongly fixed, rightly fixed, or not yet fixed at all; the power of knowing that every cause leads, by the very same vehicle, to its own fruit, and that the fruit is reached only by riding that same causal path; the power of the five eyes, knowing every dharma and seeing every being's rebirth through the divine eye; the power of knowing, one by one, the events of a hundred kalpas past; and the power of knowing the ending of every affliction produced by rebirth, and the ending of the ignorance that produces karma — the power of liberation itself. Knowing these ten powers, a bodhisattva knows the causes and fruits of their own cultivation, and knows, too, the causes and fruits distinguishing every other being. And yet body, speech, and mind each still act with total freedom: taking a pure land as though it were defiled, and a defiled land as though it were a realm of wonder; turning the wholesome into the unwholesome and the unwholesome into the wholesome; taking form as no-form and no-form as form; taking male as female and female as male; taking the six destinies as not the six destinies, and what is not the six destinies as the six destinies — down to earth, water, fire, and wind taken as not earth, water, fire, and wind at all. At this time, through the power of great skillful means, this being moves among all sentient beings, seeing what cannot be thought, what those in lower grounds cannot know — even the awareness bound up in the simple lifting and setting-down of a single foot. This great and radiant wisdom advances by degrees, one discernment at a time, light meeting light without limit, without limit — inexplicable, ineffable dharma-gates standing directly ahead."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Flower-Light can, throughout every world, call on ten kinds of supernatural cognition to show every being every kind of transformation: with the divine eye, knowing every mote of form in every land across the three times, each one combining, particle by particle, into the bodies of beings in the six destinies; with the divine ear, knowing every sound of suffering and joy from beings in the six destinies in all directions and times — sound that is not quite sound, voice that is not quite voice, every dharma-voice there is; with the divine body, knowing every form, form that is not form, shape that is neither male nor female, pervading, in a single thought, every land of every size across the ten directions and three times; with the divine mind that knows others' minds, knowing what every being in the six directions is thinking, in every land, across the three times, their pleasure and pain, their good and evil; with the divine knowledge of destiny, knowing the pleasure and pain and lifespan of every being's past lives, one by one, spanning a hundred kalpas; with the divine knowledge of liberation, knowing the liberation of beings in the ten directions and three times, the greater or lesser ending of every affliction, from the first ground all the way to the tenth, each ending traced to its full completion; with the divine knowledge of concentration, knowing whether the minds of beings in every land are settled, unsettled, or neither, and by what method concentration arises, and every samādhi it can hold; with the divine knowledge of awakening, knowing which beings have become buddhas and which have not, down to the minds of beings in all six destinies, and knowing, too, what is spoken in the minds of buddhas in every direction; with the divine knowledge of recollection, knowing, across a hundred kalpas or a thousand, how long or short each being's life has been; and with the divine knowledge of vows, knowing the vows and practices of every noble being across the ten grounds, and the thirty minds before them, whatever they seek, wholesome or not — every vow, small and great, brought to fulfillment. One abiding in this ground, within these ten kinds of supernatural cognition, manifests boundless bodies and distinct uses of mind and speech, expounding the merit of this ground for a hundred thousand million kalpas without exhausting it. And this is Śākyamuni's own brief opening of the chapter on supernatural cognition, as explained in the Chapter on Contemplating the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Fulfillment enters, within this dharma, the eighteen distinctive qualities of a sage, shared with no lower ground: the body free of all fault, speech free of all wrongdoing, thought free of all lapse of mindfulness; free of the eight kinds of error, always within samādhi with regard to every dharma. Entering this ground, six qualities are brought to completion, and from this wisdom, six further capacities arise in turn: the three realms' habitual bonds are, in the end, no longer received — this is the completion of desire; every merit and every dharma-gate sought is now fulfilled — this is the completion of diligence; every matter across every kalpa and every being is known in a single moment, with a single mind — this is the completion of mindfulness; the two truths and every dharma across the six destinies are known — this is the completion of wisdom; knowing that those who first set out toward buddhahood, all the way up to the buddhas themselves, are free of every bond and every habitual trace — this is the completion of liberation; and knowing that every being is free of defilement exactly as one's own students are, and knowing others' liberation through this same wisdom — this is liberation completed once more. Having entered these six completions and their wisdom, one then, according to the mind of every being in the six destinies, speaks with eloquence across boundless dharma-gates, showing every being what accords with their own mind, entering samādhi at will, moving the whole earth and empty space alike, and transforming flowers out of the sky — able to move the very minds of beings. With this great and complete clarity, one sees every buddha who has ever appeared in every kalpa now past, showing this to every being's mind as well; with wisdom free of any clinging, one sees every buddha now present in every land of the ten directions and the minds of every being there; and with the wisdom of spiritual power, one sees every buddha yet to appear, in every kalpa yet to come, and every being who will receive the path and hear the dharma from that buddha. Abiding within these eighteen qualities of a sage, mind after mind in samādhi, one contemplates the motes of dust filling the three thousand worlds as one's own past bodies, and every being as one's own father and mother — and now, entering this ground, every merit, every spiritual radiance, every dharma a buddha practises, all the way through the eighth and ninth grounds, is already entered; and so, throughout every buddha-land, one manifests the appearance of becoming a buddha, attaining the path, turning the wheel of dharma, and entering final nirvāṇa, transforming beings across every land, past, present, and future, everywhere at once."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of the Buddha's Roar enters the samādhi of the very throne of the dharma-king, wisdom equal to a buddha's own — the samādhi of the buddha's roar itself. Ten categories of great and radiant concentration stand constantly before this being, the samādhi of flower-light and sound entering the mind. As for the wisdom of emptiness held here: the wisdom of inner emptiness, of outer emptiness, of the emptiness of the conditioned, of the emptiness of the unconditioned, of the emptiness of essential nature, of beginningless emptiness, of the emptiness of ultimate meaning, of the emptiness of emptiness, of the emptiness that is again emptied, and of the emptiness that empties even that emptying — these ten gateways of emptiness are unknown to any lower ground. The ground of empty, equal space itself cannot be told, cannot be told. Through spiritual power and the wisdom of the path, in a single thought this being knows every dharma in each of its distinctions, entering countless buddha-lands, receiving the teaching before every buddha there, turning the dharma-wheel and handing it on to every being, offering the medicine of the dharma to every being as its great teacher, its great guide, overturning the four demonic hosts, its dharma-body transforming again and again until it enters the very realm of buddhahood — one now counted among the buddhas themselves, among those of the ninth and tenth grounds. Nurturing the dharma-body, a hundred thousand gateways of retention, of samādhi, of the diamond, of spiritual power, of liberation — through these hundred thousand gateways of empty, equal space, moving with total freedom, one thought accomplishing all at once: speaking of a kalpa as no kalpa, of no kalpa as a kalpa; speaking of the path as no path, of no path as the path; speaking of the beings of the six destinies as not the beings of the six destinies, and of what is not those beings as those beings; speaking of a buddha as no buddha, and of no buddha as a buddha. Entering and leaving the very samādhi of every buddha's essential nature, illuminating in reverse and in accord, before and after, cause and fruit, emptiness and existence, and the meaning of the ultimate middle way itself — this wisdom only the eighth ground can attain; no lower ground can reach it. Unmoving and unarriving, neither leaving nor entering, neither arising nor ceasing — the dharma-gates of this ground are boundless, boundless, inexplicable, inexplicable. What is opened here is no more than a hundred-thousandth part, the width of a single hair, of this ground — this has already been made clear in the Chapter on the Arhat."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva in the Ground of Flower Adornment holds the very dignity of a buddha — the sovereign king of the Tathāgata's own samādhi, entering and leaving it at no fixed time, and within the three thousand worlds of the ten directions, among a hundred million suns and moons and a hundred million of the four continents, becomes a buddha, turns the dharma-wheel, and enters final nirvāṇa, all at once. Every deed of a buddha is shown, in a single mind, to every being at the same time — every body, its eighty subtle marks and thirty-two signs, moving with total freedom, equal to the whole of empty space. With boundless great compassion, radiant with every mark of adornment, this being is neither a god nor a human nor any being of the six destinies at all, and yet, standing outside every dharma, constantly moves through the six destinies, manifesting boundless bodies, boundless speech, boundless minds, teaching boundless dharma-gates — able to turn the realm of demons into the realm of the buddha, and the realm of the buddha into the realm of demons; every view turned into the buddha's own seeing, and the buddha's own seeing turned into every view; buddha-nature entering the nature of sentient beings, and the nature of sentient beings entering buddha-nature. This ground shines with light upon light, wisdom upon wisdom, its radiance blazing upon radiance — fearless, boundless, holding the ten powers, the eighteen unshared qualities, liberation, and nirvāṇa as a single unconditioned path, wholly pure. Taking every being as a father, a mother, a brother, this being teaches the dharma across every kalpa until each one attains the fruit of the path; and appearing, too, in every land, regards every being — even demons and those of other paths — as a father or mother would. Abiding in this ground, from the very edge of birth-and-death to the very edge of the diamond itself, this being manifests every such thing within a single thought, and can turn and enter boundless realms of beings in just this way. All of this, immeasurable as it is, has only been briefly said here — like a single drop drawn from the ocean."

"Disciples of the Buddha: a bodhisattva-mahāsattva entering the Ground of Entering the Buddha's Realm holds a great wisdom that is empty — empty, and emptied again of that very emptiness, emptied once more, like empty space itself. With the wisdom of equality and the nature of the Tathāgata, ten kinds of merit stand complete. Since emptiness bears a single mark, the essential nature is unconditioned; spirit and emptiness, one substance; dharma and dharma-nature, the very same — and so this being is called Tathāgata, the Thus-Come. According with the four truths and the two truths, exhausting the very wheel of birth-and-death, nourished by the dharma, the dharma-body itself not two — and so is called Worthy of Offerings. Covering every matter in every realm at once, with right wisdom and the sacred wisdom of liberation, knowing what exists and does not exist in every dharma, and the very faculties of every being — and so is called Perfectly and Completely Awakened. Luminous wisdom and luminous practice, at the stage of buddhahood, brought to their fullest — and so is called Perfect in Wisdom and Conduct. Well-gone through the dharma of the buddhas of the three times, this dharma the very same as every buddha before — leaving well, and well, and arriving well, and well — and so is called Well-Gone. Carrying out this highest virtue, entering the world to teach and transform beings, freeing them from every bond — and so is called Knower of the World. Entering, above every dharma, the very dignity of a buddha, its bearing exactly a buddha's own, the very place a great being walks, freeing the world — and so is called Unsurpassed One. Taming every being — and so is called the Tamer. Teaching every being among gods and humans, receiving from this being the very words of dharma — and so is called Teacher of Gods and Humans. The wondrous root, without a second, buddha-nature itself, the mysterious awakening, always, always, wholly full — every being bows before it, every being honors it — and so is called Buddha, the World-Honored One. Every person in the world receives and upholds its teaching — and so it is called the ground of buddhahood; it is the ground every sage enters — and so it is called the ground of the buddha-realm. At that time, seated on a jeweled lotus, every being received the prediction of buddhahood and rejoiced; the dharma-body reached out to touch each crown, and bodhisattvas who shared this same vision and study, with a hundred different voices, praised it as one — without a second. And in a hundred thousand million worlds, every buddha and every bodhisattva gathered like clouds at once, asking that the inexplicable wheel of dharma be turned, the dharma-gate of the treasury of empty space itself opened for their guidance. This ground holds dharma-gates beyond telling, beyond telling — wondrous threefold clarity, samādhi, and dhāraṇī, none of it known to the minds of ordinary beings in the lower grounds; only a buddha's own boundless body, speech, and mind can reach its very source. As is explained in the Chapter on the Heaven of Light and Sound, the ten fearlessnesses are one and the same as the buddha's own path."

At that time, Vairocana Buddha, for the sake of this whole assembly, briefly opened up the Mind Ground — set within dharma-gates beyond telling, as numerous as the grains of sand in a hundred thousand Ganges rivers — down to the width of a single hair. "This is what every buddha of the past has already taught, what every buddha of the future will teach, and what every buddha of the present now teaches — what bodhisattvas across the three times have already studied, will study, and are studying now. I myself have cultivated this Mind Ground for a hundred kalpas, and so I am named Vairocana. Buddhas, all of you: carry forward what I have taught, and open this path of the Mind Ground for every being." Then, seated upon the blazing lion-throne of heavenly light in the Lotus Treasury World, Vairocana Buddha released light upon light, and spoke to the thousand buddhas seated on the lotus petals: "Take up this chapter on the dharma-gate of the Mind Ground, and go. Become, in turn, a hundred million Śākyamunis, and to every being, in sequence, teach this same chapter on the Mind Ground that I have just taught. Uphold it, recite it, and practise it with a single mind."

With this, the thousand buddhas on the lotus petals, and the hundred million Śākyamunis, rose from the blazing lion-thrones of the Lotus Treasury World and each took their leave, their whole bodies releasing inconceivable light, each ray itself becoming countless further buddhas. At once, with countless blue, yellow, red, and white lotus flowers, they made offerings to Vairocana Buddha, and having received and upheld this chapter on the Mind Ground just taught, each departed from the Lotus Treasury World.

Having departed, each entered the samādhi of the essential nature's own empty flower-light, and returned to their own original world, beneath the bodhi tree in Jambudvīpa. Emerging from that samādhi, each sat upon a throne lit by a thousand adamantine rays, in a hall of wondrous radiance, and taught the ten world-oceans. Rising again, each went to Indra's palace and taught the ten abodes; rising again, to the Heaven of Flame, and taught the ten practices; rising again, to the fourth heaven, and taught the ten dedications; rising again, to the Heaven of Transformed Bliss, and taught the ten concentrations; rising again, to the Heaven of Mastery Over Others' Transformations, and taught the ten grounds. Further, in the first meditation heaven, they taught the ten vajra minds; in the second meditation heaven, the ten forms of patience; in the third meditation heaven, the ten vows; and in the fourth meditation heaven, in the palace of King Maheśvara himself, they taught this very chapter on the Mind Ground first spoken by Vairocana Buddha in our own original world, the Lotus Treasury. And every one of the hundred million other Śākyamunis did exactly the same, without the slightest difference — as is told fully in the Chapter of the Fortunate Aeon.