The Ground of Immovability Concludes
The hymn's final three stanzas describe benefiting sentient beings across every kalpa yet to come. The night-deva then names the boundary of her own attainment against the great bodhisattvas' far larger scope, and sends Sudhana onward to a garden-deva at Lumbinī — closing out, with this teacher, the entire eighth of the Ten Grounds, the Ground of Immovability.
Three Stanzas: Benefiting Beings Across Every Kalpa to Come
「此法難思議， 菩薩所修學，
依住此法門， 盡來劫修行。
除滅諸邪見， 隨應化眾生，
悉令得安住， 一切種智地。
不可思議趣， 顯現種種身，
隨其所應化， 而為演說法。」
"This Dharma is difficult to conceive of, and is what every bodhisattva studies and cultivates; relying upon and abiding in this very Dharma-gate, I shall practice it throughout every kalpa yet to come.
Extinguishing every wrong view, and transforming sentient beings according to what is fitting, I cause every one of them to abide securely in the ground of omniscience.
Amid inconceivable destinies, I manifest every kind of body, and, according to what each is fit to be transformed by, expound the Dharma for them."
Fazang closes his ninefold breakdown of the whole hymn here: 後三頌長時益物 — "finally, three stanzas on benefiting beings over a long span of time." Where the previous eight stanzas each traced a single capacity this Dharma-gate opens onto, these final three widen the frame to its full temporal scope — "every kalpa yet to come" — and end not on what the deva herself can do, but on beings led, through form after form fitted to what each one needs, to a ground of omniscience she has already reached and now shares outward.
A Boundary Named, and a Path Onward
「佛子！我唯成就此法門，諸大菩薩超出世間，普照諸趣，悉能究竟一切境界，壞障礙山，了達法相，善巧方便，分別諸法，解法無我，攝取教化，度脫眾生，皆悉了知三世法界，善知一切語言道海，我當云何能入如是大智慧海、大智境界三昧解脫法門自在？善男子！此閻浮提，有一園林名流彌尼，彼有天名妙德圓滿。汝詣彼問云何菩薩行菩薩行？生如來家？為世間燈？盡未來劫，修菩薩行，心無疲倦？」
"Child of the Buddha, I have attained only this very Dharma-gate. As for how the great bodhisattvas transcend the world, universally illumine every destiny, are able to fathom every state to its very end, demolish the mountain of every obstruction, thoroughly understand the mark of the Dharma, and, through skillful means, discern every dharma, comprehend the Dharma's own selflessness, gather in and transform sentient beings, deliver and liberate them, fully understand the Dharma-realm of the three times, and skillfully know the whole ocean of every path of language — how could I possibly be able to enter such an ocean of great wisdom, such sovereign mastery of the Dharma-gate of samādhi and liberation within the state of great wisdom? Good man, within this Jambudvīpa, there is a garden named Lumbinī, and there is a deva there, named Sublime Virtue, Perfect and Full. Go to her, and ask: how does a bodhisattva practice the bodhisattva's own practice? How is one born into the tathāgata's own family? How does one become a lamp for the world? How, throughout every kalpa yet to come, does one cultivate the bodhisattva's own practice, the mind never growing weary?"
Fazang passes over this closing exchange in a single line, treating it as formulaic: 下結自分、仰推勝進，竝可知 — "what follows, concluding her own portion and looking upward to point toward the one further advanced, may be understood without further comment." But the line that follows it in his outline is not formulaic at all: 不動地竟 — "the Ground of Immovability is concluded." Thirty-nine teachers into this journey, this single sentence closes the entire eighth of the Ten Grounds. And the referral itself is anything but arbitrary: the garden named here, Lumbinī, is the very place — as later parts of this account will make explicit — where the Buddha himself was born, and the deva sent to next is named Sublime Virtue, Perfect and Full. From a night-deva testifying about ancient buddhas met kalpa upon kalpa, Sudhana's path now turns toward a garden bound to a single, specific, and far more recent birth.
Teacher 38 Complete — On to Lumbinī
Teacher 38, the night-deva Vow-Valor Light, Guardian of Sentient Beings, is now complete across eighteen parts (104–121) — the Eighth Ground, the Ground of Immovability, entirely traversed. Part 122 opens the ninth of the Ten Grounds, the Ground of Sublime Wisdom, with Sudhana's farewell and his journey to Lumbinī to find the garden-deva Sublime Virtue, Perfect and Full.
Continue to Part 122 →