Like a Bird Ranging Through Empty Space
Five more stanzas: understanding every dharma's own true mark of non-arising, like a bird ranging through empty space; extinguishing greed, hatred, and delusion; contemplating the three gates of liberation and dependent origination; entering unobstructed wisdom while equally beholding every sentient being's own land; and remaining unattached to anything, like wind moving through empty space.
Five More Stanzas
「解了一切法， 真實無生相，
如鳥遊空者， 安住此法堂。
除滅貪恚癡， 一切諸顛倒，
常樂寂靜者， 安住此法堂。
三脫門道觀， 陰入界緣起，
遠離惡道者， 安住此法堂。
深入無礙智， 等觀眾生剎，
知法無性者， 安住此法堂。
三世法無礙， 猶如空中風，
無所染著者， 安住此法堂。
"Understanding every dharma's own true mark of non-arising,
Like a bird ranging through empty space, he abides in this Dharma-hall.
Extinguishing greed, hatred, and delusion, and every inverted view,
Ever delighting in tranquility, he abides in this Dharma-hall.
Contemplating the path of the three gates of liberation, the aggregates, sense-entries, elements, and dependent origination,
Far removed from every evil destiny, he abides in this Dharma-hall.
Deeply entering unobstructed wisdom, equally beholding every sentient being's own land,
Knowing dharmas as without any nature, he abides in this Dharma-hall.
Unobstructed in the dharmas of the three times, like wind moving through empty space,
Unattached to anything, he abides in this Dharma-hall."
"Like a bird ranging through empty space" is a simile this collection has used before for freedom from any fixed support — a bird leaves no track in the sky it passes through, exactly as this hymn's own subject leaves no trace of attachment in the dharmas he moves among. Fazang reads the wind-in-space image closing this stanza-set as its own deliberate echo of the bird: two moving things that pass through emptiness without the emptiness itself ever registering their passage.
Part 290 In Progress
Ten stanzas are now given. Part 291 continues with Maitreya's own great compassion for suffering beings, likened to a physician-king and a boat crossing the ocean of birth and death.
Continue to Part 291 →