Difficult to Know, Difficult to Believe
The contemplation of Vairocana's own past practice closes with his ongoing work as a bodhisattva — not the first moment of awakening now, but the sustained labor of teaching beings caught in wrong view across an entire path. Sudhana then asks how long this teacher has held her own Dharma-gate, and she answers that the matter is difficult to know, believe, enter, speak of, and attain — knowable only through the buddha's own power.
Vairocana's Own Ongoing Bodhisattva Practice
佛子！盧舍那佛於過去世，行菩薩行時，見諸群生無智功德，愚癡所覆，著我、我所；無明曀障，不正思惟；入諸邪見，不識因果；順煩惱業，不修聖道；得無作法，常於生死險道流轉，受種種苦。發起大悲，令諸眾生出生菩薩無量諸行，修習一切諸波羅蜜；安立堅固勝妙善根，除滅眾苦，長功德藏；了知因果，不違業報，知法真實；悉分別知眾生欲樂及一切剎，守護、受持一切佛法，令不斷絕，滅不善法，滿薩婆若。佛子！以如是等無量法施，攝取眾生，令一向求薩婆若法，修行菩薩諸波羅蜜；具賢聖利，長薩婆若，滿善根海，顯現如來無量自在；以如是等種種方便，攝取眾生，顯現如來無量功德，安立眾生於菩薩諸攝智慧。」
"Child of the Buddha, Vairocana Buddha, in ages past, while practicing the bodhisattva's own practice, beheld every kind of being without the wisdom of merit, covered over by folly, attached to self and to what belongs to self; obscured by the darkness of ignorance, their thoughts not upright; entering every wrong view, not recognizing cause and effect; according with the karma of affliction, not cultivating the sagely path; having attained no unconditioned dharma, they constantly turned upon the perilous road of birth-and-death, undergoing every kind of suffering. He raised up great compassion, causing every sentient being to give rise to the bodhisattva's own boundless practice, cultivating every pāramitā; establishing firm and supremely sublime roots of goodness, extinguishing every suffering, increasing the treasury of merit; understanding cause and effect, not violating karmic recompense, knowing the true reality of the Dharma; discerning and knowing entirely the desires and pleasures of sentient beings and every land, guarding and upholding every buddha-dharma, causing it never to be severed, extinguishing every unwholesome dharma, fulfilling all-wisdom. Child of the Buddha, through boundless gifts of the Dharma such as these, he gathered in sentient beings, causing them to single-mindedly seek the dharma of all-wisdom, cultivating the bodhisattva's own every pāramitā; endowed with the benefit of the sages and worthies, increasing all-wisdom, fulfilling the ocean of roots of goodness, manifesting the Tathāgata's own boundless sovereign freedom; through manifold skillful means such as these, gathering in sentient beings, manifesting the Tathāgata's own boundless merit, establishing sentient beings in the bodhisattva's own every gathering wisdom."
Fazang reads this as the counterpart to Part 91's first moment of awakening — now the same compassion sustained across an entire practice: 二佛子盧舍那下明行菩薩行時益生行中二：先見眾生具苦因苦果，謂初顯集因，常於生死等是苦果；二發起大悲等，明救令出離授樂因果 — "second, beginning with 'Child of the Buddha, Vairocana,' reveals the practice of benefiting beings while practicing the bodhisattva's own conduct, in two parts: first, seeing that sentient beings possess both the cause and the fruit of suffering — revealing first the accumulated cause, then 'constantly within birth-and-death' as the resulting fruit; second, beginning with 'he raised up great compassion,' revealing the rescue that brings them out of this, granting the cause and fruit of happiness." Where the first raising of the mind was a single moment's response to suffering witnessed once, this is the same compassion carried forward as an entire vocation — cause and fruit of suffering diagnosed first, then answered point for point with the cause and fruit of liberation.
Five Ways This Is Difficult to Know
善財白言：「天神！發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，其已久如？」
答言：「佛子！此事難知、難信、難入、難說、難得；一切諸天、聲聞、緣覺所不能知，除佛神力。依善知識，成滿善根，淨正直心，遠離諂曲，滅諸染污；逮得普照智慧光明，哀愍眾生，降伏諸魔，拔煩惱樹，必欲成就一切種智，除滅生死憂悲惱海，得如來樂，入佛功德精進之海，安住佛地，滿足如來一切智力，究竟十力。如此人者，乃能信解，能知、能入、能說、能得。何以故？此佛境界，一切眾生及諸菩薩所不能知，我當承佛神力，為調伏眾生，直心清淨，廣修善根，得甚深心，樂聞此法，為如此等，隨其所應，分別解說。」
Sudhana said: "O deva! How long has it been since you raised the mind of unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening?"
She answered: "Child of the Buddha, this matter is difficult to know, difficult to believe, difficult to enter, difficult to speak of, difficult to attain; no god, śrāvaka, or pratyekabuddha is able to know it, save through the buddha's own spiritual power. One who relies upon the good friend, fulfilling roots of goodness, purifying an upright mind, departing far from flattery and crookedness, extinguishing every defilement; who attains the wisdom-light of universal illumination, has compassion for sentient beings, subdues every māra, uproots the tree of affliction, is determined to accomplish every kind of wisdom, extinguishes the ocean of the sorrow and grief of birth-and-death, attains the Tathāgata's own happiness, enters the ocean of the buddha's own merit and diligence, abides securely in the buddha's own ground, fulfills the Tathāgata's own every power of wisdom, reaching the very end of the ten powers — a person such as this is able to believe and understand, able to know, able to enter, able to speak of, able to attain it. Why is this so? Because this is the buddha's own state, which no sentient being, and no bodhisattva, is able to know; I shall, upholding the buddha's own spiritual power, for the sake of taming sentient beings whose upright mind is pure, who broadly cultivate roots of goodness, who have attained a profound mind, and who delight in hearing this Dharma, discern and expound it for beings such as these, according to what is fitting."
Fazang opens his gloss on this deepest question by naming exactly five distinct ways the matter resists being known — not one difficulty but five, each blocking a different faculty: 長行中三：初歎境難辨，非但久遠，故難知...此中難者，一非聞惠能知、二非思慧能信、三非修慧能入，上心行處滅；四言語路絕；五非二乘智能證得 — "the prose has three parts; the first exclaims at the state's own difficulty to discern — not merely because it is ancient, but for this reason it is hard to know... the difficulty here is fivefold: first, it cannot be known through the wisdom born of hearing; second, it cannot be believed through the wisdom born of contemplation; third, it cannot be entered through the wisdom born of cultivation — at this point, the very working of the mind itself ceases; fourth, the path of language itself is cut off; fifth, it cannot be realized through the wisdom of the two vehicles." Five faculties, tried in sequence — hearing, contemplating, cultivating, speaking, and even the highest wisdom available outside the Great Vehicle — and each one, in turn, found insufficient.
Fazang then raises the obvious objection and answers it directly: 若爾，豈可善財亦不可得知耶？二除佛神力下明有因緣亦可得知 — "if this is so, does this mean Sudhana himself is equally unable to know it? Second, beginning with 'save through the buddha's own spiritual power,' reveals that there is, in fact, a cause and condition by which it can still be known." That condition is named plainly: relying on the good friend, an upright mind, compassion for beings, and the buddha's own sustaining power — "Sudhana is precisely such a person, and this is why it is said he 'is able.'" The five-fold difficulty is not, in the end, a wall; it is a description of every ordinary path to knowledge failing in turn, so that what remains — trust in a teacher, and a power not one's own — can be seen for what it actually is.
Part 92 In Progress
Vairocana's own compassion has now been traced from its first arising through a sustained bodhisattva practice, and this teacher's own Dharma-gate has been named difficult to know in five distinct ways. Part 93 turns to the verse that reiterates this difficulty — twenty-one and a half stanzas before the long account of a kalpa finally begins.
Continue to Part 93 →