According with Every Sentient Being, and the Ten Practices Complete
Sudhana climbs a mountain glowing like sunrise at dawn to find a renunciant of another path, According with Every Sentient Being, whose outward form as a heretic ascetic is itself pure skillful means: he teaches wrong-view holders and the orthodox alike, through every craft and every Dharma fitted to each one, and not a single being he has taught over countless lifetimes knows who he truly is. His practice of Reaching Every Place completes the tenth and final teacher of the Ten Practices.
A Mountain That Glows Like Sunrise
爾時，善財童子一心正念：「彼優婆夷是我真善知識。念彼正教，念彼所說，念彼所發，念彼所開，念彼示現，念彼所歎，念彼所明，念彼廣演，念彼修習；隨順思惟修，遍修寂靜寂滅，照明觀察。」漸漸經由城邑、聚落，於日沒時，入知足城，周遍推求：「隨順一切眾生外道今在何所？」於中夜時，見彼城北有一大山，光明照耀如日初出。爾時，善財天明出城，登彼山上，遙見外道靜處經行，成就妙色、超逾梵王，一萬梵天眷屬圍遶。往詣其所，頭面禮足，却住一面，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 single-mindedly held right mindfulness: "This laywoman is my own true good spiritual friend. I hold in mind her true teaching, hold in mind what she has spoken, hold in mind what she has given rise to, hold in mind what she has opened up, hold in mind what she has manifested, hold in mind what she has praised, hold in mind what she has made clear, hold in mind what she has broadly expounded, and hold in mind what she has cultivated; according with this, I contemplate and cultivate it, cultivating tranquility and extinction throughout, illumining it with contemplation." Gradually passing through cities, towns, and villages, at sunset he entered the city Contentment, and sought everywhere, asking: "Where is the renunciant According with Every Sentient Being now?" At the hour of midnight, he beheld, to the north of this city, a great mountain, its light shining forth as brightly as the sun at its very first rising. At that time, at dawn, Sudhana left the city and climbed to the top of this mountain, and from afar beheld this renunciant walking in meditation in a quiet place, his sublime form surpassing even the Brahmā king, surrounded by a retinue of ten thousand Brahmā-heaven attendants. He went before him, bowed his head at his feet, and, standing back to one side, 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 tenth and final of the Ten Practices, "the Practice of Truth" (真實行). He glosses the land's name, 所觀玄妙故 — "because what is contemplated here is profound and subtle" — and the city's, 般若盡相故 — "because prajñā here exhausts every mark completely." The renunciant's own name he reads as a case of skillful means running deliberately against appearances: 巧智順機方便反道 — "his skillful wisdom accords with capacity, even while his own skillful means outwardly runs contrary to the [orthodox] Way." He records the Indian original as naming him, more plainly, "Constant Practice Everywhere" (一切處常行). On the scene's own staging, he reads every detail as doctrinally exact: the mountain glowing at midnight marks the light of the Dharma he relies on, breaking through the darkness of both extremes; dawn breaking as Sudhana climbs marks obstacles exhausted and this stage of practice fully revealed; the climb itself marks attaining correspondence with the position; and the ten thousand Brahmā-heaven attendants mark host and companions both fully complete. Fazang notes, too, that Sudhana's own arrival at dusk and departure at dawn — exactly the same timing already seen with the laywoman Unmoving — marks, a second time in immediate succession, that this whole stage of practice is nearing its very limit.
Reaching Every Place, and a Teacher No One Recognizes
答言：「善哉！善哉！善男子！乃能發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。善男子！我已安住至一切處菩薩之行，成就普觀三昧法門，無依無作神足，以平等般若波羅蜜光明，觀察分別一切諸趣，一切眾生死此生彼，流轉諸有，種種雜類，形色好醜，種種欲樂，諸趣受生，所謂：天、龍、夜叉、乾闥婆、阿脩羅、迦樓羅、緊那羅、摩睺羅伽、地獄、餓鬼、畜生、閻羅王處、人、非人處。彼諸眾生或著邪見，或好二乘，或樂大乘，以妙智慧，種種方便饒益眾生。或教世間種種技藝，欲令眾生得諸巧術陀羅尼門；或以四攝攝取眾生，欲令一切得薩婆若；或歎諸波羅蜜，欲令眾生得一切智迴向；或歎發菩提心，欲令眾生於諸善根不可沮壞；或歎菩薩行，欲令眾生嚴淨佛剎，滿足大願，教化眾生；或說厭離法，欲令眾生知惡行果，受三塗苦；或說淨法欲，令眾生發歡喜心，於諸佛所植眾德本，得一切智果；或歎如來、應供、等正覺，欲令眾生發弘誓願，一向專求清淨法身；或歎如來功德，欲令眾生一向樂求佛無壞身；或歎如來無比妙法，欲令眾生得佛一切無壞功德。復次，善男子！此知足城內一切人民，男女長幼，隨其所應，我悉化度，彼諸眾生莫知我誰；此閻浮提九十六種外道邪見，我悉為彼種種說法，斷其邪見；三千大千世界乃至十方一切世界諸眾生海，以種種智方便法門，種種諸事，色像音聲，化度饒益，亦復如是。善男子！我唯知此菩薩至一切處行法門。諸大菩薩身與一切眾生數等，悉得分別一切眾生身三昧，出生變化輪，遍遊一切世界，一切諸趣，普現十方一切眾生前；其有見者，樂觀無厭，悉能長養一切善根。住一切劫，不捨大願，得因那羅莊嚴光明之行，不著一切，專求實義，隨順眾生，三世平等，照無我界，具足無盡大悲之藏。我當云何能知、能說彼清淨行功德智慧？善男子！於此南方，有一國土名甘露味，彼有長者名青蓮華香，汝詣彼問云何菩薩學菩薩行、修菩薩道。」
He answered: "Excellent, excellent, good son! You have indeed been able to raise the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening. Good son, I have already abided securely in the bodhisattva's own practice of Reaching Every Place, accomplished the Dharma-gate of the samādhi of Universal Contemplation, spiritual feet resting on nothing and creating nothing, and, through the light of the perfection of wisdom's own equanimity, contemplate and discern every destiny — every sentient being dying here and being born there, flowing and turning through every state of existence, every kind of mixed class, their form and coloring beautiful or ugly, every kind of desire and pleasure, receiving birth in every destiny — namely: the destinies of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, gandharvas, asuras, garuḍas, kiṃnaras, mahoragas, the hells, hungry ghosts, animals, the realm of King Yama, humans, and non-humans. Among these sentient beings, some are attached to wrong views, some delight in the two lesser vehicles, some delight in the Great Vehicle; through sublime wisdom, I bring benefit to sentient beings through every kind of skillful means. Sometimes I teach every kind of worldly craft and art, wishing to cause sentient beings to attain the dhāraṇī-gate of every skillful art; sometimes I gather in sentient beings through the four means of attraction, wishing all to attain omniscience; sometimes I extol every perfection, wishing sentient beings to attain the dedication of omniscience; sometimes I extol the raising of the awakening-mind, wishing sentient beings to become indestructible in every root of goodness; sometimes I extol the bodhisattva's own practice, wishing sentient beings to purify and adorn buddha-lands, fulfill the great vow, and teach and transform sentient beings; sometimes I speak of the Dharma of weariness and departure, wishing sentient beings to know the fruit of evil conduct and the suffering of the three evil paths; sometimes I speak of the desire for the pure Dharma, causing sentient beings to give rise to a joyful mind, to plant every root of virtue at the presence of every buddha, and to attain the fruit of omniscience; sometimes I extol the Tathāgata, worthy of offerings, perfectly and fully awakened, wishing sentient beings to give rise to the vast vow, single-mindedly seeking only the pure Dharma-body; sometimes I extol the Tathāgata's own merit, wishing sentient beings to single-mindedly delight in seeking the buddha's own indestructible body; sometimes I extol the Tathāgata's own peerless, sublime Dharma, wishing sentient beings to attain every one of the buddha's own indestructible merits. Furthermore, good son, every one of the people within this city of Contentment, men and women, old and young, according to what is fitting, I teach and deliver entirely, and yet none of these sentient beings know who I truly am; throughout this Jambudvīpa, ninety-six kinds of heretical wrong view exist, and I expound every kind of Dharma for these beings, severing their every wrong view; throughout a great trichiliocosm, even throughout the whole ocean of sentient beings in every world of the ten directions, through every kind of wisdom and skillful Dharma-gate, every kind of matter, form, and sound, I teach, deliver, and benefit them, in exactly the same way. Good son, I know only this Dharma-gate of the bodhisattva's own practice of Reaching Every Place. The great bodhisattvas' own bodies equal sentient beings in number, and they attain entirely the samādhi that discerns every sentient being's own body, giving rise to the wheel of transformation, traveling throughout every world and every destiny, manifesting universally before every sentient being throughout the ten directions; whoever beholds them delights in beholding them without ever tiring, and is able to nurture every root of goodness entirely. Abiding through every eon, never abandoning the great vow, they attain the practice of the adorned light through Nara's own strength, unattached to anything at all, single-mindedly seeking the true meaning, according with sentient beings, equanimous across the three times, illumining the realm of no-self, fully endowed with the inexhaustible treasury of great compassion. How could I possibly know, how could I possibly speak of, such pure practice, merit, and wisdom as this? Good son, to the south of here there is a land, named Nectar-Flavor; there is an elder there, named Blue Lotus Fragrance. Go to him and ask how a bodhisattva learns the bodhisattva's own practice, cultivates the bodhisattva path."
Fazang reads "Reaching Every Place" itself as the sign that the whole stage has reached its own culmination: 明十行滿故也，第十智度遍知故也 — "this reveals that the Ten Practices are now complete, since the tenth [practice], the perfection of wisdom, knows universally and pervasively." He gives this two senses at once: through samādhi, wisdom arises that universally illumines the Dharma-realm; and through that same samādhi, spiritual power arises that universally reaches every place. He then reads the closing analogy — this city standing for Jambudvīpa, Jambudvīpa for the whole trichiliocosm, the trichiliocosm for all ten directions — as concluding, deliberately, that wisdom, spiritual power, and the three karmas of body, speech, and mind are all equally and fully equipped in this single teacher. On why not one being this renunciant has taught, across ninety-six kinds of wrong view and every world of the ten directions, ever learns who he truly is, Fazang offers no further gloss beyond the plain fact of it — the teaching lands, and the teacher himself stays unrecognized, which is perhaps its own kind of proof that the teaching was never about being recognized at all. With this teacher, Fazang closes the entire "Ten Practices" section of his commentary: 第十行竟 — and immediately opens what follows: 自下大段第四有十知識，明十迴向德 — "from here begins the fourth great division, ten spiritual friends, revealing the virtue of the Ten Transferences" — the pilgrimage's third great stage, about to begin with the elder Blue Lotus Fragrance.
Part 41 Complete
This closes Part 41, and with it the entire "Ten Practices" stage of the pilgrimage — Fazang's own commentary marks this renunciant, whom no one he teaches ever recognizes, as its tenth and final position. Sudhana is sent onward, to the land Nectar-Flavor, and the elder Blue Lotus Fragrance, opening the Ten Transferences to come.
Continue to Part 42 — Blue Lotus Fragrance, and the Ten Transferences Begin →