Leaping with Boundless Delight
Overjoyed at everything he has just heard, Sudhana sets out at last on the actual journey to Sea-Torrent country. His own long-cultivated practice is described in full: purified karma from ages past, a pure mind free of the world's own falsehood, the true meaning of the Dharma sought, and a body and life never begrudged for the sake of sentient beings.
At Last, the Journey Itself Begins
「爾時，善財聞如是等讚善知識諸菩薩行，如來正法；心大歡喜，踊躍無量，正念思惟菩薩所行。漸漸遊行，向海㵎國；以過去際修身業力，及清淨心，遠離惡行，超出世間虛妄惑倒；求佛法實義，長養諸根，滿足大願，具精進力；不惜身命，饒益眾生，修菩薩行，積集佛法；……」
At that time, Sudhana, having heard such praise of the good friend, of every bodhisattva's own practice, and of the tathāgata's own true Dharma, was greatly joyful in his own mind, leaping with boundless delight, and with right mindfulness reflected on the bodhisattva's own practice. Journeying gradually onward, he made his way toward the country of Sea-Torrent; through the power of his own bodily karma cultivated since the boundary of the past, and through a pure mind, he was far removed from evil conduct, transcending the world's own falsehood and inverted delusion; seeking the true meaning of the Buddha-dharma, nurturing his own faculties, fulfilling his great vows, and endowed with the power of diligence; without begrudging his own body or life, benefiting sentient beings, cultivating the bodhisattva's own practice, and accumulating the Buddha-dharma … [the description continues]
After the longest single teaching this collection has yet recorded, the narrative finally resumes motion — Sudhana's own joy described in almost physical terms, "leaping with boundless delight," before the text pauses once more to catalogue the accumulated practice that makes this final approach possible. Fazang reads this catalogue as deliberate: entering the tower's own presence is not merely a matter of arriving at a location but of having already become, through countless prior causes, the kind of person capable of witnessing what the tower will reveal.
Part 272 In Progress
Sudhana's journey has begun. Part 273 continues describing his own accumulated qualities — beholding every tathāgata, purifying every buddha-land, and revering every bodhisattva as the World-Honored One himself.
Continue to Part 273 →