Arise From Samādhi
It is like a Brahma-palace named Adornment-Treasury, within which every different form throughout the great trichiliocosm can be seen entire; Sudhana was likewise, and within the tower he saw everything that had never before existed. It is like a monk who has attained every gate of total absorption, so that whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, whatever object of that absorption he holds becomes fully present before him; Sudhana was likewise, and within the tower, whatever object he held became fully discerned and known to him. It is like a person who beholds a gandharva's city, without any obstruction at all; Sudhana was likewise, and within the tower, he saw every dharma without any obstruction. It is like a person who ascends to a heavenly palace and beholds the dwelling-places of humans without any obstruction; it is like the great ocean, within which the forms of every kind found throughout the great trichiliocosm can be seen entire; it is like a master illusionist, able to manifest every form and color entire — Sudhana was likewise, and within the tower, through the awesome spiritual power of the bodhisattva Maitreya, he saw everything that had never before existed, without any obstruction at all.
At that time, the bodhisattva Maitreya gathered back his own awesome spiritual power, and at once snapped his finger, saying to Sudhana: "Good man, arise from samādhi."
The Simile-Sequence Closes; the Vision Was Itself a Samādhi
譬如梵宮，名莊嚴藏，於中悉見三千世界異類形像；善財童子亦復如是，於樓觀中，悉見一切未曾有事。譬如比丘得一切入定，行、立、坐、臥，隨彼境界，悉現在前；善財童子亦復如是，於樓觀中，隨彼境界，悉分別知。譬如人見乾闥婆城，無所障礙；善財童子亦復如是，於樓觀中，見一切法，無所障礙。譬如有人昇天宮殿，見人住處，無所障礙；譬如大海，於中悉見三千世界，一切品類；譬如幻師，悉能顯現一切形色；善財童子亦復如是；於樓觀中，彌勒菩薩威神力故，悉見一切未曾有事，無所障礙。爾時，彌勒菩薩攝威神力，即時彈指告善財言：「善男子！汝從定起。」
It is like a Brahma-palace named Adornment-Treasury, within which every different form throughout the great trichiliocosm can be seen entire. Sudhana the youth was likewise: within the tower, he saw everything that had never before existed.
It is like a monk who has attained every gate of total absorption, so that whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, whatever object of that absorption he holds becomes fully present before him. Sudhana the youth was likewise: within the tower, whatever object he held became fully discerned and known to him.
It is like a person who beholds a gandharva's own city, without any obstruction at all. Sudhana the youth was likewise: within the tower, he saw every dharma without any obstruction.
It is like a person who ascends to a heavenly palace and beholds the dwelling-places of humans without any obstruction; it is like the great ocean, within which the forms of every kind found throughout the great trichiliocosm can be seen entire; it is like a master illusionist, able to manifest every form and color entire. Sudhana the youth was likewise: within the tower, through the awesome spiritual power of the bodhisattva Maitreya, he saw everything that had never before existed, without any obstruction at all.
At that time, the bodhisattva Maitreya gathered back his own awesome spiritual power, and at once snapped his finger, saying to Sudhana: "Good man, arise from samādhi."
"A gandharva's own city" (乾闥婆城, gandharva-nagara, a mirage-city sometimes translated "city of the celestial musicians") is one of the classical stock similes throughout Buddhist literature for a phenomenon that appears vivid and structured yet has no substantial ground — its inclusion here alongside illusion, mirage, and dream completes a full survey of the traditional catalogue of similes for the unreality of conditioned phenomena, applied cumulatively to everything Sudhana has just witnessed. The single sentence closing this entire episode — Maitreya's finger-snap and instruction to "arise from samādhi" — retroactively reframes the whole extraordinary vision, spanning dozens of parts of this translation, as having occurred within a single sustained meditative absorption, resolving at last the earlier simile of the nāga-palace where a hundred thousand kalpas passed as a single moment: no time at all needed to elapse in the ordinary world outside that samādhi.
Part 402 Complete — The Tower Vision Concludes
The vast tower vision, one of the most celebrated passages in all of Mahāyāna literature, is now complete in full. Part 403 turns to what follows immediately: Maitreya's direct question to Sudhana confirming what he has seen, and Sudhana's own question — what is this Dharma-gate called?
Continue to Part 403 →