"Welcome, One of Great Wisdom"
Ten thousand devas, with Sorrow-Free, Sublime Virtue at their head, come forward to welcome Sudhana. Her speech praises his valiant diligence and composed bearing, and declares — with a certainty that reads almost as prophecy — what such practice will surely bring him: the buddha's own purity of body, speech, and mind, and a path already secure against every obstruction.
A Welcome, and a Certainty Already Assured
爾時，彼天一萬諸天以為眷屬，來迎善財，白言：「善來大智慧人！修不思議菩薩法門，以淨直心滿足大願，廣菩薩行，向正法城，究竟菩薩無量方便。我觀仁者勇猛精進，修菩薩道，心無懈倦，威儀庠序，諸根調伏，不久必當逮得無上清淨，莊嚴佛身、口、意，相好嚴身，十力智慧莊嚴其心，遊行十方教化眾生。我觀仁者修行勇猛精進力故，必當得見三世諸佛，受諸如來一切法雲，修習菩薩禪定法門、寂滅之法，入於甚深如來法門。何以故？詣善知識，親近供養，正念思惟，善知識教，無有退轉、疲倦之心。除滅障礙，降伏諸魔，無能壞者，令一切眾生得歡喜故。」
At that time, that deva, with ten thousand devas as her own retinue, came forth to welcome Sudhana, and said: "Welcome, one of great wisdom! You cultivate the bodhisattva's own inconceivable Dharma-gate, with a pure, upright mind fulfill the great vow, broadly practice the bodhisattva's own practice, and advance toward the city of the true Dharma, reaching the very end of the bodhisattva's own boundless skillful means. I observe, in you, valiant, diligent effort, cultivating the bodhisattva's own path, your mind never slackening or growing weary, your dignified bearing composed and orderly, your every faculty subdued and tamed; before long, you shall surely attain the unsurpassed purity, adorning the buddha's own body, speech, and mind, your body adorned with every auspicious mark, your mind adorned with the wisdom of the ten powers, and you shall wander throughout the ten directions, teaching and transforming sentient beings. I observe that, because of your own valiant, diligent power in practice, you shall surely come to behold the buddhas of the three times, receive every tathāgata's own cloud of Dharma, cultivate the bodhisattva's own Dharma-gate of meditative concentration and the dharma of tranquil cessation, and enter the tathāgata's own profound Dharma-gate. Why is this so? Because, going to good and wise friends, drawing near to them and making offerings, rightly recollecting and contemplating their teaching, you have no mind of ever regressing or growing weary. You extinguish every obstruction, subdue every māra, and are indestructible by anyone, so that you may cause every sentient being to attain joy."
Fazang's own outline for the approach to this teacher runs: 一敬辭、二念法、三至後、[gatekeeper's welcome]、四昇堂推覓 — the welcome from this threshold deva falls between Sudhana's arrival and his eventual ascent to the lecture hall to find Gopā herself. Her speech is unusual in this collection for its tense: rather than describing what Sudhana has already accomplished, she speaks almost entirely in the future — "before long, you shall surely attain," "you shall surely come to behold" — a benediction offered on the threshold of the path's own final ground, naming outcomes not yet arrived at but already, in her own telling, assured.
Part 139 In Progress
The deva's welcome is complete. Part 140 turns to Sudhana's own reply — a meditation on great compassion built around the image of a parent watching an only child's limbs cut off, and a long declaration of what a bodhisattva becomes for every sentient being.
Continue to Part 140 →