Sāgaramegha, and the Ten Minds
At the land called Sea Gate, Sudhana meets the monk Sāgaramegha, who first names eleven qualities that make raising the mind of awakening possible and ten that define it, then describes twelve years spent doing nothing but contemplating the ocean itself.
Sudhana's Request, and Ten Qualities of the Mind of Awakening
爾時，善財童子一心正念善知識教，智慧光明菩薩法門，菩薩三昧；觀察一切菩薩諸方便海，圓滿功德；心常樂見一切菩薩，念一切佛，次第興世，清淨功德。漸趣南方海門國土，詣海雲比丘；頭面禮足，右遶畢，退住一面，白言：「大聖！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，欲度一切智慧大海，而未知菩薩云何離生死性，得不退轉；生如來家，度生死海，逮得如來一切智海；捨凡夫地，得如來地；斷生死流，入菩薩流；滅諸趣輪，滿諸願輪；降伏眾魔，具佛功德；竭愛欲海，長大悲海；閉諸惡道，開天人路諸解脫門；出三界城，到一切智城；捨離一切玩好之具，發弘誓願，攝取眾生？」
爾時，海雲比丘告善財言：「善男子！汝已發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心耶？」答言：「唯然。」「善男子！若不深植善根，則不能發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，得普門善根，普照光明法門；長養正道三昧慧光，出生種種功德海藏；長白淨法，未曾退失；親近善知識，恭敬供養，不惜身命，無所藏積；離諸高慢，心安不動，猶如大地；大慈愍念一切群生，遠離一切諸生死門。好樂佛境界者，能發菩提心。大悲心，救護一切眾生故；大慈心，安樂一切眾生故；無疲倦心，滅一切眾生諸苦惱故；饒益心，滅一切眾生不善法故；無畏心，除滅一切諸惱害故；無礙心，滅一切障故；廣大心，充滿一切法界故；無邊心，等虛空界故；廣心，見一切如來故；清淨心，於三世法智不違故；智心，究竟一切智海故。
At that time Sudhana the Boy, single-mindedly holding in mind the spiritual friend's own teaching, the bodhisattva's own Dharma-gate of the light of wisdom, and the bodhisattva's own samādhi, contemplated the ocean of every bodhisattva's skillful means and their perfected merit; his mind constantly delighted in beholding every bodhisattva, and in holding in mind every buddha's own succession, arising in the world one after another, their pure merit. Gradually he made his way toward the southern land of Sea Gate, and went before the monk Sāgaramegha; he bowed his head to his feet, circled him to the right, and, withdrawing to stand to one side, said: "Great sage! I have already raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, wishing to cross the great ocean of omniscience — but I do not yet know how a bodhisattva leaves behind the very nature of birth and death and attains non-retrogression; is born into the household of the Tathāgata, crosses the ocean of birth and death, and attains the Tathāgata's own ocean of omniscience; abandons the ground of the ordinary person and attains the Tathāgata's own ground; cuts off the stream of birth and death and enters the stream of the bodhisattva; extinguishes the wheel of every destiny and fulfills the wheel of every vow; subdues every māra and becomes endowed with the Buddha's own merit; exhausts the ocean of craving and desire and nurtures the ocean of great compassion; closes every evil path and opens the gates of liberation on the road of gods and humans; leaves the city of the three realms and reaches the city of omniscience; relinquishes every plaything and object of enjoyment, raises the vast vow, and gathers sentient beings in."
At that time Sāgaramegha said to Sudhana: "Good son, have you already raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening?" Sudhana answered: "I have." "Good son, if one has not deeply planted roots of goodness, one cannot raise the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening; cannot attain the root of goodness of the universal gate, the Dharma-gate of universally illumining light; nurture the light of wisdom of samādhi on the true path, giving rise to the treasury of the ocean of every kind of merit; extend the pure white Dharma without ever once regressing from it; draw near to good spiritual friends, honoring and making offering to them, unsparing of body or life, hoarding nothing at all; be free of every kind of arrogance, one's mind at peace and unmoved, like the great earth itself; hold every kind of being in mind with great kindness and compassion, forever removed from every gate of birth and death. Only one who truly delights in the Buddha's own domain is able to raise the mind of awakening: a mind of great compassion, because it rescues and protects every sentient being; a mind of great kindness, because it brings peace and joy to every sentient being; a mind never wearied, because it extinguishes every affliction of every sentient being; a mind of benefit, because it extinguishes every unwholesome dharma in every sentient being; a mind without fear, because it removes every harm and affliction entirely; a mind unobstructed, because it extinguishes every hindrance entirely; a vast, great mind, because it fills the entire Dharma-realm; a boundless mind, because it is equal to the realm of space; a broad mind, because it beholds every tathāgata; a pure mind, because it never contradicts the wisdom of the Dharma of the three times; and a mind of wisdom, because it reaches the very end of the ocean of omniscience.
Fazang glosses the place-name first: 海門者，此國近在南海，城門向海，故名也 — "it is called Sea Gate because this land lies near the southern ocean, its city gate facing the sea" — a real geography, not only a symbolic one, though he adds the symbolic reading alongside it: the name also signifies "the gate of contemplating the ocean opens, revealing the Dharma-realm of the Ground-Preparing Abode" — this being, in Fazang's fivefold schema, the second of the Ten Abodes.
He divides Sudhana's ten-part question into two matched sets of five — the first five asking about his own practice, the last five about benefiting others — each pair moving from turning away from the ordinary toward the Buddha, and from turning away from birth and death toward the Buddha's own fruit. Sāgaramegha's answering catalogue he likewise divides into two tens: the first ten qualities describe what makes raising the mind of awakening possible at all (roots of goodness, nearness to spiritual friends, freedom from arrogance); the second ten — compassion, kindness, tirelessness, benefit, fearlessness, and so on — describe the mind of awakening's own content once raised. Within that second ten, Fazang finds a finer elevenfold structure hiding in what looks like a flat list: four minds addressing beings directly (rescuing from present suffering, granting present joy, extinguishing future suffering, removing its cause), two addressing one's own hindrances (afflictive and cognitive), two realizing the truth (direct realization, and its subsequently attained wisdom), and three oriented toward the Buddha himself (beholding his body, according with his measure of wisdom, and fully realizing his own principle).
Twelve Years Contemplating the Ocean
「善男子！我住此海門國十有二年，境界大海，觀察大海。思惟大海，無量無邊；思惟大海，甚深難得源底；思惟大海，漸漸深廣；思惟大海，無量妙寶而莊嚴之；思惟大海，無量水聚；思惟大海，水色種種，不可思議；思惟大海，大身眾生之所依止；思惟大海，水性所居；思惟大海，大雲彌覆；思惟大海，未曾增減。善男子！
"Good son, I have dwelt in this land of Sea Gate for twelve years, taking the great ocean itself as my domain, contemplating the great ocean. I contemplated the great ocean as immeasurable and boundless; I contemplated the great ocean as so profound that its very source could hardly be reached; I contemplated the great ocean as growing gradually deeper and wider; I contemplated the great ocean as adorned with treasures beyond measure; I contemplated the great ocean as a gathering of water beyond measure; I contemplated the great ocean's water as every kind of color, inconceivable; I contemplated the great ocean as what beings of great bodily size depend upon; I contemplated the great ocean as the very dwelling-place of the nature of water; I contemplated the great ocean as covered entirely by great clouds; I contemplated the great ocean as never once increasing or decreasing. Good son —"
On why this monk carries the name Sāgaramegha — literally "Ocean-Cloud" — Fazang gives three overlapping reasons rather than picking one: 此比丘常在海岸，觀緣起大海及彼海上人法莊嚴遍覆如雲，從所觀為名 — "this monk constantly dwells on the ocean shore, contemplating the great ocean of dependent origination and the adornment of persons and dharmas covering that ocean like clouds — he is named from what he contemplates, just as 'bodhisattva' itself is a name taken this way." Beyond this, Fazang adds, the name also signifies that his own inner virtue is as deep and vast as the ocean while his outward response to beings rains down the Dharma like clouds; and, more precisely still, that the Dharma-realm he contemplates is as deep and vast as the ocean while the great wisdom doing the contemplating pervades everywhere like clouds — the name naming both the object contemplated and the wisdom that contemplates it at once.
On the "twelve years," Fazang records three competing explanations rather than settling on one himself: some read it as twelve years spent contemplating the great ocean of the twelve links of dependent origination specifically; others as twelve years corresponding to a bodhisattva's twelve abodes; others still, more simply, as a numerical echo of this being the second of the Ten Abodes. He does not adjudicate between them, which is itself worth noting: even a close, careful reader of this sūtra can leave more than one plausible account standing rather than forcing a single answer where the text does not clearly supply one.
Part 17 Complete
This closes Part 17: Sudhana's arrival at Sea Gate, his ten-part question, Sāgaramegha's answering catalogue of what makes the mind of awakening possible and what it consists of, and the opening of his own twelve years spent contemplating nothing but the ocean. Part 18 turns to what that contemplation finally reveals: a lotus rising from the ocean floor, and a buddha seated upon it, teaching a sūtra vast enough that all the ink in the ocean could not exhaust a single chapter of it.
Continue to Part 18 — The Lotus from the Ocean Floor →