Without the Root of Faith
Mañjuśrī said: "Excellent, excellent, good man! Should one depart from the root of faith, his mind sinks into regret, his merit and practice are incomplete, and he retreats from diligence; satisfied with but a small measure of merit, his mind gives rise to attachment over but a single root of goodness; he is unable to properly raise the bodhisattva's own vow and practice, is not embraced and protected by a good friend, and is not held in a tathāgata's own mindfulness. Every such person as this is entirely unable to understand this Dharma's own nature, this very principle, this very practice, this very abode — whether by comprehensive knowledge, by knowing it in each of its kinds, by fathoming it to its very depths, by gradually entering into it, by explaining it, by discerning it, by realizing and knowing it, or by attaining it — in every one of these ways, he is entirely unable."
Eight Ways of Understanding, All Closed to the Faithless
言：「善哉！善哉！善男子！若離信根，憂悔心沒，功行不具，退失精勤；於少功德，便以為足；於一善根，心生住著；不善發起菩薩行願，不為善知識之所攝護，不為如來之所憶念。是等皆悉不能了知如是法性、如是理趣、如是所行、如是所住；若周遍知、若種種知、若盡原底、若漸趣入、若解說、若分別、若證知、若獲得；皆悉不能。」
Mañjuśrī said: "Excellent, excellent, good man! Should one depart from the root of faith, his mind sinks into regret, his merit and practice are incomplete, and he retreats from diligence; satisfied with but a small measure of merit, his mind gives rise to attachment over but a single root of goodness; he is unable to properly raise the bodhisattva's own vow and practice, is not embraced and protected by a good friend, and is not held in a tathāgata's own mindfulness. Every such person as this is entirely unable to understand this Dharma's own nature, this very principle, this very practice, this very abode — whether by comprehensive knowledge, by knowing it in each of its kinds, by fathoming it to its very depths, by gradually entering into it, by explaining it, by discerning it, by realizing and knowing it, or by attaining it — in every one of these ways, he is entirely unable."
Mañjuśrī's own opening "excellent, excellent" praises Sudhana precisely by describing, at length, everything Sudhana himself did not do — this entire catalogue of failure (retreating from diligence, settling for little, clinging to one root of goodness, going unprotected by a good friend) functions as praise by contrast, listing the very pitfalls Sudhana's own decades-long pilgrimage through over a hundred good friends visibly avoided. Fazang reads the eightfold list of ways of understanding that close this passage — comprehensive knowledge, knowledge by kind, fathoming depths, gradual entry, explanation, discernment, realization, and attainment — as a formal enumeration of the complete range of possible relationships to a teaching, all eight equally foreclosed to one who lacks faith, establishing faith as the single precondition beneath every other mode of understanding rather than merely one virtue among others.
Part 413 Complete
Mañjuśrī's teaching on the necessity of faith is now given in full. Part 414 turns to what follows: Mañjuśrī, having taught and encouraged Sudhana, causes him to accomplish boundless Dharma-gates and spiritual attainments, and establishes him at the very entrance to Samantabhadra's own practice before withdrawing from sight.
Continue to Part 414 →