Unattached Pure Mindfulness
Firm Liberation names his own liberation and declares that, ever since attaining it, his own Dharma-vow has been fulfilled — he seeks nothing further from any buddha. He closes with his self-limitation and refers Sudhana to another elder within the very same city, Sublime Moon, whose house is said to be always filled with light.
"My Dharma-Vow Has Been Fulfilled"
「長者答言：「善男子！我得菩薩解脫，名無著清淨念。我自得是解脫已來，法願充滿，於十方佛所無復希求。善男子！我唯知此淨念解脫，如諸菩薩摩訶薩獲無所畏大師子吼，安住高廣福慧之聚。而我云何能知、能說彼功德行？善男子！即此城中有一長者，名為妙月，其長者宅常有光明。汝詣彼問云何菩薩學菩薩行、修菩薩道。」」
The elder answered, saying: "Good man, I have attained the bodhisattva's own liberation named Unattached Pure Mindfulness. Ever since I myself attained this liberation, my own Dharma-vow has been fulfilled, and I no longer seek anything further from any buddha throughout the ten directions. Good man, I know only this liberation of pure mindfulness. As for how the great bodhisattvas attain the fearless great lion's roar, abiding in a lofty, vast accumulation of merit and wisdom — how could I possibly know it, or speak of it? Good man, within this very city there is an elder named Sublime Moon, whose own house is always filled with light. Go to him and ask how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice and cultivates the bodhisattva's own path."
"My own Dharma-vow has been fulfilled, and I no longer seek anything further from any buddha" is an unusually strong statement of contentment for one of the 53 teachers to make about their own liberation, before the very same sentence turns immediately to what lies beyond it in the great bodhisattvas' own practice. Fazang reads this juxtaposition — total fulfillment within one's own liberation, paired with an honest admission of its limit relative to the bodhisattvas' own scope — as the pattern this whole pilgrimage depends on: each teacher's own realization is complete in itself, yet none is final.
Part 238 Complete — Teacher 46 Concludes
Firm Liberation's own account, delivered in a single brief teaching, is now complete. Part 239 turns to Sudhana's journey within the very same city to Sublime Moon's own house.
Continue to Part 239 →