Even the Bodhisattvas' Own Assemblies
The catalogue extends further than any prior teacher's own list has reached: every land, every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha, every bodhisattva, and even every bodhisattva assembly's own transformations are each illusion-dwelling. The children close by naming the illusion-realm's own nature as inconceivable, and admit the limit of what they themselves can know.
Lands, Śrāvakas, Bodhisattvas, and Their Own Assemblies — All Illusion-Dwelling
「……一切國土皆幻住，想倒、心倒、見倒、無明所現故；一切聲聞、辟支佛皆幻住，智斷分別所成故；一切菩薩皆幻住，能自調伏教化眾生殊勝智心及諸行願之所成故；一切菩薩眾會變化調伏諸所施為皆幻住，願及智所攝成故。善男子！幻境自性不可思議。善男子！我等二人但能知此菩薩解脫，如諸菩薩摩訶薩善入無邊諸事幻網。彼功德行，我等云何能知、能說？」」
"… Every land is illusion-dwelling, because it is manifested by inverted perception, inverted mind, inverted view, and ignorance; every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha is illusion-dwelling, because they are accomplished through wisdom's own discriminating cessation; every bodhisattva is illusion-dwelling, because they are accomplished through the supreme wisdom-mind able to tame itself and teach sentient beings, together with every practice and vow; every transformation, every taming, and every undertaking of every bodhisattva assembly is illusion-dwelling, because it is accomplished and gathered through vow and wisdom together. Good man, the illusion-realm's own nature is inconceivable. Good man, we two are able to know only this bodhisattva's own liberation. As for how the great bodhisattvas skillfully enter the boundless web of illusion in every single matter — that practice of merit and virtue, how could we possibly know it, or possibly speak of it?"
The catalogue's own final turn is its most striking: after every world, every being, and even every śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha has been named illusion-dwelling, the list does not stop short of the bodhisattvas themselves, or even their own assemblies and transformations — everything without exception, including the very practice this pilgrimage has been documenting for forty-nine teachers already, falls within the same illusion-dwelling. Fazang reads this totality as the liberation's own completion: illusion here names not a deficient status opposed to some more real practice, but the shared mode of arising for everything that exists, awakening included.
Part 246 Complete — Teacher 50 Concludes
The full catalogue of Dwelling in Illusion is now given, and teacher 50's own account is complete. Part 247 turns to what happens next — the children's own good-roots power transforming Sudhana's body, and their referral that leads directly to one of the most celebrated figures in the entire sūtra.
Continue to Part 247 →