Boundless Roots of Goodness
The reason for never resting content begins: a bodhisattva mahāsattva must single-mindedly seek boundless roots of goodness, accumulate boundless requisites and conditions for awakening, fully know boundless sentient beings' own minds and conduct, eliminate their boundless afflictions, and dry up the boundless wellspring of the ocean of rebirth itself.
Why a Bodhisattva Never Rests: The Boundless List Begins
「何以故？善男子！菩薩摩訶薩應一向求無量善根；積集無量菩提具；積集無量菩提因緣；修習無量諸大迴向；教化成熟無量眾生，了知無量諸眾生心、諸根欲性、眾生諸行；除滅無量眾生煩惱結業習氣；除滅無量眾生邪見諸染污心；令發無量諸清淨心；拔出無量諸苦惱刺；消竭無量愛欲之海；遠離無量愚癡闇冥；壞散無量大憍慢山；解散無量生死繫縛；越度無量煩惱有流；煎竭無量受生海源；……」
"Why is this so? Good man, a bodhisattva mahāsattva should single-mindedly seek boundless roots of goodness; accumulate boundless requisites for awakening; accumulate boundless conditions for awakening; cultivate boundless great dedications of merit; teach and bring to maturity boundless sentient beings, fully knowing the boundless minds, faculties, desires, and natures, and every conduct of sentient beings; eliminate the boundless bonds, karma, and habitual tendencies of sentient beings' own afflictions; eliminate boundless sentient beings' own wrong views and every defiled mind; cause boundless pure minds to arise; pull out boundless thorns of suffering and affliction; dry up the boundless ocean of craving and desire; be far removed from boundless ignorance and darkness; break apart the boundless mountain of great arrogance; dissolve boundless bonds of birth and death; cross over the boundless flowing stream of the afflictions; and dry up the boundless wellspring of the ocean of rebirth … [the list continues]"
Every clause in this list opens with 無量 (boundless), applied in turn to roots of goodness, sentient beings, afflictions, and cosmic images like the ocean of craving and the mountain of arrogance — the word itself becomes a refrain rather than a modifier, hammering home through sheer repetition the very point the children have just made: nothing here is meant to be attained once and set aside. Fazang reads this insistent repetition as deliberate rhetorical technique, not verbosity — the list's own form performs the boundlessness its content describes.
Part 251 In Progress
The boundless list is only beginning. Part 252 continues with rescuing sentient beings from the three realms' own prison, and boundless further qualities of bodhisattva conduct.
Continue to Part 252 →