No Māra Can Undermine It
The catalogue closes on a mind so firmly established through the good friend's own cause that it transcends the entire world of ordinary beings, śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas alike — free of confusion, unattached, and beyond any māra's own power to undermine.
A Mind That Never Retrogresses
「……起一切菩薩大慈悲力；攝一切菩薩無量善根；得一切菩薩道支；得一切菩薩饒益眾生心，遠離惡道，安住大乘，修菩薩行，遠惡知識；於菩薩法，心不退轉，超出凡夫、聲聞、緣覺一切世間，心無惑亂，無所染著，廣修菩薩無量諸行；長養一切諸善功德，除滅煩惱，一切諸魔，莫能沮壞。因善知識，悉能成辨如是等事。何以故？善知識者，能令除滅諸障礙故。……」
"… raises every bodhisattva's own power of great loving-kindness and compassion; gathers in every bodhisattva's own boundless roots of goodness; attains every branch of the bodhisattva's own path; attains every bodhisattva's own mind of benefiting sentient beings, becoming far removed from every evil destiny, abiding firmly in the Great Vehicle, cultivating the bodhisattva's own practice, and staying far from evil companions; with respect to the bodhisattva's own Dharma, the mind never once retrogresses, transcending the entire worldly state of ordinary beings, śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas alike, the mind free of confusion and delusion, unattached to anything, broadly cultivating the bodhisattva's own boundless practices; nurturing every kind of good merit and eliminating the afflictions, so that no māra whatsoever is able to undermine or destroy it. Through a good friend, one is able to accomplish and settle every one of these matters. Why is this so? Because a good friend is able to cause the elimination of every obstruction … [the teaching continues]"
"Staying far from evil companions" (遠惡知識) appears as the single negative counterpart within an otherwise entirely positive catalogue — a reminder that the good friend's own value is partly relational, defined against its own opposite. Fazang reads the closing claim, that a good friend's own presence renders one immune to every māra's own attempt at undermining, as this whole section's own thesis in miniature: everything catalogued across parts 256 through 258 converges on a single point, restated here at its close before the text turns to explain precisely how a good friend accomplishes it.
Part 258 Complete
The reasons a good friend is indispensable are now fully given. Part 259 turns to the mechanism itself — how a good friend removes obstructions, freeing one from unwholesome dharmas, evil companions, and the darkness of ignorance.
Continue to Part 259 →