Meghaśrī, the First Teacher
After seven days' searching, Sudhana finds the monk Meghaśrī on the peak of Mount Union, and receives a teaching of twenty-one distinct gates of samādhi for beholding the buddhas — followed immediately by Meghaśrī's own insistence that this is only one gate among a bodhisattva's countless others.
Why Fifty-Three Teachers, Not One
Before the first spiritual friend even appears, it is worth pausing on a question the text itself never asks directly but Fazang addresses at length: if Mañjuśrī has already taught Sudhana so much, why does Sudhana now need to travel to fifty-three more teachers rather than simply staying to learn everything from him?
Fazang gives eight reasons, and they are worth having in view before the pilgrimage itself begins, since they explain the whole project's own shape. Abbreviated: (1) 為軌範故 — to establish a model, since a bodhisattva's whole practice consists of seeking the Dharma and teaching the Dharma, and Sudhana enacts the first half of that pairing for every reader to imitate; (2) 行緣勝故 — because a good spiritual friend is the single most important condition for accomplishing the path at all, citing Ānanda's claim that such a friend is "half of the holy life" and the Buddha's own correction that it is the whole of it; (3) 破見慢故 — to break Sudhana's own pride and fixed views, since he must approach teachers of every age, gender, class, and even non-human and heterodox background without discrimination; (4) 寄成行故 — because the seeking itself, not merely the content eventually found, is what constitutes the practice — even should a given search yield nothing, the search has already accomplished something; (5) 寄現位故 — to make visible the distinct stages of the path (faith, abiding, practice, dedication, ground) through the very diversity of teachers met at each one; (6) 顯深廣故 — to show how deep and how broad the Buddha-dharma truly is, since even a teacher as advanced as one who has reached the "Ground of the Dharma-Cloud" will still say "I know only this one Dharma-gate" — and if such a figure claims no more than that, a beginner's own confidence in already understanding the whole of the teaching is exposed as exactly the presumption Sudhana's own humility is meant to correct; (7), unnumbered directly but implicit in the sequence Fazang gives, concerns why Sudhana never once seeks the Buddha himself directly — because his own causal practice is not yet complete, and completion, not proximity, is what the encounter with buddhahood itself requires; and (8) 顯緣起故 — to make manifest dependent origination itself: there is no Sudhana apart from his spiritual friends, and no spiritual friend apart from Sudhana, since the one who enters and what is entered share a single, mutually dependent arising. Every one of the fifty-three pages that follow this one is, in some sense, an illustration of one or more of these eight reasons at once.
Fazang also gives, at this same point, a fivefold template he applies to essentially every teacher's own episode from here to the very end of the chapter: 一舉法勸修、二依教趣入、三推求簡擇、四正得法界、五仰推勝進 — "first, the raising of the Dharma and the exhortation to cultivate it; second, according with the teaching and advancing into it; third, seeking out and discerning; fourth, rightly attaining the Dharma-realm; fifth, looking up in reverence and being directed further." This collection's own reading notes will refer back to this fivefold structure by name at teachers where it clarifies something a purely narrative reading might miss.
Seven Days on the Mountain Called Union
名功德雲；汝詣彼問云何菩薩學菩薩行、修菩薩道，乃至云何具普賢行。善男子！彼比丘者，善能顯說菩薩所行。」
時，善財童子從文殊師利，聞法歡喜，頭面禮足，遶無數匝；瞻仰悲戀，泣涕辭退。漸漸南行，向可樂國，登和合山；於彼山中，十方周遍，一心觀察，求覓太師，為在何所；如是尋求，乃至七日。
爾時，善財見彼比丘，乃在山頂，靜思經行，見已馳詣，頭面禮足，右遶而住，白言：「大聖！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，而未知菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道。我聞大師，善能宣暢，唯願垂慈，具足演說。」
"His name is Meghaśrī. Go to him and ask: How does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva's own practice, and cultivate the bodhisattva path — even to the point of asking how one comes to be fully endowed with the practice of Samantabhadra? Good son, that monk is well able to set forth clearly what a bodhisattva practices."
At that time Sudhana the Boy, having heard this teaching from Mañjuśrī, rejoiced; he bowed his head to Mañjuśrī's feet, circled him countless times, and, gazing up at him with grief and longing, wept as he took his leave. Traveling gradually to the south, he made his way toward the land called Delightful, and climbed the mountain called Union. Within that mountain, searching in every direction, single-mindedly he looked for where the great teacher might be found; he sought in this way for seven full days.
At that time Sudhana saw that monk at the very peak of the mountain, walking in quiet contemplation. Having seen him, Sudhana hurried toward him, bowed his head to his feet, circled him to the right, and stood before him, saying: "Great sage! I have already raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, but I do not yet know how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, or cultivates the bodhisattva path. I have heard that you, great teacher, are well able to proclaim this — I ask only that, in your compassion, you would fully expound it."
Fazang glosses the place-names before the person: 但此十住之初，是信地所欣，故名可樂 — "this being the very first of the Ten Abodes, and what the stage of faith itself delights in, it is therefore named Delightful"; and of the mountain, 名和合者，比丘在中得三昧相應，故云和合 — "it is named Union because the monk within it has attained a correspondence with samādhi — hence 'union'; and also because it causes Sudhana to come into correspondence with the abiding-stage itself, which is likewise called union." Neither name is decorative; both describe, in advance, what the encounter itself is about to accomplish.
On the teacher's own name, Fazang checks against the source directly: 勘天竺本，梵名迷伽室利，迷伽此名雲、室利此云德，順彼應名雲德比丘 — "checking against the Indian original, the Sanskrit name is Meghaśrī: 迷伽 [megha] means 'cloud,' 室利 [śrī] means 'virtue' or 'glory' — accordingly, this should be named 'Cloud of Virtue' Bhikṣu." This collection follows Fazang's own check against the Sanskrit and uses Meghaśrī throughout, rather than a literal rendering of the Chinese transliteration's more common gloss as "Merit-Cloud."
Twenty-One Gates of Beholding the Buddhas
時，彼比丘告善財言：「善哉！善哉！善男子！乃能發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，問菩薩行。善男子！如是事者，難中之難，所謂：能問菩薩所行，修菩薩道，入菩薩境界，出生清淨菩薩之道，求於菩薩清淨廣心；具足諸願，隨順世間所應化者，於生死中，求解脫門；有為無為，心不染著。善男子！我於解脫力，逮得清淨方便慧眼，普照觀察一切世界，境界無礙；除一切障、一切佛化陀羅尼力；或見東方一佛、二佛、十百、千萬、十億、百億、千億、百千億佛；或見百億那由他、千億那由他、百千億那由他佛；或見無量阿僧祇、不可思議、不可稱、無分齊、無邊際、不可量、不可說、不可說不可說佛；或見閻浮提微塵等佛；或見四天下微塵等佛；或見小千世界微塵等佛；或見二千世界微塵等佛；或見三千大千世界微塵等佛。南、西、北方，四維，上、下，亦復如是；種種形色、種種自在，遊戲神通；種種眷屬莊嚴，放大光網；種種清淨莊嚴佛剎，隨受化者，示現自在菩提法門；見諸如來，於大眾中而師子吼。善男子！我唯知此普門光明，觀察正念諸佛三昧；豈能了知菩薩圓滿清淨智行？諸大菩薩，得圓滿普照念佛三昧門，悉能覩見一切諸佛及其眷屬，嚴淨佛剎；得一切眾生遠離顛倒念佛三昧門，隨一切眾生所應，悉令清淨；得一切力究竟念佛三昧門，正念修習諸佛十力；得諸法中心無顛倒念佛三昧門，悉得覩見一切佛雲，於彼佛所，聞法受持；得分別十方一切如來念佛三昧門，悉見一切世界海中諸如來海；得不可見不可入念佛三昧門，於微細境界見一切佛自在境界；得諸劫不顛倒念佛三昧門，於一切劫常見諸佛未曾遠離；得隨時念佛三昧門，於一切時常見諸佛；得嚴淨佛剎念佛三昧門，起一切佛剎無能壞者，普見諸佛；得三世不顛倒念佛三昧門，悉見三世諸佛及其眷屬；得無壞境界念佛三昧門，於一切境界，悉見諸佛；得寂靜念佛三昧門，於一念中悉見一切世界中一切如來示現涅槃；得離月離時念佛三昧門，於一日中悉見一切如來遊行教化；得廣大念佛三昧門，見一佛身結跏趺坐充滿法界；得微細念佛三昧門，於一毛孔見一切佛成等正覺；得莊嚴念佛三昧門，於一念中見一切佛於一切世界，成等正覺，神力自在；得清淨事念佛三昧門，見一切佛，慧光普照，轉妙法輪；得淨心念佛三昧門，自心明了見一切佛；得淨業念佛三昧門，見一切眾生諸業如鏡中像；得自在念佛三昧門，見一切莊嚴法界諸佛充滿；得虛空等念佛三昧門，見如來身普照法界，及虛空界。」
At that time that monk said to Sudhana: "Excellent, excellent, good son! You have been able to raise the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, and to ask about a bodhisattva's own practice. Good son, a matter such as this is the most difficult of the difficult — namely: being able to ask about what a bodhisattva practices, cultivating the bodhisattva path, entering the bodhisattva's own domain, giving rise to the bodhisattva's own pure path, seeking the bodhisattva's own pure and vast mind; being fully endowed with every vow, according with whatever the world requires for its own transformation, seeking the gate of liberation in the midst of birth and death; remaining unstained, in mind, by either the conditioned or the unconditioned. Good son, through the power of liberation, I have attained the pure eye of wisdom born of skillful means, universally illumining and contemplating every world, its every domain unobstructed; I have extinguished every hindrance, through the power of the dhāraṇī of every buddha's own transformation. Sometimes I see, in the east, one buddha, two buddhas, ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, ten million, a hundred million, a thousand million, or a hundred thousand million buddhas; sometimes I see a hundred million nayutas, a thousand million nayutas, or a hundred thousand million nayutas of buddhas; sometimes I see buddhas immeasurable, incalculable, inconceivable, beyond naming, without limit, without bound, beyond measuring, beyond telling, beyond telling upon beyond telling; sometimes I see buddhas as numerous as motes of dust in Jambudvīpa, in the four continents, in a small thousand-world system, in a system of two thousand worlds, or in a great trichiliocosm of three thousand worlds. And in the south, west, and north, and in the four intermediate directions, and above and below, it is exactly the same — every kind of form and color, every kind of sovereign mastery, playing freely with spiritual powers; every kind of retinue adorning them, releasing great nets of light; every kind of purely adorned buddha-land, manifesting, according to whoever is to be transformed, the sovereign Dharma-gate of awakening; I behold these tathāgatas roaring the lion's roar within their own great assemblies.
"Good son, I know only this light of the universal gate, the samādhi of contemplating and rightly holding the buddhas in mind — how could I possibly understand a bodhisattva's own perfect, pure practice of wisdom? The great bodhisattvas attain: the samādhi-gate of perfect, universal illumination in mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding entirely every buddha and their retinues, and every adorned, pure buddha-land; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that removes every sentient being from inverted views, causing every sentient being, according to what each requires, to become entirely pure; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that reaches the very end of every power, rightly holding in mind and cultivating every buddha's own ten powers; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha whose mind is free of inversion regarding every dharma, beholding entirely every cloud of buddhas, and, in the presence of those buddhas, hearing the Dharma and upholding it; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that discerns every tathāgata in the ten directions, beholding entirely the ocean of every tathāgata within the ocean of every world; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that is unseeable and unenterable, beholding, within the finest, most subtle domain, the sovereign domain of every buddha; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha free of inversion regarding every eon, constantly beholding every buddha throughout every eon without ever once being apart from them; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that accords with every time, constantly beholding every buddha at every time; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha that adorns and purifies buddha-lands, raising up every buddha-land that nothing can destroy, beholding every buddha universally; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha free of inversion regarding the three times, beholding entirely every buddha of the three times together with their retinues; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha whose domain cannot be destroyed, beholding every buddha within every domain entirely; the samādhi-gate of tranquil mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding, in a single thought-moment, every tathāgata in every world manifesting the entry into nirvāṇa; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha apart from months and apart from time, beholding, within a single day, every tathāgata traveling about and teaching; the samādhi-gate of vast, great mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding a single buddha's body, seated cross-legged, filling the entire Dharma-realm; the samādhi-gate of the finest, most subtle mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding, within a single pore, every buddha attaining perfect awakening; the samādhi-gate of adorned mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding, in a single thought-moment, every buddha in every world attaining perfect awakening, their spiritual power sovereign; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha through pure activity, beholding every buddha, the light of wisdom universally illumining, turning the sublime Dharma-wheel; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha through a pure mind, their own mind clear and bright, beholding every buddha; the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha through pure karma, beholding every sentient being's own karma as a reflection in a mirror; the samādhi-gate of sovereign mindfulness of the Buddha, beholding every adorned dharma-realm filled entirely with buddhas; and the samādhi-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha equal to space, beholding the Tathāgata's own body universally illumining the Dharma-realm and the realm of space alike."
Twenty-one distinct samādhi-gates, all variations on a single practice — mindfulness of the Buddha (念佛三昧) — and Meghaśrī names every one of them only to immediately disclaim mastery of anything beyond the first: 我唯知此普門光明...豈能了知菩薩圓滿清淨智行, "I know only this light of the universal gate — how could I possibly understand a bodhisattva's own perfect, pure practice of wisdom?" This is the sentence Fazang's earlier note (above) already anticipated: even a teacher able to behold buddhas as numerous as motes of dust in three thousand worlds insists, in the very same breath, that his own attainment is a single gate among countless others he has not touched. Sudhana's very first lesson, before any content of the path has even been given to him, is what the shape of a genuine teacher's own self-assessment looks like.
Sent Onward to Sāgaramegha
爾時，功德雲比丘告善財言：「善男子！南方有國，名曰海門；彼有比丘，名曰海雲；汝應詣彼，問菩薩行。善男子！彼比丘者，能分別說善根，具因善根、大地善根、大力善；能讚歎菩提因緣，廣摩訶衍，增廣波羅蜜力，顯現一切菩薩行海；善能清淨圓滿大願，能令出生清淨普門，莊嚴法門，生大悲力。」
時，善財童子從功德雲比丘，聞法歡喜，頭面禮足，遶無數匝，眷仰顧戀，辭退南行。
At that time Meghaśrī said to Sudhana: "Good son, to the south there is a land called Sea Gate; there is a monk there named Sāgaramegha, 'Ocean Cloud.' Go to him and ask about a bodhisattva's own practice. Good son, that monk is able to discern and explain roots of goodness, endowed with the root of goodness of cause, the root of goodness of the great ground, and the root of goodness of great power; he is able to praise the causes and conditions of awakening, broadening the Mahāyāna, extending the power of the pāramitās, manifesting the ocean of every bodhisattva's own practice; he is well able to purify and perfect the great vow, able to give rise to the pure universal gate, the adorned Dharma-gate, giving rise to the power of great compassion.
At that time Sudhana the Boy, having heard this teaching from Meghaśrī, rejoiced; he bowed his head to his feet, circled him countless times, and, gazing up at him with longing, took his leave and traveled onward to the south.
This closing exchange completes the fivefold pattern named at the top of this page — Meghaśrī's own teaching was the "rightly attaining the Dharma-realm" (正得法界) of steps one through four; this final referral is step five, "looking up in reverence and being directed further" (仰推勝進). Every one of the fifty-two remaining teachers will close their own encounter with Sudhana in essentially this same gesture: praise for the next teacher's specific qualities, and a direction south. Meghaśrī's own praise of Sāgaramegha — three named "roots of goodness," praise of the Mahāyāna, the pāramitās — gives no indication yet of what Sāgaramegha will actually teach; that, like everything else in this pilgrimage, Sudhana will only learn by going and asking.
Part 16 Complete
This closes Part 16, and the pilgrimage's first encounter: Meghaśrī on Mount Union, his twenty-one gates of mindfulness of the Buddha, and his referral to Sāgaramegha. Part 17 turns to Sudhana's second teacher, in the land called Sea Gate.
Continue to Part 17 — Sāgaramegha →