Guarding the Mind's Own City
A city-deva named Jeweled Eye appears in the sky with her own retinue, adorns Sudhana with heavenly jewels, and teaches him a twenty-four-fold instruction on the "mind-city" — the first twelve of which cover guarding it against birth-and-death, adorning it with the ten powers, and extinguishing the blazing flame of affliction within it.
Twelve Instructions for the Mind's Own City
時，有城天，名曰寶眼，眷屬圍遶，在虛空中，為善財現妙莊嚴身，以天寶、冠寶莊嚴具供養善財，作如是言：「善男子！應守護心城，離生死故；應莊嚴心城，得十力故；應淨心城，遠離慳嫉諸諂曲故；應滅熾然猛焰心城，諸禪三昧法門相續得自在故；應照心城，常以般若波羅蜜光照如來海及眷屬故；應長養心城，攝取諸佛方便道故；應堅固心城，出生普賢諸行願故；應修心城，諸魔魔民及餘怨敵莫能壞故；應明心城，得諸如來智光明故；應修無壞心城，能受如來正法雲故；應具心城，己心悉受一切如來功德海故；應廣心城，大慈普覆一切眾生故；」
At that time, there was a city-deva, named Jeweled Eye, who, surrounded by her own retinue, appeared in the sky, manifesting a sublimely adorned body for Sudhana, and made offerings to him with heavenly jewels and jeweled crest-ornaments, speaking thus: "Good man, you should guard the mind's own city, because it departs from birth-and-death; you should adorn the mind's own city, because it attains the ten powers; you should purify the mind's own city, because it departs far from stinginess, jealousy, and every flattery and crookedness; you should extinguish the blazing, fierce flame of the mind's own city, because every dhyāna and samādhi Dharma-gate thereby attains unbroken sovereign mastery; you should illumine the mind's own city, because it constantly, with the light of the perfection of wisdom, illumines the ocean of every tathāgata and their retinue; you should nurture the mind's own city, because it gathers in every buddha's own path of skillful means; you should make firm the mind's own city, because it gives rise to Samantabhadra's own every practice and vow; you should cultivate the mind's own city, because no māra, no subject of māra, nor any other hostile enemy can destroy it; you should brighten the mind's own city, because it attains the light of every tathāgata's own wisdom; you should cultivate the indestructible mind-city, because it is able to receive the cloud of the tathāgata's own true Dharma; you should complete the mind's own city, because one's own mind entirely receives the whole ocean of every tathāgata's own merit; you should broaden the mind's own city, because great loving-kindness universally covers every sentient being;"
The image of the "mind-city" (心城) recasts the mind as a fortified place to be actively governed — guarded, adorned, purified, illumined, made firm — rather than a passive vessel to be filled. Jeweled Eye's own identity as a city-deva makes the metaphor literal: she who guards physical cities now teaches Sudhana how to guard the city that matters more, each instruction paired with the specific benefit it secures, from the ten powers to Samantabhadra's own vows.
Part 189 In Progress
Twelve instructions for the mind's own city are now given. Part 190 continues with the remaining twelve, closing on the mind-city's own true nature, illusion-like and yet the very gateway into the city of omniscience itself.
Continue to Part 190 →