Born of Its Own Nature, Depending on Nothing
The catalogue turns to a long, sustained sequence of vajra similes: it is like vajra, which is born only from the nature of gold, and from no other jewel's nature; the jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise, born only from the nature of great compassion that rescues and protects sentient beings, and from no other wholesome nature. It is like a certain tree, which grows without depending on any root, yet is still able to nurture its own branch, leaf, flower, and fruit; the tree of the mind of bodhi is likewise, depending on nothing at all, yet still able to nurture all-seed wisdom and the penetrating light of every great vow, universally covering the whole world. It is like vajra, which not every vessel is able to bring forth, nor every container able to hold; the jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise — a mean, miserly, knotted, unwise person's own vessel is unable to bring it forth, and the vessel of a flattering, deceitful, or wrong-viewed sentient being is unable to hold it.
Vajra's Single Source, and a Tree That Needs No Root
「譬如金剛從金性生，非餘寶生。菩提心寶亦復如是，大悲救護眾生性生，非餘善生。
「譬如有樹不從根生，而能長養枝葉華果。菩提心樹亦復如是，無所依止，而能長養一切種智，通明大願，普覆世間。
「譬如金剛，非一切器盡能發明，亦非諸器盡能容持。菩提心寶亦復如是，小心慳結，無智者器不能發明，諂曲邪見眾生器中，不能容持。
"It is like vajra, which is born only from the nature of gold, and from no other jewel's nature. The jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise: it is born only from the nature of great compassion that rescues and protects sentient beings, and from no other wholesome nature.
"It is like a certain tree, which grows without depending on any root at all, yet is still able to nurture its own branch, leaf, flower, and fruit. The tree of the mind of bodhi is likewise: depending on nothing at all, it is still able to nurture all-seed wisdom and the penetrating light of every great vow, universally covering the whole world.
"It is like vajra, which not every vessel is able to bring forth, nor every container able to hold. The jewel of the mind of bodhi is likewise: a mean, miserly, knotted, unwise person's own vessel is unable to bring it forth, and the vessel of a flattering, deceitful, wrong-viewed sentient being is unable to hold it."
This opens what will prove an unusually long, sustained run of vajra similes — nearly twenty in a row before the catalogue finally closes — and Fazang reads this concentration as fitting for a teaching's own conclusion: vajra (adamant, unbreakable, all-cutting) has functioned throughout Buddhist literature as the definitive image for what cannot be destroyed or diminished, making it an apt final register for a catalogue that has, from its start, insisted on bodhicitta's own indestructibility and inexhaustibility. The rootless tree, though not itself a vajra image, is grouped here because it shares the same underlying claim as the vajra similes to follow: bodhicitta does not derive its stability from any prior support, but is itself foundational.
Part 381 Complete
Three more similes are now given in full, opening the long vajra sequence. Part 382 continues with vajra's power to destroy every jewel and every mountain, and its own worth even when broken.
Continue to Part 382 →