The Ten Great Minds
Mañjuśrī teaches Śāriputra's six thousand monks ten kinds of great mind — each one, in itself, enough to reach the ground of buddhahood — and, on the strength of hearing it, they attain the Samādhi of the Unobstructed, Pure Eye without ever leaving the ground they stand on.
Ten Kinds of Great Mind, and What They Attain
爾時，文殊師利告諸比丘：「汝等當知，若善男子、善女人，成就十種大心，則得佛地，況菩薩地；何等為十？所謂：發廣大心，長養一切善根，究竟不退，心無厭足；見一切佛，恭敬供養，心無厭足；正求一切佛法，心無厭足；遍行菩薩諸波羅蜜，心無厭足；具足一切菩薩三昧，心無厭足；於一切三世流轉，心無厭足；嚴淨佛剎，充滿十方，心無厭足；教化成熟一切眾生，心無厭足；於一切剎、一切劫中，行菩薩行，心無厭足；發廣大心，修習一切佛剎微塵等諸波羅蜜，度脫一切眾生，具佛十力，心無厭足。若善男子、善女人，成就如是十種大法，則能長養一切善根，離生死趣一切世間性，超出聲聞、緣覺之地；生如來家，具足成就菩薩大願，行菩薩行，住菩薩地，成就如來功德之力，降伏眾魔，制諸外道。」彼諸比丘聞此法已，皆得無礙淨眼三昧；悉見十方一切如來，及其眷屬，無量眾生；亦見種種世界形類，眾寶宮殿及諸微塵；乃至如來十眼境界，皆悉覩見。彼諸如來，以種種句身、味身，種種辯才，微妙音聲，所說法海，皆悉聞知。彼世界中一切眾生，心念諸根，皆悉了知；知彼眾生，過去、未來，諸趣受生；又能知彼過去、未來，各十劫事；知彼如來十種本生、十種成就菩提自在、十種轉法輪、十種神力、十種教誡、十種說法、十種辯才。得此三昧時，具足成就十種實際菩提之心；一萬三昧，一萬淨波羅蜜，得大智慧圓滿光明，菩薩十明，住菩提心。
At that time Mañjuśrī said to these monks: "You should know that if a son or daughter of good family accomplishes ten kinds of great mind, they will attain the very ground of buddhahood — how much more so the ground of a bodhisattva. What are these ten? Namely: raising a vast, great mind, nurturing every root of goodness, reaching the very end without ever turning back, their mind never once wearied of it; beholding every buddha, reverently making offerings, their mind never once wearied of it; rightly seeking every buddha-dharma, their mind never once wearied of it; practicing everywhere the bodhisattva's own pāramitās, their mind never once wearied of it; being fully endowed with every bodhisattva samādhi, their mind never once wearied of it; flowing through the three times entirely, their mind never once wearied of it; adorning and purifying buddha-lands, filling the ten directions, their mind never once wearied of it; teaching and ripening every sentient being, their mind never once wearied of it; practicing the bodhisattva path in every land, through every eon, their mind never once wearied of it; raising a vast, great mind, cultivating pāramitās as numerous as motes of dust in every buddha-land, delivering every sentient being across, being endowed with the Buddha's own ten powers, their mind never once wearied of it. If a son or daughter of good family accomplishes ten great dharmas such as these, they will be able to nurture every root of goodness, leave behind the nature of every world in the destiny of birth and death, and transcend entirely the ground of the śrāvaka and the pratyekabuddha; they will be born into the household of the Tathāgata, fully accomplishing the bodhisattva's own great vow, practicing the bodhisattva path, abiding on the bodhisattva ground, accomplishing the Tathāgata's own power of merit, subduing every māra, and restraining every heterodox path."
Having heard this teaching, these monks all attained the Samādhi of the Unobstructed, Pure Eye; they beheld entirely every tathāgata of the ten directions, together with their retinues and sentient beings without measure; they also beheld every kind of world's own shape and category, palaces of every jewel, and every mote of dust; and even the domain of the Tathāgata's own ten eyes, all of it they beheld entirely. Every phrase-body and flavor-body of these tathāgatas, their every kind of eloquence, their subtle and marvelous voices, the ocean of Dharma they expounded — all of it these monks heard and understood entirely. Every sentient being in those worlds, their every thought and faculty, they understood entirely; they knew those beings' past and future births in every destiny; and they were able to know, of that past and future, the events of ten eons each; they knew those tathāgatas' ten kinds of past lives, ten kinds of sovereign accomplishment of awakening, ten kinds of turning the Dharma-wheel, ten kinds of spiritual power, ten kinds of instruction, ten kinds of teaching the Dharma, and ten kinds of eloquence. At the moment of attaining this samādhi, they fully accomplished ten kinds of the true mind of awakening; ten thousand samādhis, ten thousand pure pāramitās, attaining the perfect light of great wisdom, the bodhisattva's own ten kinds of brightness, abiding in the mind of awakening.
The refrain that binds all ten minds together — 心無厭足, "their mind never once wearied of it" — is doing real work here, not merely decorative repetition. Each of the ten items names a practice a śrāvaka could, in principle, also undertake in some measure: making offerings to buddhas, seeking the Dharma, even a version of the pāramitās. What distinguishes the bodhisattva's own version, on the terms this teaching itself sets out, is not the practice's content but its refusal of any stopping point — where Part 4 already showed the śrāvaka's own fruit as something reached and then rested in (常樂寂靜, "constantly delighting in stillness," in that page's own phrase), each of these ten minds is defined by never treating any degree of attainment as sufficient. This is also why Mañjuśrī can say the tenth mind alone, brought to this standard, is enough to "attain the very ground of buddhahood" — not because the content of the vow is unusual, but because a mind that genuinely never wearies has, definitionally, no ceiling built into it at all.
Established in the Practice of Samantabhadra
爾時，文殊師利菩薩勸諸比丘，修普賢行，住普賢行。彼諸比丘，出生大願海；生大願海已，身心清淨，得不死通明；得是明已，不離此處，出生一切如來法身，充滿十方，具足一切佛法。
At that time Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva exhorted these monks to cultivate the practice of Samantabhadra, and to abide in the practice of Samantabhadra. These monks gave rise to the ocean of the great vow; having given rise to the ocean of the great vow, their bodies and minds became pure, and they attained the deathless brightness; having attained this brightness, without ever leaving this very place, they gave rise to the Dharma-body of every tathāgata, filling the ten directions, fully endowed with every buddha-dharma.
This short closing passage returns explicitly to the pairing Part 1 first established — Samantabhadra as the Dharma-realm entered, Mañjuśrī as the prajñā that enters it — and shows the pairing completing itself in real time within these six thousand monks. Mañjuśrī's own teaching (prajñā) leads these monks to Samantabhadra's own practice (the Dharma-realm's own vow), and the text is exact about what results: 不離此處，出生一切如來法身 — "without ever leaving this very place, they gave rise to the Dharma-body of every tathāgata." This is worth pausing on, since it anticipates a pattern the pilgrimage proper will repeat constantly: real attainment, in this chapter's own idiom, is never a matter of first traveling somewhere else and only then awakening. Sudhana's own fifty-three journeys, still several pages away, will all be journeys in space and time — but this passage has already stated, in advance, that what those journeys deliver was never, in the deepest sense, unavailable where he started.
Part 12 Complete
This closes Part 12: Mañjuśrī's teaching of the ten great minds, the monks' attainment of the Samādhi of the Unobstructed, Pure Eye, and their establishment in the practice of Samantabhadra without ever leaving where they stood. Part 13 turns to Mañjuśrī's arrival at Jue Cheng — the City of Awakening — where the crowds that will soon include Sudhana himself begin to gather.
Continue to Part 13 — Arrival at Jue Cheng →