Equal to Empty Space
Sudhana's own contemplation of the tower deepens into a series of equations: equal to empty space, equal to the dharma-realm without obstruction, equal to the reality-limit reaching every place, equal to a tathāgata free of falsehood and unattached to anything — like a reflection, a dream, lightning, an echo, arising entirely from conditions, neither existent nor non-existent.
Like a Reflection, a Dream, Lightning, an Echo
「作是念已，又復等觀，猶如虛空；等觀如法界，無有障礙；等觀如實際，至一切處；等觀如來，除諸虛妄，無所染著；等觀如影、如夢、如電、如響，悉從緣起，非有非無，深心信解。」
Having formed this thought, he further contemplated it as equal to empty space; contemplated it as equal to the dharma-realm, without any obstruction; contemplated it as equal to the reality-limit, reaching every place; contemplated it as equal to the tathāgata, free of every falsehood and unattached to anything; contemplated it as like a reflection, like a dream, like lightning, like an echo, all arising entirely from conditions, neither existent nor non-existent, with deep faith and understanding.
Four successive equations — empty space, dharma-realm, reality-limit, tathāgata — each name a different traditional designation for ultimate reality in Mahāyāna thought, and Sudhana contemplates the tower as identical to all four at once before the passage pivots to the four classic similes of conditioned appearance: reflection, dream, lightning, echo. Fazang reads this pairing as balancing two truths simultaneously — the tower's own ultimate nature is empty space itself, and yet, precisely because it arises from conditions like any dream or echo, it is neither simply existent nor simply non-existent.
Part 276 Complete
This stage of contemplation is now given in full. Part 277 continues with how faith itself leads to awakening, and how each specific practice — offerings, transformation-bodies, roots of goodness, the pāramitās — arises from its own distinct cause.
Continue to Part 277 →