Eleven Powers Behind an Indestructible Body
"Good man, the bodhisattva practices I have cultivated — purifying buddha-lands, teaching and transforming sentient beings, nurturing great compassion, making offerings to buddhas and to good friends, upholding the true Dharma, relinquishing everything, within and without, cultivating both worldly and transcendent wisdom, causing every sentient being to turn away from the suffering of birth and death, praising the merit of every buddha — were I to proclaim matters such as these across unspeakable, unspeakable kalpas, the kalpas themselves could be exhausted before this merit could ever be exhausted. Good man, I have attained the power of accomplished merit such as this, the power of every root of goodness, the power of delighting in the supreme Dharma, the power of cultivated merit, the power of contemplating the quiescent nature of every dharma, the power of a pure eye of wisdom, the buddha's own awesome spiritual power, the power of every great vow, the power of great compassion, the power of pure penetrating light, and the power of a good friend. Having attained these powers, I thereby obtained a Dharma-body whose own nature is originally pure, indestructible across the three times; and I further obtained an unsurpassed, pure form-body, surpassing every world, appearing to whoever is fit to be transformed, with none failing to behold it; traveling to every land, with nowhere I do not reach, manifesting sovereign power, and those who see it never tire of it."
A Kalpa Could Be Exhausted Before This Merit Could Be Told
善男子！我所修行菩薩諸行，淨佛世界，教化眾生，長養大悲，供養諸佛及善知識，護持正法，悉捨一切內外諸物，修習世間、出世間智，令一切眾生背生死苦，讚歎一切諸佛功德；如是等事，於不可說不可說劫中演說，劫猶可盡，此諸功德不可窮盡。善男子！我得如是功德具力、諸善根力、樂勝法力、修功德力、觀察諸法寂滅性力、淨慧眼力、佛威神力、諸大願力、大慈悲力、淨通明力、善知識力，得是力故，逮得本性清淨法身，三世不壞；又得無上清淨色身，超出一切世間，隨應化者，莫不覩見；遊一切剎，無處不至，現自在力，見者無厭。
"Good man, the bodhisattva practices I have cultivated — purifying buddha-lands, teaching and transforming sentient beings, nurturing great compassion, making offerings to buddhas and to good friends, upholding the true Dharma, relinquishing everything, within and without, cultivating both worldly and transcendent wisdom, causing every sentient being to turn away from the suffering of birth and death, praising the merit of every buddha — were I to proclaim matters such as these across unspeakable, unspeakable kalpas, the kalpas themselves could be exhausted before this merit could ever be exhausted.
"Good man, I have attained the power of accomplished merit such as this, the power of every root of goodness, the power of delighting in the supreme Dharma, the power of cultivated merit, the power of contemplating the quiescent nature of every dharma, the power of a pure eye of wisdom, the buddha's own awesome spiritual power, the power of every great vow, the power of great compassion, the power of pure penetrating light, and the power of a good friend. Having attained these powers, I thereby obtained a Dharma-body whose own nature is originally pure, indestructible across the three times; and I further obtained an unsurpassed, pure form-body, surpassing every world, appearing to whoever is fit to be transformed, with none failing to behold it; traveling to every land, with nowhere I do not reach, manifesting sovereign power, and those who see it never tire of it."
"The kalpas themselves could be exhausted before this merit could ever be exhausted" is among the most direct statements of inexhaustibility anywhere in this entire sūtra — Fazang reads it as deliberately outdoing even the vast, uncountable numbers used throughout the preceding vision, since it does not merely name a number too large to state but asserts that the very unit of measurement (the kalpa) would run out first. The eleven powers listed here — merit, roots of goodness, delight in the Dharma, cultivation, contemplation of quiescence, wisdom-vision, buddha-power, vow, compassion, penetrating light, and good friendship — together constitute this sūtra's own final, comprehensive answer to the question the whole pilgrimage has pursued: not a single cause but an integrated convergence of every capacity Sudhana has been taught, separately, by each of his fifty-two prior good friends.
Part 428 Complete
Samantabhadra's account of the powers behind his own attainment is now given in full. Part 429 turns to his instruction that Sudhana look directly upon his own pure Dharma-body — a body hard to hear of and harder still to see, yet one whose very name, once heard, ensures a hearer's own future, unshakable progress toward awakening.
Continue to Part 429 →