None Can Fathom It, Save the Tathāgatas
At that time, the bodhisattva Samantabhadra said to Sudhana: "Good man, have you now seen my own sovereign spiritual power, this extraordinary matter, or not?" Sudhana answered: "Indeed, I have seen it. This inconceivable thing — none can fathom it, save the tathāgatas themselves." Samantabhadra said: "Good man, across unspeakable, unspeakable numbers of kalpas, as many as the motes of dust in an ocean of worlds, I have cultivated the bodhisattva's own practice, seeking only bodhi."
"Have You Seen It?" — Samantabhadra Begins His Own Teaching
爾時，普賢菩薩告善財言：「善男子！汝今見我自在神力奇特事不？」
答言：「唯然，已見。此不思議莫能測者，唯除如來。」
「善男子！我於過去不可說不可說世界海微塵等劫，修菩薩行，專
At that time, the bodhisattva Samantabhadra said to Sudhana: "Good man, have you now seen my own sovereign spiritual power, this extraordinary matter, or not?"
Sudhana answered: "Indeed, I have seen it. This inconceivable thing — none can fathom it, save the tathāgatas themselves."
Samantabhadra said: "Good man, across unspeakable, unspeakable numbers of kalpas, as many as the motes of dust in an ocean of worlds, I have cultivated the bodhisattva's own practice, seeking only bodhi—"
Sudhana's own qualifying clause — "none can fathom it, save the tathāgatas themselves" — is a striking claim to make about a bodhisattva rather than a buddha, and Fazang reads it as this final episode's clearest statement yet of Samantabhadra's own status at the very threshold of buddhahood: his own domain of activity is placed here beyond the reach of any bodhisattva's own understanding, matched only by a buddha's. This same question-and-confirmation structure — "have you seen it?" followed by a brief affirmation — has now recurred with both Maitreya and Samantabhadra, each time marking the transition from vision into verbal teaching; here it opens directly into what "world-sea-dust-mote kalpas" (世界海微塵等劫), one of this literature's largest units of measure, will reveal about the true scope of Samantabhadra's own practice.
Part 426 Complete
Samantabhadra's opening exchange with Sudhana is now given in full. Part 427 turns to the full account of his own countless kalpas of practice — cultivating bodhicitta in the presence of unspeakable numbers of buddhas, and giving away everything, without exception, in the search for the Dharma.
Continue to Part 427 →