The Lamp of Every Mind
Beholding the former king and his retinue, the buddha sends forth a great light from between his own brows, named the Lamp of Every Sentient Being's Own Mind, illumining boundless worlds. He then expounds a dhāraṇī departing from the darkness of delusion — and, from a single teaching, boundless bodhisattvas ripen, countless corruptions are exhausted, and boundless sentient beings raise the mind of awakening.
A Light From Between the Brows, a Dhāraṇī, and Boundless Awakening
「◎爾時，如來觀察彼王及諸眷屬白毫相中放大光明，名曰一切眾生心燈，普照十方無量世界，一切諸王顯現如來不可思議自在神力，應受化者令彼心淨，具足不可思議功德，超出世間，其身清淨，以微妙音為大眾說離癡曀法真實燈陀羅尼門，佛剎微塵等陀羅尼以為眷屬。彼王聞已，即得廣大智慧光明，閻浮提微塵等菩薩得此陀羅尼，六十那由他人得諸漏盡，一萬眾生皆得離垢清淨法眼，無量眾生悉發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。又以不可思議自在神力，於十方剎以三乘法化度眾生。」
"At that time, the tathāgata, contemplating that king and his own retinue, sent forth, from the mark between his own brows, a great light, named the Lamp of Every Sentient Being's Own Mind, universally illumining boundless worlds of the ten directions; before every one of those kings, he manifested the tathāgata's own inconceivable, sovereign, spiritual power, and, for those fit to be transformed, caused their minds to become pure, fully endowed with inconceivable merit, transcending the world, their own bodies pure. With a sublime, subtle voice, he expounded for the great assembly the Dharma-gate of the Dhāraṇī of the True Lamp That Departs From the Darkness of Delusion, together with dhāraṇīs as numerous as motes of dust in a buddha-land as its own retinue. That king, having heard this, at once attained the light of vast, great wisdom; bodhisattvas as numerous as motes of dust in Jambudvīpa attained this dhāraṇī, sixty nayutas of people exhausted every corruption, ten thousand sentient beings all attained the stainless, pure Dharma-eye, and boundless sentient beings all raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening. Further, through inconceivable, sovereign, spiritual power, throughout the lands of the ten directions, he taught and delivered sentient beings through the dharma of the three vehicles."
The single teaching described here ripples outward through at least four distinct tiers of attainment at once: the former king himself gains vast wisdom-light; bodhisattvas as numerous as motes of dust in Jambudvīpa gain the dhāraṇī itself; sixty nayutas of people exhaust every corruption (the mark of arhatship); and ten thousand more attain merely the Dharma-eye, the entry-level clarity this collection has granted to newer practitioners elsewhere. A single light and a single dhāraṇī, delivered once, land differently on every hearer according to what each was already ready for — the same principle of skillful means this whole collection has traced across every one of its fifty-three teachers.
Part 173 In Progress
The teaching's own vast effect is now told. Part 174 turns to the former king's own decision — recognizing that he cannot fully accomplish these merits without leaving the household life, he asks the buddha's permission to become a monk.
Continue to Part 174 →