Fulfilling Every Bodhisattva's Own Vow to Be a Mother
This immense vision closes: a single body filling the boundless, measureless buddha-lands of the ten directions, a pure eye of wisdom beholding the ocean of the three times, and knowledge of every bodhisattva's own merit from the first raising of the mind to the very end. The whole passage arrives at its own purpose: Māyā fulfilling every bodhisattva's own vow to become a mother.
A Single Body, Boundless Lands, and a Vow at Last Fulfilled
「一身充滿十方無量無邊佛剎，悉分別知佛剎成敗，開淨智眼，見三世海、諸佛法海出生一切如來功德，知一切菩薩所修功德，從初發心乃至究竟長養一切眾生善根，於一切世間讚歎一切諸佛功德，成滿一切菩薩母願。」
"A single body filling the ten directions' boundless, measureless buddha-lands, discerning in full the formation and destruction of every buddha-land, opening the pure eye of wisdom, beholding the ocean of the three times, the ocean of every buddha's own Dharma giving rise to every tathāgata's own merit, knowing every merit cultivated by every bodhisattva, from the first raising of the mind to the very end, nurturing every sentient being's own root of goodness, throughout every world praising every buddha's own merit, fully accomplishing every bodhisattva's own vow to become a mother."
This entire dense vision, running across four full parts, closes on the single phrase toward which everything else was building: "fully accomplishing every bodhisattva's own vow to become a mother" (成滿一切菩薩母願). Every cosmic power just catalogued — filling boundless lands, knowing every merit from first mind to final attainment, praising every buddha throughout every world — turns out to be in service of this one specific role. Motherhood, in this account, is not a lesser or merely biological function set alongside a bodhisattva's own greater cosmic capacities; it is itself the vow those capacities exist to fulfill.
Part 204 In Progress
The whole vision of Māyā's own cosmic vow is now complete. Part 205 turns to Sudhana himself — transforming his own body to match hers, bowing in reverence, and attaining countless samādhis before he ever speaks a word.
Continue to Part 205 →