The Elements, the Moon, the Lion, and the Lotus
Having catalogued bodhisattva conduct in matched sets of four, the Buddha shifts registers entirely: a long chain of similes, one after another, drawn from the four elements, the heavenly bodies, animals, plants, and ordinary civic life — closing with the charge that anyone who wishes to study this sūtra must learn to observe all dharmas truly.
The Four Elements, the Moon, the Sun, the Lion, and the Elephant
「復次迦葉！我當為汝說喻，智者以喻得知菩薩功德。譬如地界，為一切眾生而無有二；如是迦葉！菩薩從初發意以來至于道場，為一切眾生亦無有二。譬如水界生於百穀、諸藥、草木；如是迦葉！菩薩至誠清淨慈心覆育一切，為諸眾生起青白之德。譬如火界成熟百穀、諸藥、草木；如是迦葉！菩薩以般若波羅蜜，成就一切眾生。譬如風界莊嚴一切諸佛國土；如是迦葉！菩薩善權莊嚴一切諸佛國土。譬如月初日日增長；如是迦葉！菩薩至誠清淨，增長一切白淨之法。譬如日出照諸眾生；如是迦葉！菩薩以一般若波羅蜜，照一切眾生。譬如師子鹿王隨其所行，一切無有恐怖；如是迦葉！菩薩住戒功德，隨其所行一切無有恐怖。譬如象王堪諸重擔終無疲厭；如是迦葉！菩薩善調御心，為一切眾生堪任重擔而無厭惓。」
"Furthermore, Kāśyapa! I shall now speak similes for you, since the wise come to know a bodhisattva's virtue through simile. It is like the element of earth, which makes no distinction among any being; just so, Kāśyapa, from the moment a bodhisattva first arouses his resolve until he reaches the very seat of awakening, he makes no distinction among any being either. It is like the element of water, which gives rise to every grain, every medicinal herb, and every plant; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva's utterly sincere and pure loving-kindness shelters and nurtures all, giving rise, for the sake of every being, to the virtue of new growth and of purity. It is like the element of fire, which brings every grain, every medicinal herb, and every plant to ripeness; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva brings every being to accomplishment through prajñāpāramitā. It is like the element of wind, which adorns every buddha-land; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva's skillful means adorns every buddha-land. It is like the moon, which from its first day grows fuller day by day; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva's utterly sincere purity causes every pure, wholesome dharma to grow. It is like the sun rising to illuminate every being; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva illuminates every being with the single light of prajñāpāramitā. It is like the lion, king among beasts, who goes wherever he will with no fear at all; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva, abiding in the virtue of the precepts, goes wherever he will with no fear at all. It is like the elephant king, who bears every heavy burden and is never wearied by it; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva, his mind well trained, bears every heavy burden for the sake of every being, and is never wearied by it."
Every simile in this run follows the identical template — "it is like X... just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva..." — a construction so mechanically repeated that it functions almost as a refrain, letting the images themselves carry the argument rather than any connecting logic between them. Read as a set rather than one at a time, the eight similes here move through a rough progression: the four elements establish impartiality and active nurturing as the ground level of bodhisattva conduct, the moon and sun add growth and illumination, and the lion and elephant close on courage and endurance — fearlessness paired with the capacity to bear weight without tiring. Nothing in the text marks this progression explicitly; it emerges only from reading the list start to finish rather than treating each simile as an isolated illustration.
The Lotus, the Tree, and the Rivers Running to the Sea
「譬如蓮花生在淤泥而不著水；如是菩薩生在世間不著世法。譬如伐樹，雖截其枝而不伐根，復生如故；如是迦葉！菩薩以善權心，雖斷結縛猶生三界。譬如諸方江河之水，入於大海悉為一味；如是迦葉！菩薩作若干種善願功德，當作佛道悉為一味。譬如四天王三十三天住須彌山。如是迦葉！菩薩善根心中。譬如國王大臣所助，乃具成辦一切國事；如是迦葉！菩薩般若波羅蜜善根所助，乃具成辦一切佛事。」
"It is like the lotus, which grows in the mud yet is not stained by water; just so a bodhisattva is born into the world, yet is not stained by worldly dharmas. It is like felling a tree: though its branches are cut away, if its root is not felled, it grows back exactly as before; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva, through the mind of skillful means, though he has severed every bond, is still born within the three realms. It is like the waters of every river, flowing from every direction, which become a single taste once they enter the great ocean; just so, Kāśyapa, whatever various vows and virtuous deeds a bodhisattva makes, once he sets out to accomplish the buddha path, they all become a single taste. It is like how the Four Heavenly Kings and the gods of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three dwell upon Mount Sumeru; just so, Kāśyapa, every virtue rests within a bodhisattva's own mind of roots of goodness. It is like how a king, aided by his ministers, is thereby able to accomplish every affair of state; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva, aided by the root of goodness that is prajñāpāramitā, is thereby able to accomplish every buddha-work."
The felled-tree simile carries a precise and slightly startling claim: a bodhisattva who has "severed every bond" (斷結縛) — language ordinarily reserved for describing an arhat's own liberation — is nonetheless "still born within the three realms" (猶生三界), the way a tree whose branches are cut but whose root survives simply grows back. This is not a claim that the bodhisattva's liberation is incomplete; it is a claim that liberation and continued rebirth are not, for a bodhisattva, mutually exclusive the way they are assumed to be for anyone else. The root that survives is the bodhisattva's own vow, kept deliberately alive by "the mind of skillful means" (善權心) rather than by any residual affliction — a distinction this sūtra will return to directly in Part 6, where it explains at length how a bodhisattva's own dharma-body can arise from within, rather than apart from, the very afflictions it has already seen through.
Clouds, the Sage-King's Seven Treasures, and the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel
「譬如迦葉！天無雲者，雨不可得；如是菩薩不多聞者，法雨不可得。譬如迦葉！天有雲者，雨澤可得；菩薩如是，有大慈雲能降法雨。譬如聖王出者七寶可得；如是迦葉！菩薩出者三十七品道寶可得。譬如有摩尼珠者，彼中無量百千種珠悉皆可得；如是迦葉！有菩薩心者，彼中無量百千聲聞緣覺之法悉皆可得。譬如三十三天遊雜園觀，一切樂具皆悉同等；如是迦葉！菩薩至誠清淨，為一切眾生方便同等，悉無差降。譬如有毒，因呪藥故不能為害；如是迦葉！菩薩結毒，因智藥故不能為害。譬如城邑有諸糞壤饒益田用；如是迦葉！菩薩因結學薩芸若用。是故迦葉！菩薩欲學此寶嚴經者，當正觀諸法。云何為正觀？謂真實觀諸法。云何為真實觀諸法？謂不觀我人壽命，是謂中道真實觀法。」
"It is like this, Kāśyapa: when the sky has no clouds, no rain can be had; just so, when a bodhisattva has not learned widely, no rain of Dharma can be had. And it is like this, Kāśyapa: when the sky has clouds, its bounty of rain can be had; just so a bodhisattva, having the cloud of great loving-kindness, is able to send down the rain of Dharma. It is like how, when a sage-king appears, the seven treasures can be obtained; just so, Kāśyapa, when a bodhisattva appears, the treasure of the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment can be obtained. It is like how, wherever there is a wish-fulfilling jewel, immeasurable hundreds of thousands of kinds of jewels can all be obtained from within it; just so, Kāśyapa, wherever there is the bodhisattva mind, the dharmas of immeasurable hundreds of thousands of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas can all be obtained from within it. It is like how, when the gods of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three roam through their mingled garden groves, every pleasure and provision there is exactly the same for each of them; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva's utterly sincere purity offers the same skillful means to every being equally, with no distinction or diminishment at all. It is like how a poison, met with an incantation and its antidote, is unable to cause harm; just so, Kāśyapa, the poison of a bodhisattva's own bonds, met with the medicine of wisdom, is unable to cause him harm. It is like how a city's own filth and refuse become of benefit to the fields; just so, Kāśyapa, a bodhisattva makes use of his very bonds and afflictions to study and attain the wisdom of all-knowing.
"Therefore, Kāśyapa! A bodhisattva who wishes to study this Ratnakūṭa sūtra should rightly observe all dharmas. What is right observation? It is the true observation of all dharmas. What is the true observation of all dharmas? It is not observing a self, a person, or a lifespan — this is called the middle way of true observation."
The final two similes of the chain — a bodhisattva's own afflictions rendered harmless by the antidote of wisdom, and a city's refuse becoming useful as fertilizer — quietly reverse the moral logic of everything that came before. Where the earth, water, and elephant similes praised the bodhisattva for qualities affliction has nothing to do with, these last two treat the bodhisattva's own bonds and afflictions as raw material to be used rather than as a defect to be merely eliminated. This is not yet the sūtra's fully developed teaching on the subject — Part 6 makes the identical point at much greater length, with the sūtra's own lotus-and-mud image reused to make it explicit — but the shift in tone here, right before the Buddha names the sūtra by its own title (寶嚴經, "the Ratnakūṭa sūtra," an explicit act of naming worth noticing in its own right) and states the middle way of true observation for the first time, reads as deliberate: the similes have been steadily preparing the ground for a teaching in which nothing, not even a bodhisattva's own remaining affliction, sits simply outside the path.
Part 4 Complete
This closes Part 4: a long chain of similes for bodhisattva virtue, closing with the Buddha naming this sūtra directly and stating, for the first time, "the middle way of true observation." Part 5 takes up that teaching in full — the extremes of existence and non-existence, self and non-self, and dependent origination read forward and in reverse.
Continue to Part 5 — The Middle Way of True Observation →