To Speak Briefly
After the enormous boundless list, the children compress a bodhisattva's entire practice into a single sentence, then turn to the cause underlying all of it: never doubting or growing weary of a good friend, because it is precisely through a good friend that every bodhisattva quality is consummated.
Everything, in a Single Breath
「善男子！略說菩薩教化一切眾生：於一切劫，行菩薩行；於一切趣，應現受生；以明淨智，了一切三世；淨一切剎，滿一切願，供養一切佛；與一切菩薩，同修願行，親近一切諸善知識。是故，善男子！應一向求諸善知識，若見聞法，恭敬供養；於善知識，勿生嫌疑，身心懈厭；令一切善知識，心大歡悅。何以故？因善知識究竟一切諸菩薩行；成滿一切菩薩功德、一切菩薩大願、一切菩薩善根、一切菩薩助道法；生一切菩薩法；明淨一切菩薩法門；淨修一……」
"Good man, to speak briefly: a bodhisattva teaches and transforms every sentient being — throughout every kalpa, practicing the bodhisattva's own practice; taking rebirth in response within every destiny; through bright, pure wisdom, fully comprehending the three times; purifying every buddha-land, fulfilling every vow, and making offerings to every buddha; practicing vows and conduct together with every bodhisattva, and drawing near every good friend. For this reason, good man, you should single-mindedly seek out good friends; whenever you see them or hear the Dharma from them, revere and make offerings; toward a good friend, never give rise to suspicion or doubt, nor let your own body and mind grow weary or averse; cause every good friend's own mind to be greatly delighted. Why is this so? Because through a good friend, one consummates every one of the bodhisattva's own practices; fulfills every bodhisattva merit, every bodhisattva's own great vow, every bodhisattva's own root of goodness, every bodhisattva's own aid to the path; gives rise to every bodhisattva dharma; clarifies and purifies every bodhisattva Dharma-gate; purely cultivates … [the reasons continue]"
After the preceding list's own exhaustive length, this "brief" summary is itself a small act of compression — six clauses standing in for the dozens just given — before the text pivots to what will turn out to be an even longer meditation on a single theme: the good friend. Fazang reads this pivot as structurally significant: everything boundless just enumerated is now traced back to one single, nameable cause, setting up the extended teaching on the good friend that follows as this whole section's own true center of gravity.
Part 256 In Progress
The reasons a good friend is indispensable are only beginning. Part 257 continues the list of what one gains through a good friend.
Continue to Part 257 →