"Knowing the Body to Be Like a Dream"
Sudhana thanks the rākṣasa king and asks a plain, practical question: in what direction, place, city, or village does one actually go to seek a good and wise friend? The answer names no location at all — only a manner of traveling: bowing throughout the ten directions, contemplating every state, ranging boldly, and knowing one's own body and conduct to be like a dream, like lightning.
"In What Direction, What Place, Does One Seek?"
「爾時，善財答羅剎言：「善哉！善哉！以哀愍故，方便教我見善知識。願為我說云何往詣善知識所？於何方處城邑、聚落求善知識？」
答言：「善男子！敬禮十方求善知識，正念思惟一切境界求善知識；勇猛自在，遍遊十方求善知識；知身、知行，如夢、如電，詣善知識。」
At that time, Sudhana answered the rākṣasa, saying: "Excellent, excellent! Out of compassion, you have taught me, through skillful means, how to behold a good and wise friend. I beg you to further explain for me: how does one go to where a good and wise friend dwells? In what direction, place, city, or village, does one seek a good and wise friend?"
He answered, saying: "Good man, reverently bowing throughout the ten directions, one seeks a good and wise friend; rightly recollecting and contemplating every state, one seeks a good and wise friend; valiant and sovereign, ranging universally throughout the ten directions, one seeks a good and wise friend; knowing the body, knowing conduct, to be like a dream, like lightning, one goes to a good and wise friend."
Sudhana's question is the most concrete one this whole approach sequence has raised — a direction, a place, a named city — and the rākṣasa king's answer deliberately refuses to give a concrete answer in kind, offering instead four postures of seeking that apply everywhere at once: reverence, right contemplation, valiant range, and the dissolving insight that "the body, and conduct, are like a dream, like lightning." Given that Sudhana already knows perfectly well where Māyā physically dwells — within this same city of Kapilavastu, as Gopā already told him — this answer is not geographic information he lacks, but the inner disposition the actual approach still requires.
Part 194 In Progress
The rākṣasa king's brief answer is now given. Part 195 turns to what Sudhana beholds next, following this teaching: a magnificent jeweled lotus rising from the earth itself, crowned with a pavilion that can only belong to Lady Māyā.
Continue to Part 195 →