A Tower Named Adorned Pure Treasury
Still speaking, the two children describe a country to the south named Sea-Torrent, a grove named Great Adornment-Treasury, and within it a great tower named Adorned Pure Treasury — arisen from a bodhisattva's own vows, spiritual powers, skillful means, and great compassion. There, the bodhisattva mahāsattva Maitreya himself dwells, teaching his own parents and kin, and nurturing the roots of goodness of countless sentient beings.
A Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Named Maitreya
「又作是言：「善男子！於此南方，有一國土，名曰海㵎；彼有園林，名大莊嚴藏；於彼林中，有大樓觀，名嚴淨藏，菩薩往昔善根所起，菩薩諸願自在，諸通智力，巧妙方便，功德大悲法門所起。彼園中有菩薩摩訶薩，名曰彌勒。常化父母、親戚、眷屬，及同行者；又復長養其餘無量眾生善根，令住大乘。亦欲為汝顯現菩薩方便法門，欲明菩薩受生自在，欲對現教化一切眾生，令厭諸有，宣明菩薩大慈悲力，覺悟菩薩無相法門，明諸有趣，悉無自相。……」
They further said this: "Good man, to the south of here there is a country named Sea-Torrent; within it there is a grove named Great Adornment-Treasury; and within that grove there is a great tower named Adorned Pure Treasury, arisen from the bodhisattva's own roots of goodness cultivated in ages past, from the bodhisattva's own sovereign vows, from every spiritual power and wisdom-force, from skillful and wondrous means, and from the Dharma-gate of merit and great compassion. Within that park there is a bodhisattva mahāsattva named Maitreya. He constantly teaches and transforms his own parents, relatives, and retinue, and those who practice alongside him; he further nurtures the roots of goodness of countless other sentient beings, establishing them in the Great Vehicle. He also wishes, for your own sake, to manifest the bodhisattva's own skillful-means Dharma-gate, wishing to make clear the bodhisattva's own sovereign mastery in taking rebirth, wishing to appear before and teach every sentient being, causing them to grow weary of every state of existence, proclaiming and clarifying the bodhisattva's own power of great loving-kindness and compassion, awakening them to the bodhisattva's own markless Dharma-gate, and making clear that every destiny of existence is utterly without any mark of its own … [the referral continues]"
This is the pilgrimage's own introduction to Maitreya, the bodhisattva already known throughout the tradition as the buddha yet to come — and the tower named here, Adorned Pure Treasury, is the same structure this collection's own reading notes have anticipated as the celebrated "Tower of Maitreya," where Sudhana's entry will reveal the entire cosmos held within a single space. Fazang notes that the tower is said to arise not from ordinary construction but explicitly "from the bodhisattva's own roots of goodness... vows... spiritual power... and great compassion" — its very existence is itself already a teaching about what a bodhisattva's own accumulated practice can manifest.
Part 248 In Progress
The tower and Maitreya's own presence there are now introduced. Part 249 continues with the ten specific questions the children instruct Sudhana to ask, and the reasons Maitreya alone can answer them.
Continue to Part 249 →