"A Body That Is No Body at All"
Sudhana bows farewell to Gopā. Before he ever reaches Lady Māyā, he reflects on what a true good and wise friend actually is: a Dharma-body neither arising nor ceasing, neither coming nor going, like lightning, like a dream, like the sun — a body that only the bodhisattva Samantabhadra can truly behold.
A Farewell to Gopā
時，善財童子頭面敬禮彼瞿夷足，遶畢辭退。◎
At that time, Sudhana bowed his head to Gopā's feet in reverence, and, having circled her, took his leave.
This brief farewell closes the entire eighteen-part, fifty-part-total journey of the Ten Grounds, from teacher 31's own opening at the third ground through Gopā's own close of the tenth. What follows immediately — before Sudhana even sets out — is not travel but reflection, a pattern this collection has used at several of its most significant transitions.
"How Shall I Behold a Good and Wise Friend?"
◎爾時，善財童子作如是念：「我當云何見善知識？善知識者遠離世間住，無所住，不著諸入，超出障礙，趣無礙道，具淨法身、善業、化身，以明淨智觀諸世間，大願成滿，持佛法，身如意。法身非生滅身、非來去身、非虛實身、非聚散身。一切諸相即一相。身離邊見、身無所著、身無窮盡、身滅眾虛妄。如電光身、如幻夢身、如鏡像身、如淨日身，充滿一切諸方，化身於三世中無壞。法身非身之身，如是等身一切世間所不能見；唯是普賢菩薩所見彼善知識行無礙行，我當云何能見、親近知其相貌？聞法受持？」
At that time, Sudhana thought to himself thus: "How shall I behold a good and wise friend? A good and wise friend dwells departed far from the world, abiding nowhere, unattached to any of the sense-fields, transcending every obstruction, advancing toward the unobstructed path; endowed with a pure Dharma-body, wholesome karma, and a transformation-body, she contemplates every world with bright, pure wisdom, her great vow fully accomplished, upholding the buddha's own Dharma, her body according with her own will. The Dharma-body is neither a body of arising nor of ceasing, neither a body of coming nor of going, neither a body of the false nor of the real, neither a body of gathering nor of scattering. Every mark whatsoever is, in fact, a single mark. This body departs from every extreme view, this body is attached to nothing, this body is inexhaustible, this body extinguishes every falsehood. Like a body of lightning, like a body of illusion or dream, like a body reflected in a mirror, like a body of the pure sun, it fills every direction, and its transformation-body, throughout the three times, is indestructible. The Dharma-body is a body that is no body at all — a body such as this, no one in the entire world is able to behold; only the bodhisattva Samantabhadra beholds it. How, then, shall I be able to behold that good and wise friend's own unobstructed conduct, draw near to her, know her own form, hear the Dharma, and uphold it?"
Sudhana's own reflection here is unusually abstract even by this collection's standards, describing not a specific teacher but the very nature of the Dharma-body any true good and wise friend must ultimately embody — a body defined entirely through negation (neither arising nor ceasing, neither coming nor going) and through simile (lightning, dream, mirror-image, the sun), before concluding that this body, properly understood, "is no body at all," and that only Samantabhadra can truly see it. That Sudhana raises this question specifically now, on his way to his own mother in this present life, suggests the account is preparing to show that even the most intimate, most familiar relationship — a son approaching his own mother — still requires seeing past ordinary appearance to something far vaster underneath.
Part 188 In Progress
Sudhana's own reflection on the nature of a true good and wise friend is complete. Part 189 turns to the first figure he actually encounters on this approach — a city-deva named Jeweled Eye, who appears in the sky with her own retinue to teach him about guarding the "mind-city."
Continue to Part 189 →