A Light Enters Her Crown
As the bodhisattva's own life in Tuṣita Heaven comes to its end, a great light from his every pore illumines every world in the ten directions before entering the crown of Māyā's own head, spreading through every pore of her own body. Within it, she beholds his entire future life — going forth, awakening, teaching, and parinirvāṇa — all before any of it has happened.
Every Future Life, Seen Before It Happens
「善男子！菩薩於兜率天命終時，一一毛孔放大光明，名一切如來受生圓滿功德，顯現不可說不可說佛剎微塵等菩薩受生莊嚴，普照一切世界；照已，來觸我頂，遍入我身一切毛孔；入已，普見菩薩受生，自在莊嚴，又見出家、往詣道場、成等正覺，菩薩、天人、大眾圍遶，恭敬供養轉正法輪。彼諸如來於過去世行菩薩行，於諸佛所恭敬供養發菩提心，淨諸佛剎。無量化身充滿法界，教化眾生，乃至示現大般涅槃，如是等事，皆悉覩見。」
"Good man, when the bodhisattva's own life in Tuṣita Heaven came to its end, from each and every one of his own pores he sent forth a great light, named the Perfect Merit of Every Tathāgata's Own Rebirth, manifesting the adornment of the rebirth of bodhisattvas as numerous as motes of dust in unspeakable, unspeakable buddha-lands, universally illumining every world; having illumined them, it came and touched the crown of my own head, entering entirely into every pore of my own body; having entered, I universally beheld the bodhisattva's own sovereign adornment in taking rebirth, and further beheld him leaving the household life, going to the bodhimaṇḍa, attaining the most correct awakening, surrounded by bodhisattvas, devas, humans, and the great assembly, reverently making offerings, turning the wheel of the true Dharma. Those tathāgatas, in ages past, practiced the bodhisattva's own practice, at the presence of every buddha reverently making offerings and raising the mind of awakening, purifying every buddha-land. Boundless transformation-bodies filled the Dharma-realm, teaching and transforming sentient beings, even manifesting the great parinirvāṇa — matters such as these, I beheld them all."
This passage inverts the ordinary sequence of motherhood entirely: rather than a mother learning who her child will become only as he grows, Māyā beholds his complete future life — going forth, awakening, teaching, and even parinirvāṇa — the very instant a light touches her own crown, before conception has even occurred. What she describes seeing is not one buddha's own life but "those tathāgatas," plural, boundless transformation-bodies filling the Dharma-realm — the single bodhisattva descending from Tuṣita already manifesting as every buddha who has ever purified a buddha-land, seen all at once within the same light.
Part 207 In Progress
The light's own revelation is now told in full. Part 208 turns to the most famous passage in this whole teacher's account: Māyā's body becoming vast as space while remaining human-sized, her own womb holding countless bodhisattvas walking within it.
Continue to Part 208 →