A Body Vast as Sumeru, a Light of a Single Fathom
The hymn continues: beholding the buddha, some see a body equal to sentient beings themselves; some see a body vast as Sumeru; some see him seated in lotus posture, filling the entirety of the world. Some see his light reaching only a single fathom; some, a hundred thousand yojanas; some see it illuminating the whole Dharma-realm; some, illuminating every land entire. Some see a lifespan of a hundred years; some, hundred-thousand-myriad-koṭi years; some, boundless nayutas of inconceivable kalpas. With unobstructed, pure wisdom, in a single thought he knows the three times, all arising from causes and conditions, and yet in truth possessing no inherent nature of their own.
Arising From Causes and Conditions, Yet Without Inherent Nature
「見佛同眾生， 或身如須彌，
或現跏趺坐， 充滿於世界，
或見光一尋， 或百千由旬，
或見照法界， 或照一切剎。
或現壽百歲， 百千萬億歲，
無量那由他， 不可思議劫。
無礙清淨慧， 一念知三世，
悉從因緣起， 而實無自性。」
"Beholding the buddha, some see a body equal to sentient beings themselves, some see a body vast as Sumeru,
Some see him seated in lotus posture, filling the entirety of the world,
Some see his light reaching only a single fathom, some a hundred thousand yojanas,
Some see it illuminating the whole Dharma-realm, some illuminating every land entire.
Some see a lifespan of a hundred years, of hundred-thousand-myriad-koṭi years,
Of boundless nayutas of inconceivable kalpas.
With unobstructed, pure wisdom, in a single thought he knows the three times,
All arising from causes and conditions, and yet in truth possessing no inherent nature of their own."
This stretch of the hymn returns, in verse, to the same principle of proportionate perception the sūtra has established from its very earliest teachers onward: a buddha's own body, light, and lifespan appear at whatever scale a given being is capable of perceiving, from the most modest (a body like one's own, a light of a single fathom, a life of a hundred years) to the utterly boundless — the variation belonging entirely to the beholder's own capacity, never to any actual limitation in the buddha himself. Fazang reads the closing couplet — arising from causes and conditions yet possessing no inherent nature — as this hymn's own concise restatement of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and emptiness (śūnyatā) together, the doctrinal foundation beneath every one of the boundless, variable manifestations just catalogued: because nothing here possesses a fixed, independent nature, unlimited variation of appearance according to condition is possible without contradiction.
Part 443 Complete
This meditation on the buddha's own variable scale is now given in full. Part 444 turns to the paradox of a single land manifesting as boundless lands and boundless lands as a single world, and to the buddha's own turning of the twelvefold Dharma-wheel through the four noble truths and the twelve links of dependent origination.
Continue to Part 444 →