Every Buddha-Land Rising and Passing Away
Five more stanzas: contemplating uncountable lands, kalpas, tathāgatas, and sentient beings with unobstructed wisdom; within a single thought, knowing every buddha-land's own arising and passing away across the three times; and, within each and every mote of dust, seeing every kalpa, every buddha and their retinue, and every kind of sentient being — all understood as entirely without any nature of their own.
Every Kalpa Within a Single Mote of Dust
「無礙智思量， 三世無數剎，
諸劫諸如來， 無數眾生類。
佛子住此堂， 常於一念中，
了知於三世， 諸佛剎成敗。
善知諸最勝， 所修諸行願，
并眾生諸根， 修習佛境界。
一一微塵中， 見一切劫剎，
諸佛及眷屬， 一切眾生類。
佛子住此堂， 常觀一切法，
眾生剎世劫， 皆悉無自性。
"With unobstructed wisdom he contemplates and measures the uncountable lands of the three times,
Every tathāgata of every kalpa, and every kind of uncountable sentient being.
The child of the Buddha, abiding in this hall, constantly, within a single thought,
Fully knows the arising and passing away of every buddha-land across the three times.
Skillfully knowing every supreme one's own cultivated practices and vows,
Together with sentient beings' own faculties, he cultivates the buddha's own domain.
Within each and every mote of dust, he sees every kalpa and land,
Every buddha and their own retinue, and every kind of sentient being.
The child of the Buddha, abiding in this hall, constantly contemplates every dharma —
Sentient beings, lands, worlds, and kalpas — all entirely without any nature of their own."
"Every buddha-land's own arising and passing away" within a single thought treats even the birth and destruction of entire cosmic worlds as an object of instantaneous knowledge — a claim that anticipates, in verse, exactly the kind of vision the tower's own entry will soon make directly visible to Sudhana rather than merely describe. Fazang reads the closing stanza's own turn to "without any nature of their own" as this hymn's own necessary counterweight: the vastness just described could otherwise read as simply more reality piled upon reality, and this final line insists that all of it — beings, lands, worlds, kalpas alike — lacks any independent nature to begin with.
Part 298 In Progress
Fifty stanzas are now given. Part 299 continues with contemplating sentient beings, dharmas, buddhas, vows, and worlds as all equal, and teaching countless beings while thinking on every buddha throughout the dharma-realm.
Continue to Part 299 →