Vairocana's Own Compassion at the First Raising of the Mind
Asked what state this Dharma-gate contemplates, the night-deva enters deeply into Vairocana Buddha's own past-cultivated practice, tracing five aspects of what happened the moment he first raised the mind of awakening: great compassion at the sight of suffering beings, great wisdom, sovereign spiritual power, the adornment of lands through teaching, and a practice reaching every time and place at once.
A Question, and the Tathāgata's Own Light
善財白言：「天神！此法門者，境界云何？」
答言：「善男子！如來方便光明，攝取眾生。佛子！若有眾生，受快樂者，悉蒙佛力諸光明力，隨如來教，佛威神力；隨順佛道，聞佛正法，入佛善根；如來圓滿，明淨智日，如來性淨業力，普照一切，悉蒙如是功德力故，普令眾生，受諸快樂。佛子！我入此法門時，正念思惟，深入盧舍那如來、應供、等正覺過去所行菩薩行海。
Sudhana said: "O deva! What is the state of this Dharma-gate?"
She answered: "Good son, it is the Tathāgata's own light of skillful means, gathering in sentient beings. Child of the Buddha, if there are sentient beings who experience happiness, they have all received the buddha's own power, the power of every light, according with the Tathāgata's own teaching, the buddha's own awe-inspiring spiritual power; according with the buddha's own path, hearing the buddha's own true Dharma, entering the buddha's own root of goodness; the Tathāgata's own perfection, the bright, pure sun of wisdom, the power of the Tathāgata's own naturally pure karma, universally illumining all — having received the power of merit such as this, sentient beings universally come to experience every happiness. Child of the Buddha, when I enter this Dharma-gate, I rightly hold it in mind and contemplate it, entering deeply into Vairocana Tathāgata, Worthy of Offerings, Perfectly and Fully Awakened One's own past-cultivated ocean of the bodhisattva's own practice."
Fazang frames this whole question in terms of the Dharma-gate's own scope: 三業用中，先問、後答。以是業用分齊，故云境界 — "third, the question of function; first the question, then the answer. Because this concerns the very boundary and measure of the Dharma-gate's own function, it is called 'state.'" He divides the answer that follows in two: 答中二：先舉佛果力用益生，彰己所學，於中先總、後別；二我入此法門下明知菩薩因行業用顯已同成 — "the answer has two parts: first, citing the power and function of the buddha's own fruit benefiting beings, revealing what she herself has learned, given first in general, then in particular; second, beginning with 'when I enter this Dharma-gate,' revealing her knowledge of the bodhisattva's own causal practice and function, showing that she herself has become equal to it." What this part translates is the opening of the second half — not simply describing Vairocana's light from the outside, but entering into the very practice that produced it.
Five Aspects of a First Awakening
「善男子！我知菩薩本發菩薩地心時，見諸眾生，著我、我所，無明覆蔽，入諸邪見，隨順貪愛，欲恚所縛，心亂顛倒，慳嫉所纏，貧窮逼切，於生死中，受眾苦惱，不值諸佛。見如是已，發大悲心，攝取眾生，除諸苦患，普饒益之，令得一切無染著心；於諸施物，不求果報，分別了知一切因緣，諸法實相；具足成就大慈大悲，圓滿法蓋，普覆眾生。以知足法，養智慧象，摧散一切諸煩惱山，安樂眾生，隨所應化，雨甘露法；以聖法利，等施眾生，得十力果無上快樂，成就菩薩通力自在，充滿法界。悉現一切諸眾生前，雨一切物，悉令歡喜，充足其意，救護眾生，滅生死苦，不求恩報，嚴淨一切眾生心寶，悉同一切諸佛善根，增長薩婆若，教化成熟一切眾生，以無上淨法，淨諸佛剎。於念念中，滿一切法界；以明淨智，分別三世，充滿虛空；於一切時，轉淨法輪，教化眾生，令諸眾生，生一切智，清淨諸持，覺悟一切諸佛菩提，分別一切未來諸劫；於一切劫，行菩薩行，心無有二；悉能遍遊一切世界，其身容受一切剎海，悉皆攝取一切世界。分別解說一切世界，種種形色、種種莊嚴、種種依住；或不淨淨、或淨不淨，或純清淨、或純垢穢，或廣、或狹，或大、或小，或覆、或仰；如是等諸世界海中，生菩薩行，證菩薩行。於念念中，出生菩薩諸自在行，於念念中，為眾生現三世諸佛清淨法身。」
"Good son, I know that, when the bodhisattva first raised the mind of the bodhisattva's own ground, he beheld sentient beings attached to self and to what belongs to self, covered over by ignorance, entering every wrong view, according with craving and desire, bound by lust and hatred, their minds disordered and inverted, entangled by stinginess and envy, oppressed by poverty, undergoing every suffering and vexation within birth-and-death, never once encountering a buddha. Having beheld this, he raised the mind of great compassion, gathering in sentient beings, removing every suffering and affliction, universally bringing them benefit, causing them to attain a mind unstained by attachment to anything; toward every gift he gave, seeking no fruit of recompense, discerning and knowing every cause and condition, and the true mark of every dharma; fully accomplished in great loving-kindness and great compassion, the perfect canopy of the Dharma universally covering sentient beings.
"Through the dharma of contentment, nurturing the elephant of wisdom, crushing and scattering the mountain of every affliction, bringing peace and happiness to sentient beings, raining down the ambrosial Dharma according to what was fitting to transform them; through the benefit of the sagely Dharma, equally bestowing it upon sentient beings, attaining the unsurpassed happiness of the fruit of the ten powers, accomplishing the bodhisattva's own sovereign transcendent power, filling the Dharma-realm entirely; manifesting before every sentient being, raining down every kind of thing, causing them all to rejoice, satisfying their every wish, rescuing and protecting sentient beings, extinguishing the suffering of birth-and-death, seeking no repayment of kindness, adorning and purifying the very jewel of every sentient being's own mind, entirely the same as every buddha's own root of goodness, increasing all-wisdom, teaching and bringing every sentient being to maturity, purifying every buddha-land with the unsurpassed, pure Dharma; within every single thought-moment, filling every Dharma-realm; with bright, pure wisdom, discerning the three times, filling space entirely; at every time, turning the pure Dharma-wheel, teaching and transforming sentient beings, causing every sentient being to give rise to every wisdom, purifying every retention, awakening to every buddha's own bodhi, discerning every future kalpa; throughout every kalpa, practicing the bodhisattva's own practice, the mind without duality; able to range universally through every world, this body containing the whole ocean of every land, gathering in every world entirely. Discerning and expounding every world — every kind of form, every kind of adornment, every kind of abiding; some impure-then-pure, some pure-then-impure, some purely and only pure, some purely and only defiled, some vast, some narrow, some great, some small, some inverted, some upright — within oceans of worlds such as these, giving rise to the bodhisattva's own practice, realizing the bodhisattva's own practice. Within every single thought-moment, giving rise to the bodhisattva's own every sovereign practice; within every single thought-moment, manifesting for sentient beings the pure Dharma-body of every buddha of the three times."
Fazang divides this dense passage into exactly five parts, all falling within the single moment of Vairocana's own first raising of the mind: 初中五：先明大悲救物行，於中初見眾生苦、二起悲救攝、三結成慈悲；二以知足法下明大智益生行；三成就菩薩下成神通利物行；四以無上淨法下嚴土說法益生行；五分別一切未來下廣攝時處修攝生行 — "within the first, there are five parts: first, revealing the practice of great compassion rescuing beings, itself in three — seeing sentient beings' suffering, raising compassion and gathering them in, and concluding in loving-kindness and compassion; second, beginning with 'through the dharma of contentment,' revealing the practice of great wisdom benefiting beings; third, beginning with 'accomplishing the bodhisattva's own,' the practice of spiritual power benefiting things; fourth, beginning with 'through the unsurpassed pure Dharma,' the practice of adorning lands and expounding the Dharma to benefit beings; fifth, beginning with 'discerning every future,' the practice of broadly gathering in every time and place, cultivating the gathering of beings."
What this structure reveals, read end to end, is that everything Vairocana would eventually become — the buddha whose light this whole teacher's Dharma-gate depends on — traces back to a single, ordinary act: seeing beings suffer, and being unable to look away from it. Compassion comes first in the sequence, not as one virtue among several but as the seed every subsequent aspect grows from — wisdom, power, land, and the sweep of every future kalpa, all of it downstream from the moment "he beheld sentient beings attached to self... and could not bear it."
Part 91 In Progress
The night-deva has traced the whole arc of Vairocana's own first awakening back to a single moment of compassion at the sight of suffering. Part 92 turns to a second contemplation — Vairocana's own ongoing practice as a bodhisattva, no longer at the very first moment but throughout the whole of his path — before Sudhana asks how long this teacher herself has held this Dharma-gate.
Continue to Part 92 →