"I Shall Willingly Undergo This Suffering"
The girl accepts every condition the prince has named, without hesitation. In verse, she declares that she would endure the fires of hell, a body shattered to dust, or carrying vajra mountains for boundless kalpas — and, more than this, that she would give herself away, without regret, to whoever comes seeking, exactly as his own vow requires.
Seven Stanzas: Every Hardship, Willingly Accepted
「時，女答言：『敬從來教，乃至出家不敢有礙。』即說偈言：
「『一切劫海中， 地獄火燒身，
若能眷納我， 甘心受此苦。
一切生死身， 碎末如微塵，
若能眷納我， 甘心受此苦。
無量劫頂戴， 一切金剛山，
若能眷納我， 甘心受此苦。
一切生死海， 以我施無悔，
若得法王處， 願令我亦然。
無量無數劫， 修行菩薩道，
有來求我者， 歡喜願施與。
太子見眾苦， 發起菩提心，
無量大慈悲， 攝眾生及我。
我不求豪富， 不貪五欲樂，
但願共行法， 而為太子妻。』」
At that time, the girl answered, saying: "I shall reverently accept and follow your teaching; even to your leaving the household life, I shall not dare to become an obstruction." She then spoke in verse, saying:
"Throughout the whole ocean of every kalpa, though the fires of hell should burn my own body, if you are able to take me as your own, I shall willingly undergo this suffering.
Though this body of birth-and-death should be shattered to fragments as fine as dust, if you are able to take me as your own, I shall willingly undergo this suffering.
Though I should carry upon my own head, for boundless kalpas, every vajra mountain, if you are able to take me as your own, I shall willingly undergo this suffering.
Throughout the whole ocean of birth-and-death, give me away without any regret; if you attain the place of the Dharma-king, I wish that I may become so as well.
Throughout boundless, countless kalpas, cultivating the bodhisattva's own path, should there be one who comes seeking me, I shall joyfully wish to give myself away.
The prince, beholding every suffering, raised the mind of awakening; with boundless great loving-kindness and compassion, gather in sentient beings, and me as well.
I do not seek eminence or wealth, nor do I covet the pleasure of the five desires; I only wish to practice the Dharma together with you, and become the prince's own wife."
The girl's own answer inverts the entire logic of a marriage proposal: rather than being persuaded into acceptance, she offers a series of escalating hardships — hell-fire, a shattered body, vajra mountains carried for kalpas — as things she would gladly endure, before naming the actual condition the prince asked about directly: being given away to whoever comes seeking, "without any regret." Her closing stanza then states plainly what she is actually seeking from this marriage — not wealth or pleasure, but a shared practice of the Dharma. The refusal that opened this whole encounter has, by this point, become something else entirely: not resistance, but a wish for exactly this bodhisattva's own path, on exactly these terms.
Part 167 In Progress
Her acceptance is complete. Part 168 continues her verse with the fuller account of her own dream — a buddha's hand placed upon her own head — and her wish that they go together to make offerings to him.
Continue to Part 168 →