Ten Stanzas, One Rebirth-Dharma Each
The forest-deva restates all ten rebirth-dharmas a second time, in verse — one stanza for each, in the same order as the prose. She then names her own liberation directly: boundless, sovereign mastery over every state.
Five Stanzas: Offering, Vow, Cessation, Compassion, and Loving-Kindness
「時，彼林天欲重明此義，以偈頌曰：
「『清淨正直心， 先發如是願，
普見一切佛， 供養無厭足，
皆悉淨莊嚴， 三世諸佛剎，
以願莊嚴心， 度脫諸群生。
修習寂滅法， 其心無厭足，
三世無障礙， 身心如虛空。
深入大悲海， 直心如須彌，
窮盡大智海， 是為人中雄。
大慈覆一切， 增廣諸度海，
教化諸群生， 此是無上人。」
At that time, the forest-deva, wishing to make this meaning clear once more, spoke this hymn in verse:
"With a pure and upright mind, I first raised a vow such as this: to behold every buddha everywhere, and make offerings, never growing weary.
Adorning, in their entirety, and with purity, the buddha-lands of the three times, with a mind adorned by vow, I deliver and liberate the sprouting multitudes.
Cultivating the dharma of tranquil cessation, my mind never grows weary; unobstructed throughout the three times, body and mind alike are like empty space.
Deeply entering the ocean of great compassion, my upright mind like Sumeru itself, exhausting the very ocean of great wisdom — this is the hero among people.
Great loving-kindness covering all, ever increasing and expanding the ocean of every pāramitā, teaching and transforming the sprouting multitudes — this is the person unsurpassed."
Fazang confirms the exact correspondence: 二重頌中十頌，如其次第各頌一受生法 — "second, within the verse there are ten stanzas, each in due order restating one rebirth-dharma." The Chinese source itself, unusually, does not mark a line break between the first two stanzas — the opening four lines run on as a single unbroken block before the blank-line spacing resumes — but the content divides cleanly along the same seam as the prose: the first stanza's own vow "to behold every buddha everywhere, and make offerings, never growing weary" echoes the first rebirth-dharma's language almost word for word, and the second stanza's adornment and delivery of "the sprouting multitudes" then opens onto the second.
Five Stanzas: The Family, the Buddha's Light, Wisdom, Adornment, and Mastery
「『知法真實相， 三世佛家生，
究竟諸法海， 是為智慧者。
清淨妙法身， 其心無障礙，
己身滿十方， 具足如來力。
甚深智慧中， 逮得自在力，
專求一切智， 究竟三昧海。
嚴淨諸佛剎， 教化一切眾，
顯現自在力， 是為稱莊嚴。
深入最勝力， 長養薩婆若，
法界無障礙， 此是真佛子。』」
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩具此十法，生如來家，為世間燈。佛子！我成就此無量境界自在法門。」
"Knowing the true mark of the Dharma, born into the family of the buddhas of the three times, reaching the very end of the whole ocean of dharmas — this is the one of wisdom.
A pure, sublime Dharma-body, its mind unobstructed, this very body filling the ten directions, fully endowed with the tathāgata's own power.
Within profound wisdom, attaining sovereign power, single-mindedly seeking omniscience, reaching the very end of the ocean of samādhi.
Adorning and purifying every buddha-land, teaching and transforming every assembly, manifesting sovereign power — this is called adornment itself.
Deeply entering the most supreme power, nurturing omniscience, unobstructed throughout the Dharma-realm — this is a true child of the Buddha."
"Child of the Buddha, a bodhisattva-mahāsattva, fully endowed with these ten dharmas, is born into the tathāgata's own family, and becomes a lamp for the world. Child of the Buddha, I have attained only this very Dharma-gate of boundless states and sovereign mastery."
The closing line here is Fazang's own second of the five gates he divides this whole teaching into: 「我成就」下明立名 — "beginning with 'I have attained,' this reveals the naming of the dharma." Every one of the previous thirty-eight teachers in this collection has named their own liberation in some such phrase; this deva's own name for hers, "boundless states, sovereign mastery," sets up directly the question Sudhana asks next — the scope of what that mastery actually contains, which the following parts will show to be nothing less than the miraculous events surrounding the Buddha's own birth at this same Lumbinī.
Part 125 In Progress
The ten rebirth-dharmas are now complete in both prose and verse, and the deva has named her own liberation. Part 126 turns to Sudhana's next question — the scope of this Dharma-gate — and her answer begins with ten miraculous signs that appear in this very forest at the moment a bodhisattva descends from Tuṣita Heaven to take rebirth.
Continue to Part 126 →