Unharmed by the Makara of Birth and Death
The catalogue continues: it is like a swift wind, which moves wherever it goes without any obstruction at all; the wind of the mind of bodhi is likewise, and wherever it moves and acts, it removes every affliction entirely without obstruction, without ever settling into the liberation of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha. It is like a person skilled at entering the great ocean, who is never drowned there, and whom the makara fish is unable to harm; a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise, and with the mind of bodhi entering the ocean of birth and death, he is not stained by birth and death, nor does he settle into the final realization of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha, and the makara fish of the afflictions is unable to harm him.
The Swift Wind and the Swimmer Unharmed by the Makara
「譬如疾風，隨去無礙。菩提心風亦復如是，隨所行處，除諸煩惱，悉無障礙，不住聲聞、緣覺解脫。
「譬如有人善入大海而不沒溺，摩伽羅魚所不能害。菩薩摩訶薩亦復如是，以菩提心入生死海，不為生死之所染污，亦不證實際聲聞、緣覺，摩伽羅魚所不能害。
"It is like a swift wind, which moves wherever it goes without any obstruction at all. The wind of the mind of bodhi is likewise: wherever it moves and acts, it removes every affliction entirely without obstruction, and never settles into the liberation of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha.
"It is like a person skilled at entering the great ocean, who is never drowned there, and whom the makara fish is unable to harm. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise: entering the ocean of birth and death with the mind of bodhi, he is not stained by birth and death, nor does he settle into the final realization of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha, and the makara fish of the afflictions is unable to harm him."
"The makara fish" (摩伽羅魚, a legendary sea-creature of Indian mythology, often depicted as a crocodile-fish hybrid and frequently invoked in Buddhist literature as the paradigmatic peril of the open ocean) recurs here as this catalogue's specific figure for the danger inherent in fully engaging with saṃsāra rather than withdrawing from it. Fazang reads "does not settle into the final realization of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha" as the operative phrase distinguishing the bodhisattva's own fearlessness from mere recklessness: the bodhisattva is not unharmed because he avoids the ocean's dangers, nor because he seeks premature escape from it, but because bodhicitta itself renders him immune while he remains fully immersed in exactly the danger that would otherwise be fatal.
Part 370 Complete
Two more similes are now given in full. Part 371 turns to a person who drinks ambrosia and is thereby immune to every affliction, and to a person who applies a body-concealing medicine and thereby moves through Māra's own domain entirely unseen.
Continue to Part 371 →