A Single Thought-Moment Holding Every Buddha
The hymn's third and longest movement opens: countless offerings made across kalpas beyond counting, and every past buddha's own true Dharma upheld — before the scale shifts inward, to a single thought-moment discerning every mote of dust as its own ocean of lands, and every buddha's own birth manifesting within it.
Countless Buddhas, Countless Offerings
「我於億剎塵， 一切諸劫中，
修習菩薩行， 嚴淨此法門。
彼劫中諸佛， 我已悉供養，
守護其正法， 淨修法門海。
億剎塵等劫， 諸佛出興世，
持彼正法輪， 修難議法門。」
"Throughout kalpas as numerous as motes of dust in a koṭi of lands, and throughout every kalpa, I cultivated the bodhisattva's own practice, adorning and purifying this very Dharma-gate.
Every buddha within that kalpa, I have already made offerings to them all, guarding and upholding their own true Dharma, purely cultivating the whole ocean of this Dharma-gate.
Throughout kalpas as numerous as motes of dust in a koṭi of lands, buddhas arose in the world, and I upheld their own wheel of true Dharma, cultivating this inconceivable Dharma-gate."
Fazang names this third movement: 三我於億剎下十三偈明更供多佛淨修增廣 — "third, beginning with 'throughout kalpas as numerous as motes of dust in a koṭi of lands,' thirteen stanzas revealing further offerings to many buddhas and expanded, purified cultivation." Its opening line is quoted verbatim in Fazang's own outline, matching this stanza's own first words exactly — a rare case in this collection where the commentator's citation and the sūtra's own text align character for character, confirming the stanza boundary precisely.
A Single Thought-Moment, Every Mote of Dust
「一念悉了知， 一切剎微塵，
一一微塵中， 見無量剎海。
彼佛初生時， 顯現自在力，
我於一念中， 皆悉分別見。
不可思議剎， 見彼諸菩薩，
或處兜率天， 專求佛菩提。
無量剎海中， 見彼生自在，
無量眾圍遶， 而為其說法。」
"Within a single thought-moment, I fully understood every mote of dust in every land; and within each and every mote of dust, I beheld the boundless ocean of every land.
At the very moment each of those buddhas was born, they manifested sovereign power, and, within a single thought-moment, I discerned and beheld every one of them in full.
Throughout inconceivable lands, I beheld those bodhisattvas, some dwelling within Tuṣita Heaven, single-mindedly seeking the buddha's own bodhi.
Throughout the boundless ocean of lands, I beheld their own sovereign mastery in rebirth, surrounded by boundless assemblies, expounding the Dharma for them."
This run of four stanzas turns from counting offerings to a different register entirely: a single thought-moment now contains, without contradiction, "every mote of dust in every land," and each of those motes of dust in turn contains "the boundless ocean of every land" — the same fractal structure of containment-without-limit this collection has met at Māyā's own womb and pores in the Lumbinī account. What is beheld within that single thought-moment is itself the whole arc of a bodhisattva's own path: waiting in Tuṣita Heaven, taking rebirth, and teaching a surrounding assembly, all at once.
Part 135 In Progress
Seven of the hymn's thirteen-stanza third movement are now complete. Part 136 continues with the remaining six stanzas — every bodhisattva's going forth, every buddha's own awakening and parinirvāṇa, all witnessed within a single mote of dust — before the hymn's final stanza closes it entirely.
Continue to Part 136 →