Rarer Still to Seek Without Attachment
Maitreya tells the assembled crowd: raising the mind of unsurpassed awakening at all is already exceedingly rare in this world. To then seek the Buddha-dharma with this same diligence, without begrudging one's own body or life, without craving profit or support, and without attachment to family property, the five desires, or one's own parents and kin, is rarer still.
Rarer Still to Delight Only in Cultivating Omniscience
「諸善男子！世間有能發起無上菩提心者，甚為希有，若發心已，如是精進求佛法者，亦甚希有；如是樂欲，淨菩薩道，具菩薩行，不惜身命，求善知識，不違其教；集菩提分，不貪利養，不捨菩薩正直之心；不著家業，不染五欲，不戀父母及諸親族，但樂專修一切種智；如是之人，倍復希有。……」
"Good men, in this world, one who is able to raise the mind of unsurpassed awakening at all is already exceedingly rare; and once having raised that mind, one who then seeks the Buddha-dharma with diligence such as this is also exceedingly rare — one who so delights and aspires, purifying the bodhisattva path, endowed with the bodhisattva's own practice, never begrudging body or life, seeking good friends and never going against their teaching; accumulating the very components of awakening, never craving profit or support, never abandoning the bodhisattva's own upright mind; unattached to family property, unstained by the five desires, not longing for parents or any kin, delighting only in the single-minded cultivation of the wisdom of every kind — a person such as this is rarer still."
The two-tiered rarity here — rare to raise the mind of awakening at all, rarer still to pursue it with this exact combination of diligence and detachment — mirrors the escalation this teaching has used before, from "boundless" qualities to "unspeakable" ones, applied now to a single human life rather than to cosmic quantities. Fazang reads "unattached to family property... not longing for parents or kin" not as a rejection of ordinary human bonds in general but as a specific description of what single-minded pursuit actually requires, illustrated concretely by Sudhana's own journey away from Kapilavastu and every teacher he has left behind without regret.
Part 308 In Progress
Maitreya's own reflection on rarity continues. Part 309 continues with what such a person is able to accomplish — consummating every bodhisattva practice and completing Samantabhadra's own conduct within a single lifetime.
Continue to Part 309 →