An Ocean of Great Wisdom
Five stanzas built on the ocean's own scale: hearing every buddha's Dharma without weariness from a single seat, traveling an ocean of worlds and assemblies to make offerings to an ocean of buddhas, cultivating an ocean of vows across an ocean of kalpas, and beholding, within each pore, buddha-lands, kalpas, and beings, all within a single unobstructed thought.
Five Stanzas of Oceanic Scale
「一坐處聞持， 諸佛法無厭，
大智慧海者， 安住此法堂。
遍遊世界海， 及諸大眾海，
供養佛海者， 安住此法堂。
一切劫海中， 修諸願行海，
出生功德者， 安住此法堂。
一一毛孔中， 佛剎劫眾生，
無礙眼見者， 安住此法堂。
一念中遍入， 不可說諸劫，
知念無礙者， 安住此法堂。
"In a single seat, hearing and upholding every buddha's own Dharma without weariness,
One of an ocean of great wisdom abides in this Dharma-hall.
Universally traveling the ocean of every world, and every ocean of great assemblies,
One who makes offerings to an ocean of buddhas abides in this Dharma-hall.
Within every ocean of kalpas, cultivating an ocean of every vow and practice,
One who gives rise to merit abides in this Dharma-hall.
Within each and every pore, buddha-lands, kalpas, and sentient beings —
One whose unobstructed eye beholds them abides in this Dharma-hall.
Within a single thought, universally entering unspeakable kalpas,
One who knows thought as unobstructed abides in this Dharma-hall."
The word "ocean" (海) recurs seven times across these five stanzas alone — worlds, assemblies, buddhas, kalpas, vows, practice, merit — a deliberate saturation Fazang reads as this hymn's own device for conveying scale beyond ordinary numeration, the same rhetorical strategy the "boundless" and "unspeakable" lists used earlier in this teacher's own referral speech. The final stanza's own claim — a single pore containing buddha-lands, kalpas, and beings, beheld through an unobstructed eye within a single thought — previews precisely what the tower's own vision, still ahead, will demonstrate to Sudhana directly rather than merely describe.
Part 293 In Progress
Twenty-five stanzas are now given. Part 294 continues with Maitreya's boundless roots of goodness gathered across every sand-mote of every land, and his own attainment of correct awakening within a single thought.
Continue to Part 294 →