A Body Vast as Space, Yet Still Human-Sized
The light entering Māyā's own body transforms it: transcending the world, becoming equal to empty space, and yet remaining no larger than an ordinary human body — while holding within it bodhisattvas of the ten directions and their own adorned palaces. The bodhisattva's own descent from Tuṣita Heaven then begins, accompanied by bodhisattvas equal to Samantabhadra himself, nāga kings, and the whole eightfold assembly.
Equal to Empty Space, Yet Still a Human Body
「又，善男子！彼妙光明來入我身，我身爾時超出世間，與虛空等，亦不過人身，悉能容受十方菩薩，莊嚴宮殿。◎◎爾時，菩薩從兜率天降神下時，與十佛剎微塵等菩薩俱，皆悉同行大願，善根莊嚴，法門智慧自在，一切諸地清淨，法身無量，色身究竟，普賢諸大願行悉皆同等。如是菩薩眷屬圍遶，又與八萬諸龍王俱，娑伽羅龍王等，及諸夜叉八部神等，恭敬供養。」
"Further, good man, that sublime light, having entered my own body, my body, at that time, transcended the world, becoming equal to empty space, and yet was no larger than a human body, while being able to hold within it bodhisattvas of the ten directions, and adorned palaces. At that time, when the bodhisattva descended in spirit from Tuṣita Heaven, he came together with bodhisattvas as numerous as motes of dust in ten buddha-lands, all of them practicing the same great vow, adorned with roots of goodness, sovereign in the wisdom of every Dharma-gate, pure throughout every ground, their Dharma-body boundless, their form-body reaching the very end, every one of them equal to Samantabhadra's own great vows and practice. Surrounded by bodhisattvas such as these as his own retinue, he further came together with eighty thousand nāga kings, Sāgara the nāga king and the rest, and every yakṣa and the eightfold assembly of spirits, all reverently making offerings."
The paradox stated here — "equal to empty space, and yet was no larger than a human body" — is the exact formula this entire passage will spend the next several parts demonstrating in concrete detail: not a claim asserted once and left behind, but a capacity the account is about to show working in practice, as an entire descending assembly, bodhisattvas equal to Samantabhadra himself among them, approaches to enter a body that has not, by any external measure, changed size at all.
Part 208 In Progress
The transformed body and the descending assembly are now described. Part 209 turns to what happens next — the bodhisattva's own light extinguishing the suffering of every evil destiny, and the entire assembly entering Māyā's own womb, where bodhisattvas range freely, some taking the whole trichiliocosm as a single step.
Continue to Part 209 →