King Fulfillment, and Punishments That Are Not What They Seem
Sudhana takes leave of Universal Eye, Sublime Fragrance and journeys to the city Full Banner, where he beholds King Fulfillment inflicting horrific punishments on wrongdoers — dismemberment, mutilation, burning — and judges him "the very worst of evil men," until a sky-deva reassures him and the king himself reveals that every torment is a conjured illusion, meant only to turn evildoers toward the good. The seventh teacher of the Ten Practices.
A Throne of Vajra, and Punishments Beyond Telling
時，善財童子頭面敬禮普眼妙香長者，遶無數匝，辭退南行。
爾時，善財童子次第憶念諸善知識，正念思惟善知識教；復作是念：「善知識者能攝取我，能守護我，令我不退阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」如是思惟，得大歡喜心、無量歡喜心、發清淨心、寂滅心、廣大心、莊嚴心、無著心、無礙心、虛空心、見諸佛菩薩心、自在心、順諸法心、於一念中充滿一切佛剎心、見如來心、念十力心，不捨諸佛善知識心。漸經人眾、城邑聚落，至滿幢城，問：「滿足王今在何所？」
有人答言：「今在正殿，行於王法，教化眾生。應攝取者而攝取之，應罰者罰，應治者治；諸有諍者，斷其諍訟；有恐怖者，施以無畏；讚歎不殺、不盜、不邪婬、不妄言、不兩舌、不惡口、不無義語、無貪、恚、癡。」
爾時，善財遙見彼王處金剛師子座，阿僧祇寶而以莊嚴，無量寶像以為莊飾，種種香雲而普熏之，無量寶衣以敷其上；又復建立無量寶幢，無量寶幡周遍垂下，張眾寶帳；頂冠如意摩尼寶冠，閻浮檀金半月莊嚴；髮紺青色，耳普垂[耳*垂]，身佩無價摩尼瓔珞，百千寶網羅覆其上；閻浮檀金蓋，眾寶為鈴，常出妙音；瑠璃為竿，夜光寶藏普照諸方。彼滿足王有大勢力，離諸怨敵，無量自在。一萬大臣各處常位，修理王事，勇將一萬持仗侍衛。
爾時，善財見無量眾生犯王法者，身被五縛，或斷手足，或截耳鼻，或挑雙目，或斬身首，或投沸灰；或疊纏油灌，以火焚之；以如是等無量楚毒而苦治之。爾時，善財作如是念：「我為一切眾生故，學菩薩行，修菩薩道，今見此王行大惡逆，諸不善法；此乃惡中之惡，第一惡人。」
作是念時，虛空有天而告之曰：「善男子！汝當憶念普眼妙香善知識教。」善財即時仰觀虛空而答之言：「我常憶念！」天又語言：「若常憶念，何故疑怪？善男子！菩薩方便不可思議，菩薩智慧不可思議，攝取眾生不可思議，調伏眾生不可思議，教化眾生不可思議，愍念眾生不可思議，度脫眾生不可思議。」
爾時，善財聞天教已，詣彼王所，頭面禮足，白言：「大聖！我已先發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，而未知菩薩云何學菩薩行、修菩薩道？」
At that time Sudhana the Boy, having bowed his head in reverence at the elder Universal Eye, Sublime Fragrance's feet, circled him countless times, took his leave and journeyed on to the south.
At that time Sudhana the Boy held in sequence every good spiritual friend in mind, rightly holding in mind their every teaching; he thought further: "A good spiritual friend is able to gather me in, able to guard and protect me, causing me never to retreat from unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening." Reflecting in this way, he attained a mind of great joy, a mind of boundless joy, a mind giving rise to purity, a mind of tranquil extinction, a mind vast and expansive, a mind adorned, a mind unattached, a mind unobstructed, a mind like space itself, a mind that beholds every buddha and bodhisattva, a mind sovereign in mastery, a mind according with every dharma, a mind that in a single thought-moment fills every buddha-land, a mind that beholds the Tathāgata, a mind mindful of the ten powers, and a mind that never abandons any buddha or good spiritual friend. Gradually passing through multitudes of people, cities, and villages, he arrived at the city Full Banner, and asked: "Where is King Fulfillment now?"
Someone answered: "He is now in the main hall, carrying out the king's own law, teaching and transforming sentient beings. Whoever ought to be gathered in, he gathers in; whoever ought to be punished, he punishes; whoever ought to be corrected, he corrects; whoever has a dispute, he settles their dispute and litigation; whoever is afraid, he grants fearlessness; he extols not killing, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct, not speaking falsely, not speaking divisively, not speaking harshly, not speaking without meaning, and being free of greed, hatred, and folly."
At that time Sudhana beheld this king from afar, seated upon a lion-throne of vajra, adorned with countless jewels, ornamented with immeasurable jeweled images, universally perfumed with every kind of incense-cloud, spread over with countless jeweled robes; further, countless jeweled banners were raised, countless jeweled pennants hung down on every side, and jeweled canopies were spread wide; upon his crown was a wish-fulfilling maṇi-jewel crown, adorned with a half-moon of Jambū-river gold; his hair was of deep blue-black color, his ears hanging low on every side, his body adorned with priceless maṇi necklaces, a hundred thousand jeweled nets covering over it all; a parasol of Jambū-river gold, with every kind of jewel as its bells, constantly giving forth sublime sounds; its pole of lapis lazuli, a treasury of night-shining jewels illumining every direction. This King Fulfillment possessed great strength, free of every enemy and foe, sovereign without measure. Ten thousand great ministers each remained at their constant post, attending to the king's own affairs, and ten thousand valiant generals, bearing arms, stood guard in attendance.
At that time Sudhana beheld countless sentient beings who had transgressed the king's own law, their bodies bound in five places — some with their hands and feet severed, some with their ears and noses cut off, some with both eyes gouged out, some with their bodies and heads cut through, some thrown into boiling ash; some wrapped in layered cloth soaked in oil and set aflame — with countless torments and agonies such as these, they were made to suffer. At that time Sudhana thought thus: "For the sake of every sentient being I have learned the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivated the bodhisattva path — and now I behold this king committing great evil and rebellion, every kind of unwholesome deed; this is evil among evils, the very worst of evil men."
As he thought this, a deva in the sky spoke to him, saying: "Good son, you should hold in mind the teaching of the good spiritual friend Universal Eye, Sublime Fragrance." Sudhana at once looked up into the sky and answered: "I hold it in mind always!" The deva spoke further: "If you hold it in mind always, then why this doubt, this astonishment? Good son, a bodhisattva's own skillful means is beyond conceiving; a bodhisattva's own wisdom is beyond conceiving; gathering in sentient beings is beyond conceiving; taming and subduing sentient beings is beyond conceiving; teaching and transforming sentient beings is beyond conceiving; having compassion for sentient beings is beyond conceiving; and delivering sentient beings across is beyond conceiving."
At that time Sudhana, having heard the deva's teaching, went before this king, bowed his head at his feet, and said: "Great sage! I have already raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, and I do not yet know how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivates the bodhisattva path?"
Fazang marks this as the seventh of the Ten Practices, "the Practice of Non-Attachment" (無著行). He glosses the city's name, 方便境備，勝出為名 — "his domain of skillful means is complete, and he excels and rises above — hence the name"; and the king's own name, 善巧智圓，違順自在，故以其王復表斯號 — "his skillful wisdom is perfect and complete, sovereign over both compliance and opposition alike — and so, as king, he bears this same title too." On why doubt is allowed to arise in Sudhana at all — despite his having just been told to hold his prior teacher's own words in mind — Fazang poses the question directly: has Sudhana truly forgotten what he was taught? His answer: doubt must genuinely arise here, precisely so that the difference between conduct which merely appears to violate the path and conduct which truly accords with it can be properly distinguished within bodhisattva practice at all; without that doubt, there would be no way to discern crooked from correct.
Fazang then quotes at length from Paramārtha's Liang-dynasty treatise on the precepts, on exactly this kind of scene: 菩薩由如此方便勝智行殺生等十事，無染濁過失，生無量福德，速得無上菩提。要大菩薩堪行此事，此有二種：一實行、二變化 — "a bodhisattva, through skillful means and supreme wisdom such as this, may perform the ten grave acts, such as taking life, without any taint of fault, giving rise to boundless merit and swiftly attaining unsurpassed awakening. Only a great bodhisattva is capable of performing such acts, and this comes in two kinds: actual practice, and transformative manifestation." The first kind, the treatise explains, is a bodhisattva who knows for certain that another person is bound to commit an act of unpardonable karma, with no other skillful means to turn them from it, and so ends that life alone — knowing, too, that the one killed will thereby be reborn in a good state, and that he himself will fall into hell for this very act and suffer there on that being's behalf, though a future life will bring him a blissful recompense in turn. Fazang notes this matches the Yogācārabhūmi's own Chapter on Precepts.
The second kind — transformative manifestation, not actual killing — is where Fazang places King Fulfillment directly: 二變化者，如那羅王及善財童子，或見可愛事、或見可畏事，各令眾生生於善處。解云：彼引此經是變化作 — "as for the second kind: it is like King Nara, and Sudhana the Boy himself, who show beings either lovable things or fearsome things, each causing sentient beings to be reborn in a good place. Explained: this very citation, in the treatise, draws directly on this sutra as its example of transformative manifestation." He adds that "Nara" is itself a Sanskrit word meaning "full" (滿) — the very same meaning carried by this king's own name, Fulfillment. On this reading, the beautiful palace Sudhana first beheld and the horrific punishments he beheld next are simply the two halves of one and the same method: showing what is lovable, and showing what is fearsome, both bent toward a single end of benefiting beings. Fazang describes the king's own hidden workings as difficult to fathom in two respects at once — his skillful wisdom, and the very function of his deeds — 謂迹違行順 — "because his outward trace runs contrary to the Way while his underlying practice accords with it," a distinction no lower stage of the path could ever measure by appearances alone.
The Dharma-Gate of Illusory Transformation
時，滿足王王事訖已，手執善財，將入宮內，命就寶師子座，而告之曰：「善男子！汝觀我家。」善財即觀廣大無極七寶垣牆，周匝圍遶；七寶講堂，無量百千眾寶樓閣而莊嚴之；乃至不可思議摩尼寶網羅覆其上；五百侍女，端嚴如天，如上所說。
「善男子！見我此報所因業不？」答言：「已見。」
「善男子！我成就菩薩幻化法門。我此國土殺生、偷盜乃至邪見，諸群生類，不可教化離諸惡業，我為調伏，令解脫故，化作人眾，種種苦治，令捨十不善道，一切諸惡，具足十善，得究竟樂，發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，具足一切智。善男子！當知我身、口、意，乃至蟻子不生害心，何況人耶？人是福田，生諸善根。善男子！我唯知此幻化法門。諸大菩薩得無生法忍，知一切有趣，皆悉如幻；知菩薩行，悉如變化；一切世間，悉如電光；一切諸法，皆悉如夢；深入無礙法界，具菩薩妙行，境界無礙，攝一切行，於無量旋陀羅尼而得自在。我當云何能知、能說彼功德行？善男子！於此南方，有城名曰善光，王名大光，汝詣彼問云何菩薩學菩薩行、修菩薩道。」
At that time King Fulfillment, having finished the king's own affairs, took hold of Sudhana's hand and led him within the palace, bidding him take a seat upon a jeweled lion-throne, and said to him: "Good son, behold my own household." Sudhana then beheld a vast, boundless wall of seven jewels surrounding it on every side; a hall of seven jewels, adorned with countless hundreds of thousands of jeweled pavilions; and, further, a net of maṇi jewels beyond conceiving covering over it all; five hundred attendant women, dignified and fine as the gods themselves, exactly as described before.
"Good son, do you see the karma that is the cause of this recompense of mine?" He answered: "I have seen it."
"Good son, I have accomplished the bodhisattva's own Dharma-gate of Illusory Transformation. In this land of mine, beings who kill, who steal, and even hold wrong views — every such class of being, unable to be taught or transformed away from these evil deeds — I, in order to tame and subdue them and cause them to attain liberation, conjure a multitude of people and every kind of painful punishment, causing them to abandon the ten unwholesome paths and every kind of evil, to become fully endowed with the ten wholesome ways, to attain ultimate bliss, to raise the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening, and to be endowed with omniscience. Good son, you should know that in body, speech, and mind, I do not give rise to a mind of harm even toward an ant, still less toward a human being — a human being is a field of merit, giving rise to every root of goodness. Good son, I know only this Dharma-gate of Illusory Transformation. The great bodhisattvas attain the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas, knowing that every state of existence is entirely like an illusion; knowing that the bodhisattva's own practice is entirely like a transformation; that the whole world is entirely like a flash of lightning; that every dharma is entirely like a dream; they enter deeply into the unobstructed Dharma-realm, endowed with the bodhisattva's own sublime practice, their domain unobstructed, gathering in every practice, and attain sovereign mastery over boundless revolving dhāraṇīs. How could I possibly know, how could I possibly speak of, such merit and practice as this? Good son, to the south of here there is a city, named Good Light; its king is named Great Light. Go to him and ask how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivates the bodhisattva path."
Fazang glosses the Dharma-gate's own name directly from the cause the king has just revealed: 言幻化法門者，出所修因，謂逆相不實故以為名 — "as for 'the Dharma-gate of Illusory Transformation': it takes its name from the very cause he has cultivated — namely, that the seemingly-wrongful mark is not real at all." He records the Indian original as "abiding in the samādhi of illusion" (住幻三昧). The whole scene, on his reading, unfolds in a deliberate order: first, the fruit is shown, to enable entry; then the cause is shown, to enable cultivation; then the illusion's own function is displayed; and only then does the king distinguish genuine practice from mere appearance, before concluding what belongs to his own portion alone. Fazang closes this teacher by noting that the very next teacher, the eighth of the Ten Practices, will attain "the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas" (無生忍) — the deeper realization this king's own vow already points toward but has not yet himself reached.
Part 37 Complete
This closes Part 37: Sudhana's arrival at Full Banner, his doubt before what appeared to be cruelty beyond measure, and King Fulfillment, seventh teacher of the Ten Practices, whose every punishment is a conjured illusion bent toward a single end — turning evildoers, without harm to any being, toward the good. Sudhana is sent onward, to the city Good Light, and the king named Great Light.
Continue to Part 38 — Great Light, and the City Bright as Its Own Name →