Gathering In All Six at Once

Sūtra: Śāriputra rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "Through boundless kalpas, my own mind-seeing has been pure. Receiving birth again and again, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, I came to see every kind of transformation, mundane or transcendent, at a single glance, penetrating it completely, free of every obstruction. Along the road, I encountered the Kāśyapa brothers, following one after another, and, hearing them proclaim the deep meaning of causation, I awakened to a mind without any boundary at all. I then left the household life to follow the Buddha, this same seeing now made bright and perfectly complete, attaining great fearlessness, and became an arhat, the Buddha's own eldest son, born from the Buddha's own mouth, born through the Dharma's own transformation. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, mind-seeing giving off its own light, this light reaching all the way to knowledge and vision itself, is foremost."

Commentary: Śāriputra's name means "son of Śārī," his mother's own name. Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: through boundless kalpas, my own mind-seeing has been pure — "mind-seeing" here is exactly the eye-consciousness itself; unstained by form as a sense-object is called "pure." "In this way" points back to this same purity of the eye-consciousness. Receiving birth across kalpas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, mundane and transcendent dharmas alike — the six ordinary dharma-realms, where good and evil divide and suffering and happiness differ; the four sagely dharma-realms, where great and small differ and the provisional and the real diverge — hence, "every kind of transformation." "At a single glance, penetrating it completely": simply through the eye-consciousness's own single glance, discriminating instantly, moment by moment, he was able to penetrate through completely, everything plainly understood, free of every obstruction, with no need at all for the calculating, discriminating work of mental consciousness — this shows how sharp and keen his own eye-consciousness had grown across so many kalpas.

Śāriputra had, at first, served the wandering ascetic Sañjaya. After Sañjaya's death, with no teacher left to serve, he encountered, one day along the road, the three Kāśyapa brothers, following one after another, proclaiming the deep meaning of causation, in this verse: "whatever dharma is born of causes and conditions, this I declare to be empty; it is also called a provisional name; it is also called the meaning of the middle way." These four lines are exactly the greater vehicle's own teaching of causation — the Tiantai school's fourfold division into the tripiṭaka, shared, distinct, and perfect teachings is established directly upon this same verse, each of its four lines establishing one of these four teachings in turn. The moment Śāriputra heard this, he awakened at once to the perfect principle itself — this perfect principle being exactly the mind of the tathāgatagarbha, hence "awakened to a mind"; and, pervading the whole Dharma-realm, hence "without any boundary."

Some accounts say that Śāriputra instead encountered the bhikṣu Aśvajit along the road, his own bearing so composed and dignified that Śāriputra hurried over to ask him: "who is your teacher?" He answered: "my teacher is Śākyamuni." Śāriputra asked further: "what teaching has your teacher given you — might I hear it?" He answered: "I am new to the path myself, and remember only this teaching on causation: every dharma arises from conditions, and every dharma ceases from conditions; this is what our own great teacher, the Buddha, constantly teaches." Upon hearing this, Śāriputra attained the first fruit at once, and, returning to tell Maudgalyāyana, brought about his awakening as well — and the two of them, leading their own disciples together, took refuge in the Buddha and left the household life. The present account, speaking instead of encountering the Kāśyapa brothers, may simply describe an encounter that happened around this same time, not necessarily a single person alone — the two accounts filling each other out.

Having heard this superior teaching, he realized that this teacher, too, must be extraordinary, and so left the household life to follow the Buddha — "seeing" here, once again, being exactly the eye-consciousness itself. His own eye-consciousness, though already free of obstruction before, had not yet become bright and perfectly complete; now, receiving the Buddha's own further instruction, this consciousness's own essence grew bright and perfectly complete, attaining great freedom, complete with the four kinds of fearlessness — and, in order to receive those who delight in the lesser teaching, he provisionally took up the fourth fruit and became an arhat; and, wishing to subdue the multitudes given to wrong views and outside teachings, he showed himself foremost in wisdom, the Buddha's own eldest son — that is, foremost in the very virtue of wisdom itself.

"Born from the Buddha's own mouth, born through the Dharma's own transformation": this does not speak of the physical body, but rather of the dharma-body — hearing the Dharma from the Buddha and thereby awakening to and realizing the dharma-body is exactly like being born from the Buddha's own mouth; and, within this teaching, constantly nourished by the milk of the Dharma, growing and maturing through its own power, is exactly being born through the Dharma's own transformation.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: what he himself cultivated and realized was exactly this — mind-seeing giving off its own light, that is, the eye-consciousness becoming an unobstructed wisdom — "light" here being exactly wisdom itself. At the very furthest reach of this light of wisdom, penetrating all the way through to the Buddha's own knowledge and vision — it is exactly this eye-consciousness, then, that he holds as foremost. As another sūtra puts it: "Śāriputra, in a past age, had already become the Tathāgata Golden Dragon — yet, unwilling to set aside his own great compassion, turned his own compassionate ship back around once more." One thus knows that awakening to the whole of the Buddha-dharma within seven days, and realizing the fruit of sagehood within half a month, were both, alike, nothing but a manifestation freely chosen.

Sūtra: Samantabhadra Bodhisattva rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I have already served as a true son of the Dharma-King to Tathāgatas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges; and the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, teaching those disciples of theirs who possess the capacity for the bodhisattva vehicle, have them cultivate the practice of Samantabhadra, taking this very name of mine for this practice. World-Honored One, I make use of the mind's own hearing to discern whatever knowledge and views sentient beings may hold. If, beyond world-systems as distant as the sands of the Ganges, a single sentient being gives rise, within their own mind, to the practice of Samantabhadra, I, at that very moment, riding my six-tusked elephant, divide my body a hundred thousandfold, and go at once to that very place — and even should that being's own obstruction run too deep for them to actually see me, I nonetheless touch their crown in hidden fashion, protecting and comforting them, so that they may bring this practice to completion. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have described my own original cause, the mind's own hearing giving rise to understanding, discerning freely and without hindrance, is foremost."

Commentary: This recounts his own distant cause. Samantabhadra Bodhisattva: practice pervading the whole Dharma-realm is called "universal"; a rank bordering on the ultimate sagehood is called "worthy." Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: I have already served as a true son of the Dharma-King to Tathāgatas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. This shows how many buddhas he has served, Tathāgatas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, every one of them served without a single one ever passed over — and it is exactly this that has brought him to so deep a stage of realization, a true son of the Dharma-King, his own rank that of equal enlightenment, fit to inherit the Dharma-King's own household estate. As the Chapter on Vows and Conduct puts it: "every Tathāgata has an eldest son, and his name is the Venerable Samantabhadra."

The Buddhas of the ten directions, teaching those of their own disciples who possess the capacity for the bodhisattva vehicle of the greater teaching — that is, this same class of sudden and perfect capacity — have them cultivate the practice of Samantabhadra, that is, the practice of the greater vehicle's own Dharma-realm, the ten great kingly vows themselves. That this practice takes its name from me carries two distinct senses: first, so that practitioners might have a model to follow; and second, so that Samantabhadra himself might have occasion to bestow his own blessing upon them.

"World-Honored One, I make use of the mind's own hearing": "the mind's own hearing" is exactly the ear-consciousness itself. Relying solely on the ear-consciousness, discriminating instantly, moment by moment, without recourse to the five consciousnesses' accompanying mental consciousness, or to independently operating mental consciousness, calculating and discriminating — he is thereby able to discern whatever knowledge and views sentient beings hold. Yet sentient beings' own knowledge and views are by no means uniform — deviant or correct, great or small, provisional or real, every kind of difference — and yet, simply through the mind's own hearing, he is able to know them all completely. "Beyond world-systems as distant as the sands of the Ganges" speaks, in the most emphatic terms, of how far away such a place might be. "A single sentient being... gives rise, within their own mind, to the practice of Samantabhadra": first awakening to Vairocana's own ocean of nature, and then entering the very gate of Samantabhadra's own practice — even at so great a distance, nothing is ever overlooked; and so, throughout the worlds of the ten directions, wherever boundless sentient beings give rise to this same practice of Samantabhadra, I, at that very moment, riding my six-tusked elephant, divide my body a hundred thousandfold, and go at once to every such place — this bodhisattva's own urgent intention to benefit beings answering them at the very instant needed. According to the Lotus Sūtra, this elephant is white, standing for the mark of pure, brahma-like conduct; its six tusks stand for the six perfections, riding upon which, as cause, one arrives at the Tathāgata's own fruit-stage.

"Divide my body a hundred thousandfold" speaks, in the most emphatic terms, of how many — not a fixed number at all. Wherever there are boundless sentient beings giving rise to this practice of Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva manifests boundless bodies at once, answering every one of them everywhere — this being an inconceivable power and function indeed. A single body, undivided, and yet manifesting universally; every capacity, alike, answered without exception — exactly like a single moon in the sky, its reflection falling upon every body of water at once. Even should that being's own delusion run heavy and their own obstruction deep, obstructing their own wholesome root of encountering a sage, I nonetheless touch their crown in hidden fashion, dissolving their own delusion and karma, removing their own obstruction and difficulty, protecting them invisibly so that they never regress; and for those without such obstruction, I manifest my own body directly, comforting them, so that they may advance further still. "Bring this practice to completion" points to both cases at once, obstructed or not — both alike brought, in the end, to completion in this same vast mind of Samantabhadra's own vows and practice.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: everything I have described above, this very original cause of mine, relies on nothing but the ear-consciousness, discriminating instantly, moment by moment. Capable of giving rise to the bright light of wisdom, illuminating every capacity everywhere, attaining great freedom — every practice now before us draws its own beginning from exactly this — hence, "is foremost."

Sūtra: Sundarananda rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "When I first left the household life, entering the path under the Buddha, though I kept the precepts fully, my mind, with regard to samādhi, remained constantly scattered and restless, and I had not yet attained freedom from outflows. The World-Honored One taught me, together with Kauṣṭhila, to contemplate the very tip of the nose, white and still. I contemplated this closely at first, and, after three full weeks, saw the breath within my nose, moving out and in like smoke; body and mind grew bright within, this brightness perfectly penetrating the whole world, entirely empty and pure, exactly like lapis lazuli. This smoke-like appearance gradually dissolved away, and the breath through my nose turned entirely white. My mind then opened, my outflows exhausted, and every breath, moving out and in, transformed into light itself, illuminating the ten directions — and I attained arhatship, the World-Honored One confirming that I would, in time, attain bodhi. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, dissolving the breath, until, over time, understanding dawns, this understanding perfectly complete and every outflow extinguished, is foremost."

Commentary: Sundarananda's name means "beautiful joy" — "beautiful" being the name of his own wife, and "Nanda," his own original name, meaning "joy," the two joined together into this single name. Because there were several disciples named Nanda in the Buddha's own assembly, "beautiful" is added here to distinguish him from the others. He was the Buddha's own younger half-brother, complete with all thirty of the major marks, only four finger-widths shorter than the Buddha himself, his own body likewise the color of gold — so much so that, entering the assembly, those who did not know him would sometimes mistake him for the Buddha himself. Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: when I first left my own worldly household, I entered, under the Buddha, this path that leads beyond the world. "Though I kept the precepts fully": this means that, with regard to the precepts, nothing was lacking — yet, with regard to samādhi, he had not yet properly entered it at all, hence, "my mind, with regard to samādhi, remained constantly scattered and restless." "Scattered" means the mind, ungathered, would not settle; "restless" means the mind, lacking samādhi, could not come to rest — and, without samādhi, wisdom cannot arise, and, without wisdom, delusion cannot be severed — hence, "had not yet attained freedom from outflows."

"The World-Honored One taught me": this is teaching matched to his own particular capacity. "Together with Kauṣṭhila" — meaning "great knee" — Śāriputra's own maternal uncle, who shared this same scattered capacity of mind. And so the Buddha taught them to contemplate the very tip of the nose, white and still — both eyes fixed steadily, a faint whiteness visible at the very tip of the nose — having them focus the mind on this single point, so as to gather in this scattered restlessness.

"I contemplated this closely at first, and, after three full weeks, saw the breath within my nose, moving out and in like smoke": one should understand that this breath arises through wind and fire together, stirring up the very turbidity of affliction — hence its appearance like smoke, something the confused fail to notice at all, visible only to one contemplating closely enough to see even the most subtle thing as though it were plainly present. "This smoke-like appearance gradually dissolved away, and the breath through my nose turned entirely white": following on from "like smoke" above, after contemplating for a long while, affliction nearing its own exhaustion, this smoke-like appearance gradually dissolved away, and the breath moving out and in through the nose came, at last, to take on this entirely white appearance. "Body and mind grew bright within": "body and mind" here is exactly the nose-consciousness itself — the physical nose being one with the body. "Bright within" is exactly the appearance samādhi itself brings about; once the power of samādhi is accomplished, wisdom can then arise — "bright" here being exactly the bright light of wisdom itself; affliction now dissolved, this light of wisdom flares forth again and again. Perfectly complete and utterly penetrating, the circumstantial world of his own retribution became, throughout, empty and pure — "empty" meaning unobstructed, "pure" meaning undefiled, both brought about entirely through this same light of wisdom melting everything within its reach — and so he attained this brightness within and emptiness without, exactly like lapis lazuli, bright and penetrating both within and without at once.

The first line here is the tathāgatagarbha's own mind opening and becoming manifest, every outflow entirely exhausted; every breath, moving out and in, transformed into the very light of wisdom, illuminating the worlds of the ten directions everywhere at once, and he thereby attained the great fruit of arhatship — this being the very first sign of affliction itself turning into bodhi. Hence the World-Honored One confirmed that I would, in time, attain bodhi — that is, attain buddhahood itself, in an age yet to come.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: he does not take up smelling, or the sense of smell, or the nose-consciousness in general, but rather the specific achievement of contemplating the breath. "Dissolving the breath": at first, contemplating the nose to gather in the mind, he saw this breath appear like smoke; and then, this smoke-like appearance gradually dissolving away, the breath through his nose turned entirely white — hence, "dissolving the breath," that is, dissolving this smoke-like breath until it became a pure, white breath instead. "Until, over time, understanding dawns": as this dissolving of the breath continued on, the power of his own samādhi growing ever deeper, even the breath itself dissolved away entirely, and every breath, moving out and in, gave rise, according to its own true nature, to this transformation, becoming the very light of wisdom. "This understanding perfectly complete and every outflow extinguished": this light, perfectly illuminating the ten directions, extinguished every outflow — not merely the afflictions of views and thought, but ignorance as numerous as motes of dust and sand as well — and so it is exactly this contemplation through the nose that he holds as foremost.

Sūtra: Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇīputra rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "Through boundless kalpas, my own eloquence has been unobstructed, proclaiming suffering and emptiness and penetrating deeply into true reality; and so it has continued, up through the secret Dharma-gates of Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges — expounding these, subtle and wondrous, before the assembly, I attained complete fearlessness. Knowing that I possessed this great eloquence, the World-Honored One taught me to develop it further still, through the very wheel of sound itself. Before the Buddha, I helped him turn this wheel, and, through this lion's roar of mine, attained arhatship — the World-Honored One confirming that, among those who teach the Dharma, none surpasses me. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, subduing demons and enemies through the very sound of the Dharma, extinguishing every outflow, is foremost."

Commentary: Pūrṇa, rising from his seat, bows and addresses the Buddha, recounting his own distant cause. "Through boundless kalpas, my own eloquence has been unobstructed": this comes from his own knowledge of past lives, capable of recalling events across the most distant kalpas. Eloquence itself divides into four kinds: first, unobstructed eloquence regarding the teaching itself, capable of expounding every mundane and transcendent dharma, every single name and mark, with nothing left unknown; second, unobstructed eloquence regarding meaning, capable of expounding the particular meaning of every dharma, penetrating through without hindrance; third, unobstructed eloquence regarding expression, capable of holding boundless, subtle meaning within a single phrase, gathering the broadest meaning into the space of only a few words; and fourth, unobstructed eloquence in teaching joyfully, according with whatever sentient beings themselves delight in, skillfully and expediently, in teaching the Dharma to them.

"Proclaiming suffering and emptiness": teaching the lesser teaching to those of lesser capacity; "penetrating deeply into true reality": teaching the greater teaching to those of greater capacity. And, further, at the very moment of proclaiming suffering and emptiness, he penetrates deeply into the principle of true reality as well, understanding that suffering, at root, is not suffering at all — suffering is exactly the dharma-body, and the dharma-body is exactly true reality itself. Understanding that true emptiness poses no obstruction to wondrous existence, and wondrous existence poses no obstruction to true emptiness either, he is able to teach every dharma, provisional or real, exactly as each occasion requires.

"And so it has continued, up through the secret Dharma-gates of Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges": this is exactly the greater vehicle's own secret, profound Dharma-gate of complete meaning. Before the great assembly, taking up the most subtle, refined principles and expressing them in the most skillful, wondrous language, he teaches the assembly directly — and, the assembly being so numerous, their own capacities are by no means uniform. That his own teaching is called "subtle and wondrous" means, necessarily, that it benefits every one of the three roots of capacity alike, a single rain falling equally upon them all. "I attained complete fearlessness": he partially attained the Tathāgata's own four kinds of fearlessness — first, fearlessness regarding all-knowing wisdom; second, fearlessness regarding the exhaustion of outflows; third, fearlessness in teaching what obstructs the path; and fourth, fearlessness in teaching the path to the exhaustion of suffering. Capable of roaring this lion's roar before the assembly, his own mind entirely without fear, he thereby attained freedom with regard to the Dharma itself.

This recounts his own manifested traces. Our own founding teacher, the World-Honored One, knowing that I possessed this great eloquence — truly, no one knows a disciple better than his own teacher — taught and cultivated me according to this very talent. "Through the very wheel of sound itself": that is, the wheel of the mouth, teaching the Dharma — likewise exactly the wheel of the Dharma itself. "Taught me to develop it further still": taught me to observe each capacity and develop my teaching accordingly, taking the greatest care never to misapply an impure method where a furnace and bellows were needed, nor to teach breath-counting to one who belonged, instead, among the charnel-ground contemplations. "Before the Buddha, I helped him turn this wheel": helping to spread the Buddha's own transforming influence, turning the wheel of the Dharma in his stead. "Through this lion's roar of mine": that is, teaching the Dharma fearlessly. Once a lion roars, every other beast submits at once; once this wondrous Dharma is proclaimed, the deviant and those outside the teaching alike return and are transformed. Through this very tongue-consciousness, aiding the Buddha's own transforming influence above and liberating sentient beings below, he attained arhatship — the World-Honored One confirming that, among those who teach the Dharma, none surpasses him.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through the tongue-consciousness, teaching the Dharma fearlessly, that is, through the very sound of the Dharma, subduing every demon throughout the three realms, the thieving enemies of the five aggregates, extinguishing every fetter of affliction, together with every outflow — it is exactly this tongue-consciousness, then, that he holds as foremost.

Sūtra: Upāli rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I personally followed the Buddha over the palace wall when he left the household life; personally witnessed the Tathāgata's own six years of arduous practice; personally saw the Tathāgata subdue every demon and bring every outside teaching under control, freeing himself entirely from every worldly outflow of craving and desire. Receiving the Buddha's own precepts, I advanced through them, up to the three thousand dignified deportments, the eighty-four thousand subtle practices, both the precepts against what is inherently evil and those against what merely leads toward evil — all of these kept entirely pure — until body and mind alike reached utter stillness, and I attained arhatship. I am the very backbone and discipline of the Tathāgata's own assembly. Confirmed directly by the Buddha as pure in mind, upholding the precepts and cultivating the body, I am held up by the whole assembly as foremost. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, disciplining the body until the body itself gains freedom, and then, in due sequence, disciplining the mind until the mind, too, gains understanding, so that body and mind together become entirely unhindered — this is foremost."

Commentary: Upāli's name means "foremost" — for his own strict observance of the pure precepts made him the very backbone and discipline of the whole assembly. Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: "I personally followed the Buddha over the palace wall when he left the household life": according to tradition, when the Buddha was still a prince, Upāli served as an attendant official within the eastern palace; and when the Buddha turned his back on his own father and left the household life, Upāli, too, found himself derelict in his own duty, unable to remain comfortably in his own position, with no further office left to fill — and so he followed the Buddha and left the household life as well. He was not, however, dispatched by the king himself, and so does not number among the original five bhikṣus.

"Personally witnessed the Tathāgata's own six years of arduous practice": after the prince shaved his own head and beard, he had Chandaka carry his own jeweled crown and robes back to the palace, to report to his royal father and mother that they need not worry over him. King Śuddhodana then dispatched five officials, together with Chandaka, to beseech the prince to return to his own kingdom — but the prince declared: "until I accomplish the buddha-path, I will not return to my own homeland" — and so these five accompanied the prince instead. As the Sūtra of the Extensive Play recounts, they journeyed to Gayāśīrṣa Mountain, into a forest of ascetic practice, where the gods offered him hemp and rice, a single grain eaten each day. These five officials, together with Upāli, practiced alongside the prince — yet, one after another, the five eventually left, while Upāli alone never once departed, hence "personally witnessed the Tathāgata's own six years of arduous practice."

"Personally saw the Tathāgata subdue every demon and bring every outside teaching under control": the Buddha, practicing austerities in the snowy mountains, could, in principle, have attained the path there — yet, fearing this might mislead sentient beings into taking mere suffering itself for the path, he chose not to attain the path there instead. He then went to sit beneath the bodhi tree, vowing: "until I accomplish the buddha-path, I will not rise from this seat." After forty-eight days, Māra, the king of demons, dreamed of thirty-two ill omens, and, waking in terror, observed that a bodhisattva sitting beneath a tree in Jambudvīpa was about to attain complete awakening. He commanded his four demon-daughters to disrupt this meditative concentration, manifesting thirty-two seductive forms — yet the bodhisattva's own body and mind remained utterly still and unmoved, causing these daughters to see, in themselves, their own nine orifices, their own two internal organs, their own eighty-four thousand infested pores, filthy and impure, and they fled, retching, in disgust. Māra, enraged, personally led his own demon army, wishing to do him harm, yet could accomplish nothing at all — this, too, Upāli witnessed with his own eyes, hence "personally saw."

"Brought every outside teaching under control": this refers to the period after the Buddha's own attainment of the path. Before the Buddha appeared in the world, India knew only the outside teaching of Brahmanism; once the Buddha attained the path, many came to place their faith in him instead, and the outside teachers, consumed with jealousy, repeatedly sought to harm him — as when Sundarī tried to poison him with drugged rice, yet the Buddha, reflecting that his own mind held no poison within it, was unaffected by the poison and ate the food in perfect calm; or when a drunken elephant was set loose to trample him, and the Buddha, extending his own five fingers, manifested five lions, causing the drunken elephant to collapse to the ground, unmoving. He also liberated Uruvilvā-Kāśyapa and others — all of this Upāli personally witnessed as well, this bringing of every outside teaching under control.

"Freeing myself entirely from every worldly outflow of craving and desire": here Upāli recounts, in his own words, the very basis for his own awakening and realization — through personally witnessing this arduous practice, and personally seeing every demon subdued and every outside teaching brought under control, he came to believe in the benefit of transcending the world, and to grow weary of the world's own impermanence, understanding deeply that craving and desire are the very root of every outflow — and, understanding this so deeply, he naturally ceased to cling to them at all, hence "freeing myself."

This recounts his own receiving the teaching and attaining its fruit. "Receiving the Buddha's own precepts": that is, being given the two hundred and fifty precepts of a bhikṣu, the lesser vehicle's own precepts. "I advanced through them" means progressing by degrees, up to the greater vehicle's own bodhisattva precepts. "The three thousand dignified deportments": with the four postures of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, each carrying two hundred and fifty precepts, this makes a thousand; matched against the three collections of pure precepts, each of these thousand becomes three thousand in turn. "The eighty-four thousand subtle practices": matching these three thousand deportments against the seven aspects of bodily and verbal conduct produces twenty-one thousand, and matching this further against greed, anger, delusion, and their combination produces, altogether, eighty-four thousand subtle practices.

"Both the precepts against what is inherently evil and those against what merely leads toward evil": a precept whose own substance is, in itself, evil, requiring no further prohibition to make it so — violating it directly constitutes karma, as with killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and false speech — is called a precept against what is inherently evil. A precept whose own substance is not, in itself, evil, yet which, if permitted, might lead one toward evil, and which the Buddha therefore prohibits as a precaution — as with drinking alcohol, eating pungent foods, or breaking ground — is called a precept against what merely leads toward evil. Through this, he was able to uphold the precepts of both the greater and lesser vehicles alike, entirely pure, without a single violation.

"Body and mind alike reached utter stillness, and I attained arhatship": the lesser vehicle disciplines the body, hence the body-consciousness reaching utter stillness; the greater vehicle disciplines the mind as well, hence mental consciousness dissolving away in turn. This is exactly samādhi arising from precepts, and, once the power of samādhi is accomplished, the light of wisdom then arises, attaining the wisdom of the emptiness of self, and thereby the path of arhatship.

"I am the very backbone and discipline of the Tathāgata's own assembly": I am the very head of the Vinaya within the Tathāgata's own community, capable, before the whole assembly, of setting its own discipline and order through the precepts themselves. Governing is called "backbone"; maintaining is called "discipline" — the Buddha having me investigate every observance and violation, judging their relative severity, governing the whole sangha and maintaining the Vinaya school itself — hence, "I am the very backbone and discipline of the assembly."

"Confirmed directly by the Buddha as pure in mind": this speaks of the greater vehicle's own precept disciplining the mind — this being my own hidden practice, a total, thoughtless holding of every precept at once, graced by the Buddha's own direct confirmation that my own mental precepts are pure. The lesser vehicle's own study of disciplining the body, upholding the precepts and cultivating the body, is my own outwardly manifested trace, graced by the Buddha holding me up, before the whole assembly, as unsurpassed. As the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra puts it: "the elder Upāli, among the five hundred arhats, is foremost in upholding the Vinaya" — exactly this.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: as the Buddha asks after perfect penetration, I, by means of the body-consciousness, upheld the lesser vehicle's own bodily precepts, so that the body-consciousness no longer arose at all — within the sense-object of touch, no longer any appearance of agreeable, disagreeable, or neither at all — and the body thereby gained freedom. Proceeding from the outer to the inner, I then, in due sequence, used this same body-consciousness to uphold the greater vehicle's own precept disciplining the mind. "The mind gained understanding": that is, awakening to the wondrous precept that requires no contrivance at all — with no precept left to be upheld, and no mind left capable of upholding it either — and, this being so, neither body nor mind requires any further discipline at all, each naturally free of any violation whatsoever — hence, "entirely unhindered." Realizing perfect penetration through exactly this body-consciousness, then, he holds it as foremost.

Sūtra: Mahāmaudgalyāyana rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "Begging for alms along the road, I first encountered the three Kāśyapa brothers — of Uruvilvā, Gayā, and Nadī — who proclaimed the Tathāgata's own deep meaning of causation, and I gave rise, at once, to this very resolve, attaining great penetration. The Tathāgata then graced me, robe placed upon my body, my own hair and beard falling away of themselves, and I roamed the ten directions, entirely unobstructed, this spiritual power now fully manifest, held up as unsurpassed, and attained arhatship. Nor is it only the World-Honored One — the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, too, all praise this spiritual power of mine as perfectly complete and pure, free and fearless. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, turning back this very calm nature, the mind's own light thereby proclaimed and set forth — exactly like a turbid current that, over time, becomes clear and radiant — is foremost."

Commentary: Mahāmaudgalyāyana's name means "of the great bean-gatherer clan." Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: at first, begging for alms along the road, I encountered the three Kāśyapa brothers — Uruvilvā, meaning "wood-apple grove," cultivating within this very grove; Gayā, the name of a mountain, that is, Gayāśīrṣa, "Elephant-Head Mountain," cultivating on this very mountain; and Nadī, the name of a river, cultivating near this very river — who proclaimed the Tathāgata's own deep meaning of causation: exactly "whatever dharma is born of causes and conditions, this I declare to be empty; it is also called a provisional name; it is also called the meaning of the middle way" — not the coarse appearance of mere worldly things combining together. Some accounts say that Śāriputra, having heard this teaching on causation, returned and told Maudgalyāyana of it — here, Maudgalyāyana himself recounts having heard it directly. "I gave rise, at once, to this very resolve" carries two distinct senses: first, giving rise to the resolve to leave the household life and follow the Buddha; and second, giving rise to understanding of the mind of consciousness itself as exactly the tathāgatagarbha — hence, "attaining great penetration," that is, penetrating all the way to the very source and depths of this consciousness, fully understanding it as, in its entirety, both consciousness and nature at once.

Having heard this teaching, he came to admire the Buddha deeply. Hearing that Śāriputra had already taken refuge in the Buddha, and that the Buddha had called out the words "welcome, bhikṣu," at which the robe appeared upon his body and his own hair and beard fell away of themselves, suddenly taking on the very appearance of a bhikṣu — I roamed the ten directions, entirely unobstructed, free to come and go as I pleased. "This spiritual power now fully manifest": through this very spiritual power, understanding mental consciousness itself to be exactly the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, unchanging, yet following every condition, free and unobstructed — and so, before the whole assembly, this spiritual power of his was held up as unsurpassed, and he thereby attained the path of arhatship.

This states that this spiritual power of mine was praised not only by our own founding teacher, the World-Honored One, at the Āgama assembly, where he acknowledged me as foremost in spiritual power — but the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, too, all praise this same spiritual power of mine, complete with four distinct qualities: first, roaming universally throughout the ten directions, carrying out every kind of buddha-work, hence "perfectly complete"; second, this single truth never stirring, not the slightest speck of dust staining it, hence "pure"; third, manifesting spontaneously, freedom and liberation without any hindrance at all, hence "free"; and fourth, no demon left unsubdued, every enemy and grievance alike brought under control, hence "fearless."

This closes his answer on perfect penetration. The Buddha now asks me: awakening to the eighteen elements, which one brought you to perfect penetration? By what skillful means did you enter samādhi? I, by means of mental consciousness, turned back this very consciousness's own false, discriminating activity, returning it to this perfectly calm, ever-abiding nature of mind — the very ground of mind now bright, this brightness thereby manifesting, proclaimed and set forth, appearing as spiritual power itself — exactly like a turbid current settling clear: the current is exactly the water itself, this false consciousness's own manifold discrimination being exactly this same turbid water; the word "turning back" is exactly the very achievement of clarifying this turbidity — and, turning it back for a long while, it becomes calm, clear, and settled, this radiant, pure, utterly bright nature of the tathāgatagarbha itself — it is exactly this mental consciousness, then, that he holds as foremost. This closes the third section — perfect penetration through the six consciousnesses.

Sūtra: Ucchuṣma, before the Tathāgata, joined his palms, bowed at the Buddha's two feet, and said to the Buddha: "I always recall first how, in a distant kalpa long ago, my own nature was given strongly to craving and desire. There appeared, at that time, a buddha named Emptiness-King, who taught that a person given to excessive lust becomes a raging mass of fire, and had me contemplate closely, throughout every bone and every limb of my own body, every sensation of coolness and warmth within it. My own spiritual light then condensed inwardly, transforming this very mind so given to lust into the fire of wisdom itself — and, from that time on, every buddha has called me by this same name, Fire-Head. Through the power of this very samādhi of fiery light, I attained arhatship, and gave rise, in my own mind, to a great vow: that whenever a buddha attains the path, I would serve as his own strong protector, personally subduing every demon and enemy. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, contemplating closely the warmth of body and mind, flowing without any obstruction at all, until every outflow is dissolved away and a great, precious flame arises, ascending to unsurpassed awakening itself, is foremost."

Commentary: Ucchuṣma's name means "fire-head" — that is, Ucchuṣma the Vajra-Being. Among the seven great elements, earth would ordinarily come first — yet here fire is placed first instead, since lustful desire belongs to the element of fire, and lust is the very enemy that destroys samādhi, to be guarded against above all else, hence fire is placed foremost. Ucchuṣma rises from his seat and bows to the Buddha: I always recall first how, in a distant kalpa long ago, while still an ordinary being, my own nature was given strongly to craving and desire, this habit of lust from past lives accumulating into my own settled nature. At that time, there appeared a buddha named Emptiness-King — named "Emptiness-King" for having realized the emptiness of ultimate meaning itself. As the Lotus Sūtra has the Buddha say: "Ānanda and I together gave rise to the resolve for awakening in the presence of the buddha Emptiness-King" — so Ucchuṣma, too, studied together with the Buddha under this very same buddha Emptiness-King; and now, to protect the Buddha's own teaching, he manifests in the form of a mighty guardian.

The buddha Emptiness-King, skilled in observing capacities and teaching accordingly, taught that a person given to excessive lust becomes, in life, a fire of desire, and, in death, a fire of karma — the more lust, the more fire, hence becoming a raging mass of fire. This fire of desire not only burns away every wholesome root, but is capable of burning away the very seed of wisdom as well. And so he had me contemplate closely, throughout every bone and every limb of my own body — "every bone" meaning every joint throughout the whole body, "every limb" meaning both hands and both feet. "Every sensation of coolness and warmth": at the moment desire has not yet stirred, the whole body remains, of itself, cool and clear; but once a thought of desire has sprouted, the whole body at once feels warm and heated — and, coming to believe for myself that this teaching of a "mass of fire" was no exaggeration at all, my own mind gave rise to fear, and I devoted myself single-mindedly to this very contemplation.

Within this meditative contemplation, observing closely this warm sensation throughout the whole body, a mind of revulsion and fear arose, and this mind of lustful desire came to rest, and true samādhi was thereby accomplished. This same spiritual light condensed inwardly, unmoving, capable of transforming this very mind so given to lust, turning the fire of desire into the fire of wisdom instead — and through this, I attained the samādhi of fiery light. From that time on, every buddha, recognizing my own skill in contemplating the very nature of fire, has called me by this same name, Fire-Head.

Through contemplating fire, I accomplished samādhi, called the samādhi of fiery light — and through the power of this very samādhi, I severed every fetter of bondage, realized perfect penetration, and attained the great fruit of arhatship. "Gave rise, in my own mind, to a great vow": that is, the vow to protect the Dharma — whenever a buddha attains the path, I would serve as his own strong protector, guarding the Buddha's own teaching, personally subduing every demon and enemy, never once showing them the slightest leniency. As the Sūtra on the Foundations of Mindfulness of the True Dharma recounts: once there was a king whose first consort gave birth to a thousand sons, and, wishing to test the order in which they would each attain buddhahood in ages to come, had a thousand lots drawn to determine it — Krakucchanda drew the first, Śākyamuni the fourth, Maitreya the fifth, all the way to Rucika, who would be the thousandth; and the king's second consort gave birth to two further sons, one vowing to become Brahmā, requesting his thousand elder brothers each to turn the wheel of the Dharma in turn, and the other vowing to become the Vajra-spirit-king of secret traces, protecting the Dharma of all his thousand elder brothers alike. Ucchuṣma is exactly this same guardian, serving as strong protector at every buddha's own attainment of the path — these "every buddha" here referring to the thousand buddhas of the present fortunate aeon, Śākyamuni being exactly the fourth among them.

"I contemplated closely": through this close contemplation of the great element of fire, he accomplished this very samādhi. Contemplating, at first, every bone and limb of his own body was contemplating the fire of desire within the body; and afterward, his own spiritual light condensing inwardly, was contemplating the fire of desire within the mind. This warm sensation is exactly the great element of fire itself; his own contemplative practice accomplished, he transformed this mind of lust into a mind of the path, turning the fire of desire into the fire of wisdom — this mind of lust now transformed, this fire of wisdom now accomplished, no longer obstructed by delusion or karma at all, hence "without any obstruction." And, further, with this spiritual light, this fire of wisdom, flowing throughout the ten directions, interfusing perfectly with the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, he came to realize that the nature of fire is true emptiness, and the nature of emptiness is true fire — every outflow now entirely dissolved away, this great, precious flame of wisdom's own fire arising — this being exactly the samādhi of fiery light itself. Turning from an ordinary being into a sage, ascending to unsurpassed awakening — this makes plain that, at his own fundamental root, he is already equal to the Buddha, yet chooses to remain, outwardly, at the causal stage, aiding and spreading the Buddha's own transforming influence! I have realized perfect penetration exactly through this close contemplation of the great element of fire — it is this, then, that I hold as foremost.

Sūtra: Dharaṇiṃdhara Bodhisattva rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I recall how, in a past age, when the Tathāgata Universal Light appeared in the world, I was a bhikṣu, constantly leveling and filling every dangerous, narrow stretch along every major road, every river crossing, every field where travel was difficult, wherever the way was unfit for travel and might harm a cart or injure a horse — sometimes building a bridge, sometimes carrying sand and earth myself. I continued this same arduous work through the appearance of countless further buddhas in the world. Whenever I saw someone in the marketplace needing help carrying a load, I would carry it for them first, all the way to wherever they were headed, setting it down and departing at once, without ever accepting any payment. In the age of the buddha Viśvabhū, the world suffered from widespread famine, and I served as a porter for hire, near or far without distinction, accepting only a single coin — and whenever I came upon an ox-cart stuck fast in the mud, I used my own spiritual power to help push the wheel free, delivering them from their own suffering. At that time, the great king of that land invited the Buddha to a feast, and I, knowing his path, went ahead to level the ground for him — and the Tathāgata Viśvabhū, touching my own crown, told me: 'you should level the very ground of your own mind — for once this is done, the ground of the whole world will, of itself, become level as well.' My own mind then opened at once, and I saw that the fine dust composing my own body and the fine dust that composes the whole created world are, without any difference at all, exactly the same — this fine dust's own nature never touching or rubbing against itself, even a blade passing through it meeting no resistance at all. I then awakened, with regard to the nature of dharmas themselves, to the patient acceptance of the unborn, and attained arhatship; turning my mind toward the greater vehicle, I now stand among the ranks of the bodhisattvas, and, hearing the Tathāgatas proclaim this wondrous lotus flower, this very ground of the Buddha's own knowledge and vision, I was the very first to confirm and bear witness to it, and so stand foremost among them. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, contemplating closely how the fine dust of my own body and the fine dust of the whole world are, without any difference at all, originally nothing but the tathāgatagarbha itself, falsely giving rise to the appearance of dust — and, this dust dissolved away, wisdom now perfectly complete, accomplishing the unsurpassed path — is foremost."

Commentary: Because of his own practice of leveling roads, and, later, receiving the teaching of leveling the mind, cultivating and realizing according to this same teaching, he is named Dharaṇiṃdhara, "holder of the earth." Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: this recounts his own distant cause. "I recall how, in a past age, the Tathāgata Universal Light appeared in the world": this buddha, named "Universal Light," his own bodily light and light of wisdom illuminating the whole Dharma-realm everywhere at once, is foremost among the fifty-three buddhas named in this sūtra. Under this very buddha, I resolved to leave the household life and become a bhikṣu, diligently cultivating ascetic practice, constantly working along every major road necessarily traveled, every river crossing where water and land transportation met, every field where the terrain grew dangerous and narrow — "dangerous" meaning uneven, rising and falling steeply; "narrow" meaning cramped, without room to spare. Wherever the way was unfit for travel, inconvenient to pass along, certain to harm a cart or injure a horse — a cart at risk of a broken axle, a horse at risk of losing its footing — I would always level and fill it in myself, flattening what rose too high, filling what sank too low, sometimes building a bridge to ease a river crossing, sometimes carrying sand and earth myself to repair a major road.

The first line here points back to leveling and filling the road, building bridges, and carrying sand and earth, all forms of diligent, arduous labor. "Through the appearance of countless further buddhas in the world": across so long a span of time, constantly practicing without ever regressing — this closes his account of leveling roads; what follows now recounts his own labor offered in service of others. "Whenever I saw someone" refers to the elderly or the weak, lacking their own strength — a marketplace enclosure is called huán, its gate is called huì — in the midst of commerce and trade, whenever someone needed help carrying a load, I would carry it for them first, all the way to wherever they were headed, setting it down and departing at once, making no distinction between kin or stranger, noble or humble, and never once accepting any payment at all — "payment" meaning a laborer's own fee — not only never demanding it, but even refusing it when the owner of the goods offered it himself. This offering of his own labor as a form of practice, giving of his own bodily strength, fully embodies all three kinds of giving within the perfection of generosity: first, the giving of wealth — the body itself being an inner form of wealth, given here through bodily labor; second, the giving of the Dharma — widely forming wholesome connections, thereby moving and transforming others; and third, the giving of fearlessness — others, recognizing his own goodness, giving rise to no fear at all in his presence. And in never accepting payment, he gives of outer wealth as well.

The Sanskrit Viśvabhū means "pervading, self-mastering everywhere." This buddha, the very last of the adorned aeon, appeared at a time when, through the shared karma of sentient beings, the world suffered from widespread famine — that is, years of scarcity and want, the five grains failing to ripen, food scarce, and begging for alms difficult. I served as a porter for hire, carrying loads for others, near or far without distinction, treating every face, familiar or unfamiliar, with the very same regard, accepting only a single coin's worth of payment, taking just enough to sustain my own life, never craving more than this.

"Whenever I came upon an ox-cart stuck fast in the mud": the famine mentioned earlier could take either of two forms — drought, or flood. Here, "stuck fast in the mud" would correspond instead to a flood following prolonged rain. And yet, if the earlier famine was in fact a drought, the ground would necessarily have been parched — how, then, could there be mud at all? As the common saying goes: after a long dry spell, a long rain inevitably follows — the ground, baked dry during the drought, turns to mud once the rains finally come; and so this ox-cart stuck fast in the mud must belong to the period following the drought's own end.

These three lines, "I used my own spiritual power": carrying loads for others above was a benefit given to people directly; this, delivering them from suffering, benefits both people and animals together — and it was through kalpas of accumulated ascetic practice, the blessed reward this brought about, that he attained this very spiritual power. "Ox-cart" may refer either to a cart drawn by an ox, or to the cart and the ox together, both stuck fast in the muddy mire, person and ox alike suffering together — and I, with my own spiritual power, helped push the wheel free for them, delivering them from their own suffering.

Master Jiaoguang observes: surely this practice of leveling roads was already undertaken with the intention of benefiting everyone equally, and this labor offered in service of others already made no distinction between kin and stranger — his own mind, then, must already have been level and even for a very long time already — why, then, did he need to wait until this moment to receive the very teaching of leveling the mind at all? The answer is this: what came before belonged to leveling the mind only with regard to outward phenomena, without yet awakening to the underlying principle itself; now, he is made to awaken to the fact that the inner mind and the outer ground are, in truth, one and the same substance — and so, leveling the mind alone, without dividing sentient being from material world at all, causes every circumstance to turn according to the mind itself — how, then, could it fail to become level? Is this not worlds apart from what came before? "At that time" refers to the very moment the king invited the Buddha to a feast; "invited" means exactly this. I, at that time, knowing that the Buddha would necessarily travel this same road to reach the royal palace, and the king, cultivating blessings for his own kingdom, humbling his own supreme, royal dignity to welcome this sage of ten thousand virtues — I, for my part, went ahead to level the ground and await the Buddha there, so as to express my own reverence for the Buddha in this way — and this awaiting of the Buddha was, in fact, exactly an awaiting of his own teaching as well.

The Tathāgata Viśvabhū touching my own crown was an act of compassionate acceptance, taking pity on my own long labor at this very practice. "Telling me I should level the very ground of my own mind — for once this is done, the ground of the whole world will, of itself, become level as well": this buddha wished to have him interfuse principle with phenomena, and so told him: you should level the very ground of your own mind — since mind is the very root of every dharma, and the ground itself is created by the mind; once the inner mind is level, the outer appearance becomes level as well, and though the world may shift and change like the sea turning into mulberry fields, this same mind remains, throughout, exactly as it is — hence, "the ground of the whole world will, of itself, become level as well." As the Vimalakīrti Sūtra puts it: "if you wish to attain a pure land, you must purify your own mind — for as the mind becomes pure, so too does the buddha-land become pure." In other words: if you wish to level the great earth itself, you must level the very ground of your own mind — for as the mind becomes level, so too does the ground of the world become level. The words of the buddha Viśvabhū here, and of the buddha Suvarṇapuṣpa elsewhere, agree with one another as precisely as two halves of the same tally.

The two practices cultivated before belonged to the provisional, gradual teaching; this present opening of the mind now enters the sudden and perfect teaching instead. "My own mind then opened" is exactly the tathāgatagarbha's own mind opening and becoming manifest — first coming to know that this same mind of the tathāgatagarbha, following conditions, brings phenomena into being, so that, wherever the mind diverges, a thousand differences compete to arise at once; now, this mind turning falseness back into truth, once the mind itself is level, the whole Dharma-realm becomes calm and even, fully penetrating both the form within and the form without, the great element of earth equal throughout. Reaching this point, he has already surpassed the śrāvaka's own wisdom — not only no longer clinging to the four elements within as a self, but fully penetrating, as well, to the fact that the four elements without are likewise nothing but mind itself! He saw that the fine dust of the great element of earth within his own body, and the fine dust composing the whole created world, are, being nothing but this same tathāgatagarbha's own mind, equal throughout, with no difference between them at all.

"This fine dust's own nature never touching or rubbing against itself": "fine dust" here refers to the material dharma of the great element of earth, both within and without; "own nature" is exactly the mental dharma of the tathāgatagarbha's own nature — form and mind not two different things at all. The nature of form is true emptiness itself, and so every particle of fine dust, whether within the body or throughout the outer world, belongs, in every case, to this very nature, never touching or rubbing against one another at all — exactly like space combining with space, or water poured into water, posing no obstruction to one another whatsoever. Even the great element of earth without, in the form of a blade, meeting the great element of earth within, in the form of the body-faculty — a blade touching the body — causes no injury at all, exactly like space combining with space, or water poured into water. Dharaṇiṃdhara's own cultivation encompasses all four dharma-realms at once: his first practice of leveling roads and offering labor in service of others, a practice of outward phenomena, belongs to the dharma-realm of phenomena alone; receiving the teaching of leveling the mind, mind and ground alike made level, principle now overriding phenomena, belongs to the dharma-realm of principle; his mind opening and seeing this fine dust, form and mind no longer obstructing one another, belongs to the dharma-realm of the unobstructed interpenetration of principle and phenomena; and a blade touching the body causing no injury at all belongs to the dharma-realm of the unobstructed interpenetration of phenomena with one another. As Master Sengzhao put it: "bringing one's own head before the naked blade is no different from cutting through the spring breeze itself" — though he speaks only of realizing that the nature itself takes no injury, exactly as when the Sixth Patriarch stretched out his own neck, and an assassin's blade, swung three times over, fell each time as though cutting through a mere shadow — this reaches, indeed, all the way to the unobstructed interpenetration of phenomena with one another!

The Zhǐzhǎng commentary observes: the two kinds of fine dust, of the body and of the world, encompass every dharma there is — and since these, too, share this very same single nature, then every dharma alike shares this same single nature as well — who, then, could be said to give rise to anything, and what, in turn, could be said to be given rise to at all? And it is from this that he awakened, with regard to every dharma whatsoever, to this principle of the unborn, accepting and believing it without the slightest doubt. According to this account, his own point of awakening already equals the eighth ground — yet, measured only by the degree to which delusion has actually been subdued and severed, having severed only the afflictions of views and thought, he is accordingly said to have "attained arhatship." Why should his own awakening reach so deep a stage, while his actual realization remains so much shallower? Because his own obstruction to what may be known runs light, he is able to awaken so deeply; yet because his own obstruction of affliction still runs heavy, his actual realization remains only this much. And because his own point of awakening runs so deep, he does not remain fixed at this shallower stage, but instead turns his own lesser-vehicle mind toward the greater, now standing among the ranks of the bodhisattvas.

"Hearing the Tathāgatas": this should refer to the four buddhas of the present fortunate aeon already appeared, not to Śākyamuni alone. Since, already in the age of the buddha Viśvabhū, he had awakened to this same perfect principle and turned his lesser-vehicle mind toward the greater, he thus heard the Tathāgatas proclaim this wondrous lotus flower, this very ground of the Buddha's own knowledge and vision, and was the very first to confirm and bear witness to it. "This wondrous lotus flower" refers to this very sūtra itself — "this is called the wondrous lotus flower, the vajra king's precious awareness," as the verse puts it; "the Buddha's own knowledge and vision" is exactly this unborn, unceasing nature within the sense-faculty itself, the very site of this one vehicle's own utter stillness, the causal-stage mind of every buddha alike — relying on this to advance in cultivation, one may attain the very awakening of the fruit-stage itself. He was the very first to confirm and bear witness to this, leading the assembly in cultivating according to it, and so stands foremost among them.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through contemplating closely how the two kinds of fine dust, of the great element of earth within the body and throughout the world, are equal throughout, without any difference at all — this coming about through receiving the teaching of leveling the mind, the tathāgatagarbha's own mind opening and becoming manifest, examining and observing closely with this very wisdom free of discrimination, that every appearance is false while every nature is true — hence, "originally nothing but the tathāgatagarbha itself." Every instance of the great element of earth is, in every case, nothing but this same nature of the tathāgatagarbha manifesting according to conditions, appearing in accordance with karma alone — and, belonging to this very appearing in accordance with karma, it manifests falsely — hence, "falsely giving rise to the appearance of dust." Now, having awakened to the fact that every appearance is, in its entirety, identical with the nature itself, every dharma nothing but mind alone, the appearance of dust dissolves away entirely, the light of wisdom now perfectly complete, capable of accomplishing the unsurpassed path of awakening itself — advancing in cultivation through exactly this great element of earth, then, he holds it as foremost.

Sūtra: Candraprabha, the Moonlight Youth, rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges, there appeared a buddha named Water-Deva, who taught the bodhisattvas to cultivate the contemplation of water, thereby entering samādhi. Contemplating within my own body, I found the nature of water never displacing itself: beginning with mucus and saliva, and continuing through every bodily fluid, essence, and blood, down to what is excreted — circulating throughout the body, the nature of water remains, throughout, exactly the same. I saw that the water within my own body, and the water of the great, banner-crowned ocean-realms and every fragrant sea beyond this world, are, without any difference at all, exactly identical. At that time, having just first accomplished this contemplation, I could see only water itself, not yet having attained freedom from any sense of a body at all. I was, at that time, a bhikṣu, sitting in quiet meditation within my own room. A disciple of mine, peering in through a gap in the window to check on me, saw nothing but clear water filling the entire room, with nothing else to be seen at all. Being only a child, with no understanding of what this meant, he took up a piece of broken tile and threw it into the water, causing a splash, and then, glancing back, went on his way. When I emerged from samādhi, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my own chest, exactly as when Śāriputra was once struck by the demon Vidhūra. I reflected to myself: I have already attained the path of arhatship, long free from any cause of illness — why, then, should I suddenly feel this pain today? Could I possibly be regressing? At that very moment, my young disciple came running to me and told me what had happened. I told him at once: should you see the water again, open the door and go into it, and remove that piece of tile. The disciple did as instructed, and, the next time I entered samādhi, he again saw the water, this same tile still plainly there within it, and, opening the door, removed it. When I emerged from samādhi afterward, my own body was exactly as it had been before. I continued, in this way, encountering countless further buddhas, until, at last, in the age of the Tathāgata King of Sovereign Penetration Over Mountains and Seas, I finally attained freedom from any sense of a body at all, this very nature of mine now one with the fragrant seas of the ten directions, true emptiness itself, with no difference between them whatsoever. And now, under this very Tathāgata, I have received the name 'Youth of Pure Chastity,' and stand among the ranks of the bodhisattvas. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, the single, unbroken flow of the very nature of water, attaining the patient acceptance of the unborn and perfecting bodhi itself, is foremost."

Commentary: "Youth" here means one who entered the path in pure chastity; Candraprabha possessed exactly this virtue of pure chastity, hence this name. Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges, there appeared a buddha named Water-Deva — this buddha, having cultivated the contemplation of water himself, thereby awakened to the very heaven of his own nature, one of the thirty-five buddhas named in this sūtra. "Taught the bodhisattvas" refers to this one particular class of capacity generally, not to Candraprabha alone. "Cultivate the contemplation of water": taking water itself as the object of contemplative practice, this contemplation, once accomplished, leading to the entry into samādhi.

This follows from his own long cultivation of this contemplation. The first eight lines contemplate water within; the last five contemplate water without. First contemplating his own body's own nature of water as never displacing itself is the general statement; what follows explains exactly what "never displacing" means. "Beginning with mucus and saliva": what is found in the nose is called mucus, what is found in the mouth is called saliva — this water, being on the surface, is easily seen; what descends the throat in swallowing is called "moisture," what overflows outside the throat is called "fluid" — this water, being closer to the interior, can still be felt; what is found in the bone marrow is called "essence," what is found in the sinews and flesh is called "blood" — this water, being hidden deep within, is difficult to know directly. What is expelled after eating and drinking is called urine and excrement. Among these, moisture and fluid represent water's own clear aspect, while the rest represent its own turbid aspect — circulating throughout the body, back and forth without end — and though clear and turbid differ, the nature of water itself remains exactly the same throughout; and since this nature is the same throughout, it never displaces itself at all.

"Saw that the water within my own body": having seen this water circulating throughout his own body, back and forth without end, this inner contemplation now well practiced, he extended and expanded it, to contemplate the water of the whole world as well. As the Rǔfēng Zhāimài commentary explains: according to the Flower-Treasury Adorned World-Ocean, called the Universal-Light Maṇi-Jewel Fragrant-Water Ocean, within this ocean there stands one great lotus flower, called the Banner of Every Kind of Radiant, Fragrant Light; within this flower are found buddha-lands as numerous as motes of dust, ten in number, and within each, fragrant-water oceans as numerous as motes of dust as well. Within each of these oceans, in turn, stands a single seed of a world-system; and each such seed of a world-system contains, within it, twenty further layers of buddha-lands, stacked one upon another like a great banner, the very king among buddha-lands — hence, "the great, banner-crowned ocean-realms." "Every fragrant sea" refers to these same fragrant-water oceans, taken both together and individually. Contemplating the water within his own body, and the water of these fragrant-water oceans beyond this world, though differing in their distance and their size, he found the nature of water to be exactly the same throughout both, equal, without any difference at all. And "identical" here also carries the sense of "interpenetrating" — the water within and the water without freely interpenetrating one another, posing no obstruction to each other at all.

This follows from cultivating this practice according to the teaching received. "At that time" refers to the very time of this cultivation — the wisdom capable of contemplation, and the very object being contemplated, first coming into correspondence with one another — this is what is meant by "first accomplished." This contemplation is exactly the contemplation of water; his own contemplative practice accomplished, at the very moment of entering this contemplation, one seeing him would see no person there at all, but only water itself — that is, taking water itself as his own body — yet he had not yet attained freedom from every mark whatsoever, and so could not yet attain complete freedom from any sense of a body at all.

This cites an actual event as proof that a sense of the body still remained, even so. At that time, I was a bhikṣu, settling my own mind in meditative contemplation within a quiet room — that is, cultivating this very contemplation of water. I had a disciple, one who attended to my own washbasin and water-jug — who, having noticed that I remained within this room for so long, peered in through a gap in the window to see what was happening within, and saw nothing but clear water filling the entire room, with nothing else to be seen at all. This is exactly mind and object corresponding to one another perfectly — contemplating water and manifesting water in turn — what is called "form born of samādhi," the very state of this samādhi manifesting directly before him. But ordinarily, this "form born of samādhi," at the moment of entering such a contemplation, is visible only to the one experiencing it directly; that Candraprabha's own contemplation of water, and Ucchuṣma's own contemplation of fire, could each be seen by others as well, shows truly how exceptional the power of their own contemplation had become.

Later, in the Later Liang dynasty, in Mianzhu County of Hanzhou, there lived a monk known as the Water-Contemplation Monk. When bandits once rose up in rebellion and sought to enter Mianzhu, this Water-Contemplation Monk entered his own contemplation of water, contemplating the whole county as water — and the entire county appeared, throughout, as water itself; the bandits, arriving, saw nothing but a vast, boundless lake, unable to find the county's own borders at all, and the entire population of the county was thereby spared from this calamity — a fitting confirmation of exactly this same principle.

The child, being young and without any real understanding, held two doubts in his own mind: first, wondering why this room should be full of water at all; and second, wondering why, if his teacher were sitting in meditation within this very room, he could not see him there at all. Not knowing whether this was truly water or not, he took up a piece of broken tile and threw it into the water, causing a splash — "causing" here meaning to stir up — and, the water now making a sound, he became convinced it truly was water, and, glancing back, went on his way. When I emerged from samādhi, I suddenly felt this pain, exactly as when Śāriputra was once struck by the demon Vidhūra. Śāriputra, while in samādhi on Vulture Peak, was passed over by two demons moving through the sky, one named Vidhūra, the other Punarvidhūra. Punarvidhūra said to Vidhūra: "I wish to strike this monk with my own fist." Vidhūra warned him: "do not give rise to such a thought." Punarvidhūra did not listen, and Vidhūra departed at once; Punarvidhūra then struck Śāriputra's own head with his fist, and, emerging from samādhi, Śāriputra at once felt a sharp pain in his head. He said to the World-Honored One: "my body has never once been afflicted before — why, then, this pain in my head now?" The Buddha told him: "a rākṣasa demon struck your own head with his hand; this same demon, with his own great strength, once struck Mount Sumeru itself and split it clean in two — had you not been in samādhi at the time, your own body would surely have been shattered to pieces. This demon, for his own deed, has already fallen into the Avīci hell as its own retribution." The present account, naming this demon "Vidhūra," likely encountered him at the very same occasion, and simply cites the wrong one of the two names by mistake.

I pondered this within my own mind, my own doubt unresolved: I have already attained the path of arhatship, long free from any cause of illness, and ought, therefore, to have no karma left capable of manifesting in the present at all — why, then, should this pain suddenly arise today? The line "could I possibly be regressing" admits of two readings: first, whether this very pain, now that I have emerged from samādhi, might itself be regressing; or second, whether an arhat, long free from any cause of illness, now suddenly afflicted with this pain, might be at risk of regressing from his own attained fruit altogether. The Zhèngmài commentary observes: whether an arhat may still experience illness or not depends on distinguishing two kinds of bondage, that of the "seed" and that of the "fruit": karma sown in the past or the present, destined to summon a future fruit not yet actually received in body, is called bondage of the seed; karma whose fruit the body must now actually receive, having already been received, is called bondage of the fruit. One who has genuinely, newly realized the fourth fruit has already entirely severed the seed-bondage of the afflictions of views and thought, and will never again receive rebirth — yet, the present body not yet having been extinguished, this bondage of the fruit still remains, and whatever bodily suffering must still be received by this present body will still be received — hence Śāriputra's own headache, and, later, Pilindavatsa's own foot pain, both belong to exactly this same kind.

"Came running" means: Candraprabha having emerged from samādhi, the child came running to him at once, and told him what had happened. I then reasoned that this pain must have come from the piece of tile thrown into the water, and so told the child: should you see the water again, open the door and go into it, and remove that piece of tile. The child did as instructed, and, when Candraprabha next entered his own room and entered samādhi again, the child once more peered in and saw the tile still plainly there within the water, and, opening the door, removed it. When I emerged from samādhi afterward, my own body was exactly as it had been before, entirely unharmed. That he had felt this pain at all shows only that he had not yet attained freedom from any sense of a body whatsoever.

Encountering countless buddhas, across a span of time necessarily very long, he came, at last, to the age of the Tathāgata King of Sovereign Penetration Over Mountains and Seas — this buddha, too, having accomplished perfect penetration through the great element of water, attaining unsurpassed awakening; whether mountain or sea, the nature of water flows freely through both without any obstruction at all. Mountains belong to the element of earth — as the common saying goes, "however high the mountain, the water rises higher still" — the great elements of water and earth alike free and unobstructed. "Sovereign" here means exactly this same freedom. First cultivating this contemplation inwardly, and then cultivating it outwardly as well, proceeding from the shallow to the deep — by the age of this particular buddha, having already encountered so many buddhas, the power of his own contemplation had grown deeper still, and he thereby attained freedom from any sense of a body at all, uniting with the whole world beyond, this water of every fragrant sea throughout the ten directions flowing as one single, unbroken current. "This very nature of mine now one with true emptiness itself" means exactly this: awakening to the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, that the nature of water is true emptiness, and the nature of emptiness is true water, with no difference between the two at all — every appearance, in its entirety, identical with the nature itself; substance and function, one and the same. And now, under this very Tathāgata, he has received the name "Youth of Pure Chastity," and entered the ranks of the greater vehicle's own bodhisattvas.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through cultivating this contemplation of water, contemplating the water within and the water without as sharing one and the same essence, a single, unbroken flow, equal without any difference at all, he awakened to the fact that the nature of water is empty and still, originally unborn of itself, and thereby attained the patient acceptance of the unborn, realizing perfect penetration. To perfect unsurpassed bodhi itself, then, it is exactly this great element of water that he holds as foremost.

Sūtra: Ratnaprabha, the Vaiḍūrya-Light Dharma-Prince, rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges, there appeared a buddha named Boundless Sound, who revealed to the bodhisattvas the wondrous brightness of original enlightenment, and had them observe how this world, and the very bodies of sentient beings, are nothing but a false, conditioned appearance turned by the sheer force of wind. I, at that time, observed the world's own establishment; observed the world's own motion through time; observed the body's own movement and stillness; and observed the mind's own arising of thoughts — and found every one of these motions, without exception, to be, in the end, exactly the same, without any difference at all. I then came to realize that this very nature underlying every one of these motions comes from nowhere and goes nowhere at all, and that the world's countless motes of dust, and its inverted, deluded sentient beings, share, alike, this same falseness entirely. And so it continues, on through the whole of a single great-thousand-world-system, every sentient being within it exactly like a hundred mosquitoes shut inside a single vessel, buzzing and shrieking in mad confusion within so cramped a space. Encountering this buddha, it was not long before I attained the patient acceptance of the unborn. My own mind then opened, and I beheld, in the east, the buddha-land of the unshaken buddha, and became a Dharma-prince there — serving the buddhas of the ten directions ever since, my own body and mind giving off light, penetrating everywhere without any obstruction at all. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, observing closely that the very force of wind has nothing whatsoever to depend upon, and thereby awakening to the mind of bodhi, entering samādhi, and thus becoming one with the wondrous mind transmitted by all the buddhas of the ten directions alike, is foremost."

Commentary: Ratnaprabha, "Vaiḍūrya-Light," takes his name from this very contemplation, since his own body and mind later gave off this same light, penetrating everywhere without obstruction — hence this title. The Sanskrit term in full is vaiḍūrya, meaning "the blue-colored jewel." This Dharma-prince constantly emits this same blue-colored light, exactly like vaiḍūrya itself — as in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, where the bodhisattva Vaiḍūryaprabha emits this same blue light, arriving before Śākyamuni's own seat. Now, at this Śūraṅgama assembly, recounting his own perfect penetration, he rises from his seat and bows to the Buddha: I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges before this one, there appeared a buddha named Boundless Sound — this buddha, too, having become a buddha through contemplating the great element of wind. Since every sound whatsoever arises through wind, and sound itself is boundless, wind itself must be boundless as well — and so, contemplating wind by way of sound, wind may be taken as the very object of contemplation anywhere at all — one thus knows that this buddha, too, became a buddha through contemplating the great element of wind in exactly this way.

"Revealed to the bodhisattvas the wondrous brightness of original enlightenment": these two lines involve two paired relationships, of capacity and teaching, and of substance and function. "Revealed" is the teaching; "the bodhisattvas" is the capacity — teaching the greater teaching to those of the greater capacity, and so speaking of the wondrous brightness of original enlightenment, the very principle of the highest, single vehicle itself. "Original enlightenment" is exactly this naturally, inherently possessed, spiritually aware nature — calm and unmoving, yet responding the instant it is touched — which, on the level of sentient beings, is called their own original buddha-nature. "Wondrous" is the substance; "bright" is the function — the function arising precisely from this same substance, and this function, in its entirety, being nothing but this substance itself, substance and function never separate from one another — wondrous precisely in being bright, bright precisely in being wondrous. And, further, "wondrous" carries the sense of never changing, while "bright" carries the sense of following every condition — never changing, yet ever following conditions; following conditions, yet never changing — and the nature of wind itself, likewise never changing, constantly follows every condition it encounters, and thereby becomes sound.

From "observe how this world, and the very bodies of sentient beings" on, the passage shows the very method of this contemplation to be cultivated: "observe" is exactly the wisdom capable of observation; "this world" refers to the insentient world as the circumstantial realm of retribution; "the very bodies of sentient beings" refers to sentient beings themselves, as the direct realm of retribution — both together serving as the very object of this contemplation. This realm, direct and circumstantial alike, is nothing but ignorance's own false, conditioned appearance, transformed and brought into being by the sheer force of wind alone. Original enlightenment is exactly suchness itself — and within the realm of suchness, not a single speck of dust is ever established at all — how, then, could there be any world or any sentient being there to begin with? All of this comes about only because that very first single thought of ignorance stirred falsely — and, once it stirred, wind resulted; this great element of wind is exactly this single thought, this very mark of stirring within the mind itself — every wind whatsoever, throughout the realm of sentient beings and the material world alike, draws its own beginning from exactly this — hence, "nothing but a false, conditioned appearance," "the force of wind" pointing to exactly this same transformation wrought by ignorance itself. To explain these two lines in full detail, one may turn to the opening of fascicle 4, where the Buddha answers the question of the three sudden arisings, from "the nature of awareness is necessarily bright" all the way to "it has neither sameness nor difference — this is truly a conditioned dharma" — this passage may serve as the fuller gloss on exactly this same point.

"I, at that time": that is, at the very moment this buddha bestowed this contemplation upon him, pointing out exactly where the great element of wind itself originates. This great element of wind arises from original enlightenment's own wondrous brightness, giving rise to thought according to conditions — a single thought stirring falsely, obscuring this wondrous brightness of its own accord, falsely following this very force of wind wrought by ignorance, and so a world and its sentient beings come to be. Yet, simply by being able to observe that the nature of wind is, at root, empty, and that the mark of its own motion is not truly there at all, one can turn falseness back into truth, and return to this same wondrous, bright, true mind of original enlightenment once more! And so, cultivating this very contemplation according to the teaching received, I observed how the world itself comes to be established — the very appearance of the ten directions being, in every case, held together by the force of wind alone; how the world flows onward through time — the three periods shifting and changing, in every case, secretly moved along by the force of wind alone; how the body moves and rests — walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, none of it other than what this force of wind brings about; and how the mind gives rise to thought — arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing, none of it other than what this same force of wind drives forward. Observing in this way, the world without and body and mind within, however many these motions may be, share, in their own substance, no difference at all — a single nature of wind alone — hence, "without any difference at all."

Having first observed that the world, the body, and the mind, however many their motions, share this single nature of wind alone, I then came to realize that this very nature underlying all these countless motions comes from nowhere and goes nowhere at all, its own substance, examined directly, entirely empty, with no real substance to it that could ever be traced or investigated at all. "The world's countless motes of dust" refers to the insentient material world; "and its inverted, deluded sentient beings" refers to the sentient beings possessing their own bodily faculties — both sharing, alike, this same falseness entirely, both alike turned by nothing but this false, conditioned force of wind.

"And so it continues" moves from the vast to the narrow — from world-systems as numerous as motes of dust, down to the whole of a single great-thousand-world-system, and every sentient being within it: the first half states the doctrine, the second offers an analogy. It is like a hundred mosquitoes shut inside a single vessel, buzzing and shrieking — "buzzing" being the sound of a faint, small cry — in mad confusion, within so cramped a space, stirred up into wild disorder — "stirred" meaning agitated, "wild" meaning frenzied. A single vessel stands for a single world; the mosquitoes stand for sentient beings — the beings of a single world, like a hundred mosquitoes shut inside so small a vessel, crying out in wild confusion within so cramped a space, standing for how each, alike, is turned by this same false, conditioned force of wind, contending for advantage within the world, each claiming supremacy for themselves, seeking fame, scheming for gain — all of it nothing but this same wild confusion. Through the power of this contemplation, seeing the great as no different from the small, seeing this very falseness as anything but true, he saw that this false, conditioned force of wind, too, is entirely without any real substance at all. "It was not long before" means: encountering the buddha Boundless Sound and receiving this contemplation from him, before very long at all, he swiftly attained this very awakening and realization — first awakening to the fact that the great element of wind comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, its own substance, examined directly, empty by nature. And if this holds true for the great element of wind, so too does it hold for every other great element as well — none of them possessing any mark of arising or ceasing that could ever actually be found — and so he attained the forbearance of the unborn nature of all things, realizing perfect penetration.

"My own mind then opened": this is exactly original enlightenment's own true mind opening and becoming manifest. The east belongs to the trigram Zhèn, foremost among all things that move — and so, within this very motion, he beheld an unmoving buddha, that is, Akṣobhya — the Sanskrit akṣobhya meaning "unmoved." This is exactly personally beholding, within the false, conditioned motion of the very nature of wind, the true, unmoving substance of original enlightenment itself — and so, under this very unmoving buddha, he became a Dharma-prince, and was thereby able to serve the buddhas of the ten directions everywhere — exactly as Avalokiteśvara, a Dharma-prince under Amitābha, is able to roam and transform every land, serving every buddha everywhere alike. "My own body and mind giving off light": having fully understood that this false body and false mind alike belong to nothing but this same false, conditioned force of wind, and having personally beheld the dharma-body's own true mind — this being something every single person already, inherently possesses in full — he became penetrating within and without alike, exactly like pure vaiḍūrya, reflecting every dharma within it — and this is exactly why he received this very name.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through observing closely that the very force of wind has nothing whatsoever to depend upon — that is, has no substance of its own at all — this is fully understanding falseness; and awakening to this true mind of bodhi, belonging to original enlightenment itself — this is awakening to truth. And, further, observing that the great element of wind comes from nowhere and goes nowhere at all, this great element of wind has nothing to depend upon, its own substance, examined directly, empty — then how could body, mind, and world, all alike turned by this same false, conditioned force of wind, fail to be empty as well? This line is exactly the earlier "every falseness dissolves away entirely." Awakening to the mind of bodhi, falseness exhausted and truth revealed, is exactly the earlier "what, then, could possibly remain, if not truth itself?" From this, he entered samādhi, becoming one with the subtle mind-seal transmitted by the buddhas of the ten directions alike — exactly as, in fascicle 2, in the section on how seeing cannot be divided, Mañjuśrī, asking on the assembly's behalf, was told by the Buddha: the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, and the great bodhisattvas as well, abiding in their own samādhi, see that seeing itself, together with its own conditions, and every conceived appearance whatsoever, is like flowers conjured in empty space, originally nothing there at all — this very seeing, together with its conditions, being, at root, nothing but bodhi, this wondrous, pure, bright substance itself, exactly this same wondrous mind transmitted by every buddha alike. Ratnaprabha, through contemplating the great element of wind, realized exactly this — hence, "is foremost."

Sūtra: Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "In the presence of the buddha Dīpaṃkara, together with the Tathāgata here, I attained a boundless body. At that time, holding four great, precious jewels in my own hand, I illuminated the buddha-lands of the ten directions, as numerous as motes of dust, transforming them all into empty space. And, further, within my own mind, a great, round mirror appeared, giving off ten kinds of subtle, precious light from within it, flowing throughout the ten directions, reaching all the way to the very edge of empty space itself. Every banner-crowned, kingly land came flowing into this very mirror, entering into my own body — my own body now the same as empty space itself, neither ever obstructing the other. My own body is able to enter skillfully into lands as numerous as motes of dust, carrying out the Buddha's own work everywhere, attaining great, spontaneous accord with all of it. This great spiritual power comes from my own close contemplation: that the four elements have nothing to depend upon, arising and ceasing only through false thought, that empty space itself admits of no duality at all, and that every buddha-land is, at root, exactly the same — and it was from this very sameness that I attained the patient acceptance of the unborn. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, observing closely the boundlessness of empty space, entering samādhi through it, this wondrous power now perfectly bright and complete, is foremost."

Commentary: Master Qingliang observes: taking empty space itself as his own substance and nature, he is thus named Ākāśagarbha, "Treasury of Space" — and, taking empty space as his own body, he is also called "Boundless Body," since space itself is boundless. As for the meaning of "treasury" here, the Zōngjìng Lù explains: at the great assembly, when Ākāśagarbha arrived, he manifested purely the appearance of empty space itself, and said to Ānanda: "I know this through my own body directly, and so, knowing it exactly as I have realized it, I am able to speak of it in just this way. Why is this so? Because my own body is exactly empty space itself, and it is through this very empty space that I come to know every dharma there is, sealed by the very seal of empty space itself." At that time, five hundred śrāvakas each offered up their own outer robes to Ākāśagarbha, and, with a single voice, spoke these same words together: "within the treasury of wisdom's own dharma, nothing at all falls outside it." The very robes they had offered then vanished from sight at once, and these śrāvakas asked: "where have our robes gone?" Ākāśagarbha answered: "they have entered my own treasury." This bodhisattva, further, takes empty space itself as his own storehouse and treasury, raining down, throughout the boundless world-systems of the ten directions, every kind of treasure, clothing, and food there is — as the verse puts it: "the bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha has attained the treasury of empty space itself, providing fully for every sentient being, this treasury never once exhausted" — and it is for this reason that he is named Ākāśagarbha. He rises from his seat and bows to the Buddha.

"Together with the Tathāgata here": referring to the Tathāgata Śākyamuni; the buddha Dīpaṃkara here is exactly the buddha "Burning Lamp." As the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra explains: at the moment of this prince's own birth, his body's own light shone like a lamp — and, later giving rise to the resolve to leave the household life, all the way through to his own attainment of buddhahood, he was thus named "Burning Lamp." This is the very buddha who, at the second incalculable aeon, bestowed the prediction of buddhahood upon our own founding teacher. Ākāśagarbha and Śākyamuni merely happened to serve this same buddha Dīpaṃkara together — this attainment of a boundless body is Ākāśagarbha's own account of what he himself realized, not something realized together with Śākyamuni at the very same time.

Since this bodhisattva already takes the nature of emptiness as his own body, he ought, accordingly, to take the wisdom of emptiness as his own hand as well. "Four great, precious jewels" are exactly the wisdom-jewels that illuminate the four elements as empty. This bodhisattva, having already attained a body of empty space itself, has thereby already emptied the four elements composing his own inner self — yet were the outer four elements of every other dharma not likewise emptied, his own bodily appearance would remain impure, and this great function of his would fail to pervade everywhere. And so, with this same wisdom of emptiness, he illuminates the buddha-lands of the ten directions, as numerous as motes of dust, and every one of these outer four elements is, one by one, transformed into empty space itself — this emptiness not the mere emptiness of annihilation, but rather emptying every false appearance, until falseness is exhausted and truth alone remains pure, this true, empty, wondrous wisdom, its own light melting everything within its reach, transforming each into this same true, empty, wondrous principle, one by one — and it is through this that he attains this very substance, realizing the virtue of the dharma-body.

"My own mind" is exactly his own true mind of original enlightenment. "A great, round mirror appeared" — this wisdom results from the Buddha's own transformation of the eighth consciousness. Because Ākāśagarbha has partially realized the Tathāgata's own threefold, secret treasury of virtue, he is thereby able to manifest this same wisdom, and, further, to manifest, within this single, comprehensive wisdom, ten further, particular kinds of wisdom as well; these "ten kinds of subtle, precious light" are exactly these ten kinds of wisdom — as in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra's own wisdom of the three times, extending all the way to the boundless wisdom of every buddha. This light of wisdom, flowing throughout the ten directions, reaching all the way to the very edge of empty space itself, means that every world-system within this space, without exception, lies within the very reach of this light of wisdom, form and emptiness alike unobstructed. Or, alternatively: through this single wisdom, manifesting these same ten kinds of wisdom, illuminating every one of the ten dharma-realms completely, exhausting both true emptiness and wondrous existence together — this belongs to the manifestation of appearance, phenomena, in their entirety, identical with principle itself, forming the dharma-realm of the unobstructed interpenetration of principle and phenomena, and thereby realizing the virtue of prajñā.

This describes gathering every land into his own body, and, what follows, dividing his own body to enter every land in turn — direct and circumstantial retribution alike, mutually gathering into one another, perfectly interfused and free, this being exactly the dharma-realm of the unobstructed interpenetration of phenomena with one another, an inconceivable function indeed. "Every banner-crowned, kingly land" refers to the banner-crowned, kingly lands found among the boundless fragrant-water oceans — that is, the vast realm of his own circumstantial retribution — gathered into his own body, the realm of his own direct retribution, his own body now the same as empty space itself, neither ever obstructing the other — this being exactly the gate of the vast and the narrow, each at perfect ease with the other, without any obstruction at all.

This describes his own direct retribution entering into his own circumstantial retribution in turn. "My own body is able to enter skillfully": a single body entering a single land, or many bodies entering many lands, could neither properly be called "entering skillfully" — what is truly meant by "entering skillfully" here is a single body dividing itself into boundless bodies, entering, at the very same moment, lands as numerous as motes of dust everywhere at once, carrying out boundless buddha-work throughout. "Attaining great, spontaneous accord" is exactly great freedom itself — this being the very function that arises from this same attainment, realizing the virtue of liberation.

"This great spiritual power" refers to exactly this unobstructed interpenetration of form and emptiness, this mutual gathering of direct and circumstantial retribution into one another. From "comes from my own" on, the passage states the very source of this spiritual power — arising from his own contemplation of emptiness. I contemplated closely how the four elements are, at root, never truly existing outside the mind at all, nothing but what the mind itself manifests, with no substance of their own to be found anywhere — "nothing to depend upon" being exactly "no substance of their own." They arise and cease only in dependence on false thought — a thought arising, they seem, though not truly existent, to exist; a thought subsiding, their own substance, examined directly, is empty — hence, "empty space itself admits of no duality at all." Since the four elements are, in this way, the same as empty space, with no difference between them at all, and since a buddha-land, too, is composed of nothing but these same four elements, a buddha-land, too, must be, at root, empty of itself — "the same" here meaning exactly this same emptiness, taking empty space itself as what makes them all the same.

"It was from this very sameness that I attained the patient acceptance of the unborn": that is, within this very nature of emptiness, he brought to light the very nature of the tathāgatagarbha, awakening to the fact that the nature of awareness is true emptiness, and the nature of emptiness is true awareness, originally pure, pervading the whole Dharma-realm everywhere at once. The very arising of this nature of emptiness is itself the unborn — and the same holds for every other great element as well — he no longer sees even the slightest mark of any dharma arising or ceasing at all — hence, "attained the patient acceptance of the unborn." Every great, spontaneous function described above arises entirely from the power of exactly this same forbearance.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through cultivating this contemplation of emptiness, observing the boundlessness of empty space itself, this contemplation accomplished, samādhi attained, he entered this very samādhi. "This wondrous power now perfectly bright and complete" is exactly the earlier unobstructed interpenetration of form and emptiness, direct and circumstantial retribution interfused perfectly with one another, the ten directions perfectly bright, attaining great freedom — it is exactly this contemplation of emptiness, then, that he holds as foremost.

Sūtra: Maitreya Bodhisattva rose at once from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "I recall how, in a kalpa as numerous as motes of dust ago, there appeared a buddha named Candrasūryapradīpa, under whom I left the household life — though my own heart still valued worldly reputation, and I loved to move among noble families. The World-Honored One then taught me to cultivate the samādhi of mind-only, consciousness-only, thereby entering samādhi. Across kalpas ever since, through this very samādhi, I have served buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and this craving for worldly reputation has, at last, entirely come to rest. By the age of the buddha Dīpaṃkara's own appearance in the world, I had, at last, accomplished this unsurpassed, wondrous, perfectly complete samādhi of consciousness itself — extending, from there, all the way to every one of the Tathāgata's own lands throughout the whole of empty space, pure or defiled, existent or not, all of them nothing but a transformation manifested by my own mind. World-Honored One, having fully understood that it is exactly this — that everything is mind, is consciousness alone — this very nature of consciousness itself has flowed forth, manifesting countless Tathāgatas in turn; and now I have received the prediction of buddhahood, to succeed in time to the very rank of a buddha myself. As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: as I have realized it, contemplating closely how the ten directions are nothing but consciousness alone, this mind of consciousness perfectly bright and complete, entering the truly, perfectly accomplished nature itself, departing far from both the dependent nature and the imagined, universally clung-to nature, and thereby attaining the patient acceptance of the unborn, is foremost."

Commentary: Maitreya's name, in Sanskrit, is Maitreya in full, meaning "of loving-kindness," his own family name — his given name being Ajita, meaning "unsurpassed," yet he is called here "of loving-kindness" instead, since he attained the samādhi of loving-kindness, a loving-kindness that nothing can surpass. Rising from his seat, he bows and addresses the Buddha: I recall how, in a kalpa as numerous as motes of dust ago, there appeared a buddha named Candrasūryapradīpa — this buddha's own name, as explained earlier, reflecting three kinds of wisdom together. "Under whom I left the household life": this refers only to leaving his own worldly household — his own heart still valued worldly reputation and material gain — reputation and gain being causally linked, so that the body becomes enslaved to the pursuit of gain — and he loved to hurry among the noble families, mingling with the great clans, wherever reputation and gain might be found — hence, "loved to move among noble families." As the Lotus Sūtra puts it: "clinging to reputation and gain, seeking them without ever being satisfied, loving to move among the noble families, abandoning what he had studied and recited" — exactly this.

The World-Honored One, observing his own capacity and teaching accordingly, seeing that I valued worldly reputation so heavily, my own mind scattered and restless, taught me to cultivate the samādhi of mind-only, consciousness-only, observing that the three realms are nothing but mind, and every dharma nothing but consciousness alone — penetrating through to the fact that every outer object whatsoever is nothing but a transformation manifested by mind and consciousness themselves, like a dream, like an illusion, with nothing genuinely real in any of it at all. Through cultivating this samādhi, my own mind no longer scattered and restless, no longer seeking outwardly at all, I thereby entered samādhi. This samādhi of mind-only, consciousness-only, once accomplished, continued on, from the buddha Candrasūryapradīpa onward, across kalpas ever since, through this very samādhi, serving buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. As this consciousness-only samādhi deepened, he contemplated how "wealth and rank among people are like dew upon a flower; fame and achievement in this world are like foam upon the water." Cultivating only this inward contemplation, no longer seeking anything outwardly at all, this craving for worldly reputation thereby entirely came to rest.

The buddha Dīpaṃkara is the very buddha who, at the second incalculable aeon, bestowed the prediction of buddhahood upon our own founding teacher Śākyamuni. By the time of this buddha's own appearance in the world, I had, at last, accomplished this unsurpassed, wondrous, perfectly complete samādhi of consciousness itself. Though he had already attained this samādhi before, it had not yet reached this wondrous completeness, and so could not yet be called "unsurpassed" — yet though his accumulated practice spanned many kalpas, entering into this principle occurred within a single instant, exactly like a ripened melon falling from its own stem: within a single instant, he suddenly awakened to the nature of consciousness itself, luminously knowing, this awareness's own bright, true consciousness — consciousness, in its entirety, nature itself; nature, in its entirety, consciousness itself — originally nothing but the tathāgatagarbha. "Wondrous" names the nature of suchness itself; "perfectly complete" names its own perfect, all-pervading completeness — and this is exactly proceeding from the Yogâcāra school's own provisional teaching into the perfect teaching's own true reality.

The section above accomplished samādhi and attained this very substance; this section now, matching this substance, gives rise to its own function. This manifestation of buddha-lands is the very place depended upon; what follows, manifesting a Tathāgata, is the very lord who teaches and transforms beings there. The buddha-lands manifested here are of three kinds: "pure or defiled, existent or not" corresponds to three kinds of land — first, the land of dharma-nature itself, depended upon by the dharma-body, neither pure nor defiled, exactly the land of eternal, still light; second, the land of enjoyment, depended upon by the reward-body, pure without any defilement at all, exactly the land of complete reward and adornment; and third, the land of transformation, depended upon by the manifestation-body, both pure and defiled together, exactly the land shared in common by ordinary beings and sages alike. Every one of these, without exception, is nothing but a transformation manifested by my own mind of consciousness. Since it is called "manifested," its own substance is, at root, empty of itself; and since it is called "a transformation," its own appearance is not genuinely real either — true emptiness posing no obstruction to wondrous existence, hence these lands are manifested at all; wondrous existence posing no obstruction to true emptiness, hence they are nothing but this same manifestation, and nothing more.

Having now fully penetrated the fact that these lands, pure or defiled, are nothing but what mind and consciousness themselves manifest, this very nature of consciousness, further, flows forth, manifesting countless Tathāgatas in turn. Though I myself have not yet become a buddha, I am already able to manifest lands and manifest buddhas alike, accomplishing every task any buddha must undertake, liberating boundless sentient beings far and wide. The Buddha now knows that I have already realized this unsurpassed, wondrous, perfectly complete samādhi of the mind of consciousness itself, and so I have received this very prediction of buddhahood, to succeed in time to buddhahood myself, as the fifth buddha of the present fortunate aeon, descending, in an age yet to come, to teach beneath the nāga-flower tree, through three great assemblies, liberating beings there.

This closes his answer on perfect penetration: through the great element of consciousness, contemplating closely how every direct and circumstantial realm throughout the ten directions, defiled or pure, is nothing but a transformation manifested by this very mind of consciousness, he understood that the three realms are nothing but mind, and every dharma nothing but consciousness alone, this mind of consciousness without any duality at all, a single substance, perfectly bright and complete. There is a further reading as well: this mind of consciousness is itself fully complete with every dharma there is, illuminating every dharma universally, with no dharma whatsoever that is not, in itself, this same mind of consciousness — hence, "perfectly bright and complete." And so he was thereby able to enter the truly, perfectly accomplished nature itself; and, having entered this truly, perfectly accomplished nature, he could naturally depart far from both the dependent nature and the imagined, universally clung-to nature as well.

The truly, perfectly accomplished nature is the true substance itself, capable of serving as what every dharma depends upon — comparable to hemp fiber itself. The dependent nature is the false appearance that arises in dependence on this truly, perfectly accomplished nature — an appearance that exists, yet with no nature of its own behind it — this, considered in relation to what is genuinely true, is comparable to a rope, since a rope is made by depending on hemp fiber. The universally clung-to, imagined nature is what, upon this same dependent nature, one calculates and discriminates about universally, clinging falsely to it as real — existing only as a feeling, with no principle behind it at all — comparable to a snake, as when, mistaking a rope glimpsed in the dark of night, one falsely takes it for a snake. Now, having departed far from both of these two kinds of clinging based on mere feeling, exactly as the Buddha himself has said — once false thought is set aside, the wisdom that needs no teacher, wisdom spontaneous and of itself, manifests in every direction — he thereby attained the forbearance of the unborn nature of all things, that is, entered this truly, perfectly accomplished nature itself. It is exactly this close contemplation of consciousness-only, then, that he holds as foremost.

The teaching of the three natures within Consciousness-Only thought explains this as follows. First, the universally clung-to, imagined nature: as the verse puts it, "through this and that universal calculation, one universally calculates every kind of thing; what this universal calculation clings to has, in its own nature, nothing there at all." The treatise explains: calculating and discriminating universally is why it is called "universal calculation"; and since there are so many different kinds of things calculated in this way, it is called "this and that." Because the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, spreading universally across every defiled and pure dharma alike, calculate that there exists a real self and real dharmas there, this is called what universal calculation clings to. This universal calculation is, at root, empty — exactly like the snake seen upon a rope. Second, the dependent nature: as the verse puts it, "the nature that arises in dependence on other things is what discrimination, dependent on its own conditions, gives rise to." The treatise explains: what is produced by a multitude of conditions — the very substance of mind and mental factors, together with their appearing-portion and seeing-portion alike — arises, in every case, dependent on this same multitude of conditions. Because it depends on this multitude of conditions, combining and arising together with one another, it is exactly like an illusory event — comparable to a rope formed upon hemp fiber. Third, the truly, perfectly accomplished nature: as the verse puts it, "the truly, perfectly accomplished nature, with regard to this same dependent nature, is what forever departs from the former, universally clung-to nature." The treatise explains: upon this same dependent nature, forever departing from that former universally clung-to attachment — no longer clinging within to a real self, nor clinging without to real dharmas — the twin emptiness of self and of dharmas is what suchness itself, as the nature thereby revealed, actually is — hence, "the truly, perfectly accomplished nature" — this being comparable to the hemp fiber itself. Hence the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: "the imagined nature is like the snake; the dependent nature is like the rope; the truly accomplished nature is like the hemp fiber." For a rope to arise upon hemp fiber is already a kind of falseness — how much more so, then, for a snake to arise, in turn, upon this very rope!

Commentary: This perfect penetration through "the great element of the faculties" means gathering in all six sense-faculties together at once, not cultivating through a single faculty alone — for were it a single faculty alone, it would simply be the same as the earlier testimonies through the six sense-faculties. Among the seven great elements, this "great element of the faculties" would ordinarily come right before the great element of consciousness — yet this bodhisattva is placed here, after Maitreya, matched specifically to the capacity at hand. Just as Avalokiteśvara, though not properly counted among the six sense-faculties at all, is placed uniquely last of all the twenty-five, for three distinct reasons — first, because the Buddha's own hidden intention, in the earlier section teaching how to awaken to the perfect faculty and enter through the one, had already hinted that the ear-faculty is the most excellent of all; second, because sentient beings of this particular world have the sharpest ear-faculty of all, easiest to cultivate and realize through, exactly as Mañjuśrī will say: "the true substance of the teaching, in this particular place, lies in the pure nature of hearing itself"; and third, because, matched to the capacity of Ānanda in particular, so habitually accustomed to relying on the ear-faculty, simply having him no longer follow the outward stream of hearing sound, but instead go against this stream to illuminate his own nature, would let him find his way home along the very road he was already on — following the outward stream to hear sound being exactly the very root of bondage, the root of birth and death itself; going against this stream to illuminate one's own nature being exactly the very key to liberation, the gate that leads to nirvāṇa itself. Hence Avalokiteśvara is placed last, his account of resolving the knot through cultivation and realization, and his vast, wondrous function of benefiting beings, set forth at length, so as to draw out Ānanda's own admiration and longing — in exactly the same way, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, too, knowing this same hidden intention of the Buddha's, recognizes that, matched to the particular capacity of this world, cultivating and realizing the great samādhi of the Śūraṅgama is indeed best accomplished through the ear-faculty; yet, considered in terms of what benefits all three kinds of capacity equally, transcending birth and death directly and at once, it is the teaching of recollecting the Buddha alone that is the simplest, easiest, most sudden and complete of all, truly worthy of being called foremost — hence he, too, is placed here, right after the great element of consciousness.

Sūtra: Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the Dharma-Prince, together with his fellow companions, fifty-two bodhisattvas in all, rose at once from their seats, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha:

Commentary: As for Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the Contemplation Sūtra says: "with the light of his own wisdom, illuminating everything universally, causing beings to depart from the three lower destinies and attain unsurpassed power — hence he is named Mahāsthāmaprāpta," "the one who has attained great power." The Sūtra of Questions of Viśeṣacintā-brahma says: "wherever I set my own foot down, the whole great-thousand-world-system trembles, together with every demon palace within it — hence I am named Mahāsthāmaprāpta." He is also called "the one who has attained great strength," since he is capable of accomplishing every task that must be done, thereby attaining this great power and strength. The Sūtra of Compassionate Flowers recounts: in a past age, when Amitābha served as a wheel-turning king, Avalokiteśvara was his eldest son, and Mahāsthāmaprāpta his second son — and now, in the Land of Bliss, they dwell to Amitābha's own left and right, aiding and assisting his own transforming influence, each awaiting, in turn, his own succession to buddhahood.

Amitābha's own name means "boundless life" — yet this is a boundlessness that is, in fact, itself bounded, and he too will, in time, enter nirvāṇa. After Amitābha's own nirvāṇa, the true Dharma will continue to abide in the world for a further boundless span of kalpas — the true Dharma coming to its own end in the very first half of that final night, and, in the second half of that same night, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva attaining buddhahood, named the Tathāgata King of the Mountain of Universal Light and Merit. This buddha's own lifespan, and the duration of his own true Dharma, will likewise both be boundless; and while this true Dharma still abides in the world, Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva will teach and transform sentient beings, himself awaiting his own succession to buddhahood — and when this true Dharma comes to its own end, in the first half of that same future night, Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva will attain buddhahood in the second half of that night, named the Tathāgata King of the Well-Abiding Treasury of Merit.

"Dharma-Prince" is another title for a bodhisattva — "Dharma-King" refers to the Buddha, the Buddha being the very king of the Dharma, free and sovereign with regard to it. A Dharma-prince is capable of giving rise to four kinds of mind: first, giving rise to the vast mind — vowing to liberate boundless sentient beings, gathering in, throughout the worlds of the ten directions, those who recollect the Buddha, and leading them to the Pure Land; second, giving rise to the foremost mind — vowing to accomplish unsurpassed buddhahood, and, though already partially realizing the three virtues, still seeking the ultimate, twofold adornment of merit and wisdom; third, giving rise to the constant mind — assisting Amitābha and Avalokiteśvara across kalpas without end, never once growing weary; and fourth, giving rise to the mind free of inversion — liberating beings across kalpas without ever clinging to any mark of "liberating" at all, liberating without liberating, this very liberating being itself no liberating at all, capable of shouldering the Tathāgata's own heavy burden, capable of inheriting the Dharma-King's own household estate — a true son of the Dharma-King indeed, hence the title "Dharma-Prince."

"Together with his fellow companions, fifty-two bodhisattvas": "together" means "along with"; "fellow" means "of the same kind." This must be divided into two categories, of his own practice and of transforming others: first, in his own practice, all alike take up this same mind of recollecting the Buddha, attaining thereby the patient acceptance of the unborn — yet though they cultivate this same teaching of recollecting the Buddha together, the depth of their own accomplishment differs, some abiding at the stage of dry wisdom, others at the ten faiths, the ten abidings, the ten practices, the ten transferences, the ten grounds, or equal enlightenment — fifty-two stages in all, hence "fifty-two bodhisattvas," though this number is not meant as a strict, fixed count. Second, in transforming others, they all alike use this same teaching of recollecting the Buddha to teach and transform sentient beings, now, in this present world, gathering in those who recollect the Buddha and leading them to the Pure Land — and, according to the depth of their own accomplishment, those they transform likewise fall into this same fifty-two-fold distinction.

"Bodhisattva," in full, is bodhi-sattva — the Sanskrit "bodhi" translates as "awakening"; "sattva" translates as "sentient being," a general term covering beings of all nine realms alike. The six ordinary realms of beings have not yet severed craving and attachment; the three vehicles' own beings have not yet exhausted discriminating feeling — hence both alike are called "sentient beings." "An awakened sentient being" refers here specifically to Mahāsthāmaprāpta, and admits of three distinct senses: first, benefiting himself — being a sentient being already awakened, knowing that he himself is, at root, already a buddha, and that, should he only recollect the Buddha, buddhahood must surely follow; second, benefiting others — being capable of using this same path of his own awakening to awaken every other sentient being as well, teaching and transforming beings, so that they, with one mind, recollect the Buddha together and accomplish buddhahood alike; and third, carrying forward both wisdom and compassion at once — seeking the Buddha's own awakening above, for his own benefit, and carrying compassion below, to liberate sentient beings, for the benefit of others — and it is because of these three senses together that he is called "an awakened sentient being."

"Rose at once from their seats" and bowed at the Buddha's own two feet — offering the very crown of their own head, the most exalted part of the body, in homage to our own Buddha's own feet, the very humblest part of his body, so as to express their own utmost reverence — and said to the Buddha: this is the very ceremony of requesting the teaching, recounted here by the sūtra's own compiler.

Sūtra: "I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges, there appeared a buddha named Boundless Light — twelve Tathāgatas appearing one after another within this same kalpa — and the very last of these, named Light Surpassing Sun and Moon, taught me the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha."

Commentary: A bodhisattva refers to himself as "I" as a matter of provisional self, and of the true self of the dharma-body alike — there being no harm in following worldly convention and speaking of himself this way, quite unlike an ordinary being's own false clinging to a self. An ordinary being falsely clings to this false body of the four elements as a genuinely real self, failing to understand that no dharma whatsoever truly has any self at all — and once this attachment to self arises, craving, aversion, and delusion, every one of them, arise from exactly this. Craving wealth as something for this self to enjoy, craving beauty as something for this self to delight in, craving fame as something for this self to be glorified by, craving food as something to nourish this self, craving sleep as something to give this self its rest — and should this very wealth, beauty, fame, food, or sleep, so craved by this self, ever be obstructed or taken away by another, then a mind of anger and rage rises up at once — this anger arising from craving is itself delusion. One thus knows that this attachment to self is the very root of every evil — body and mind, because of it, can never find peace, and the world, because of it, can never find harmony.

Nor is this the same as the self falsely calculated by those outside the teaching. Those outside the teaching hold to twenty-five categories, the very first being the category of primordial obscurity, from which arises the great awareness, from which arises the mind of self, from which arise the five subtle elements, from which arise the five gross elements, from which arise the eleven faculties, and, last, what is called the spiritual self — calculating that this spiritual self possesses power over all things — this belonging entirely to deviant knowledge and deviant views. This bodhisattva has already attained the emptiness of self, and so speaks of himself according to neither the ordinary being's own false clinging, nor the outside teaching's own deviant calculation, but according to neither of these two kinds of "self" at all. "I recall how, in a kalpa as distant as the sands of the Ganges" — the word "I" has already been explained above; "recall" means to call to mind, remembering clearly without forgetting. What is past is called "how... ago." The Ganges is also called the Gaṅgā River, meaning "come down from the heavenly hall," describing how lofty its own source must be. This river issues from the summit of the snowy mountains of India, flowing out from Lake Anavatapta — "Anavatapta" being the name of the nāga-king for whom this lake itself is named. This lake has four outlets, from which four rivers flow: from the silver ox's mouth in the east flows the Gaṅgā River, "come down from the heavenly hall," that is, the Ganges itself, forty li wide, its riverbed of silver sand, this sand as fine as flour; from the golden elephant's mouth in the south flows the Sindhu River, meaning "the tested river," its riverbed of golden sand; from the vaiḍūrya horse's mouth in the west flows the Vakṣu River, "the blue river," its riverbed of vaiḍūrya sand; and from the crystal lion's mouth in the north flows the Sītā River, "the cold river," its riverbed of crystal sand — the very source of China's own Yellow River. The Jetavana Grove, where the Buddha himself dwelt, lies close to the Ganges, and so, whenever speaking of some vast number, this same river's sand is constantly taken as the standard image. Speaking here of "kalpas as distant as the sands of the Ganges" shows, in this same way, just how long a span of time has passed. "Kalpa," in full, is kalpa in Sanskrit, meaning "a very long division of time."

"There appeared a buddha named Boundless Light": at that time, a buddha appeared in the world — the Sanskrit "buddha," in full, is buddha, meaning "the awakened one," a person of great awakening, complete with the wondrous principle of original enlightenment, giving rise to the wondrous wisdom of initial enlightenment, and realizing the wondrous fruit of final, complete enlightenment — only one who has accomplished all of this may properly be called a buddha. Even a buddha, at the causal stage, was once a single sentient being on the human path, cultivating his way to buddhahood. "Original enlightenment" is exactly the buddha-nature every sentient being already possesses — every single one, without exception — this nature being exactly this same unborn, unceasing, true nature found within every sentient being's own six sense-faculties, exactly this same wondrous principle of suchness, its own substance never changing, however defiled the conditions a sentient being may encounter. As was said earlier: "even should your own body one day dissolve entirely, your very life's light departing and passing on — how, then, could this same nature of hearing ever be dissolved along with you?" Following conditions, yet never changing — hence it is called "wondrous." Though every single sentient being already, inherently possesses this same wondrous principle of original enlightenment, most remain deluded and unaware of it, and so remain ordinary beings — until, whether encountering a wise teacher's own guidance, or reading and awakening through the sūtras' own teaching, they come to understand that sentient beings already possess the buddha-nature, originally already buddha — this is called initial enlightenment, awakening, at last, out of what had been unenlightened before. This initial enlightenment belongs to this same wondrous wisdom, and, relying on this wondrous wisdom to illuminate this wondrous principle in turn, illuminating all the way to the very source of the mind itself, one thereby accomplishes the wondrous fruit of final, complete enlightenment — called the perfect completion of the three kinds of enlightenment, every virtue fully complete, a person of great awakening indeed. Rising above all nine realms as uniquely honored, becoming the very guide of the three realms, the compassionate father of every kind of birth — hence he appears in the world.

"Named Boundless Light": this buddha takes his own name from light itself, this light being so supremely excellent that he is named Boundless Light. Yet light itself divides into the light of the body and the light of wisdom: the light of wisdom, every buddha alike attaining this same wisdom knowing every mode, is the same light in every case; the light of the body, however, may illuminate a single yojana, ten yojanas, or a hundred thousand yojanas, or a single world, ten worlds, or a hundred thousand worlds. To be called "boundless" here means illuminating the lands of the ten directions universally, with no obstruction anywhere at all — even reaching into the very depths between the iron encircling mountains, where the divine light of neither sun nor moon can ever reach, and yet still bringing great brightness there as well. This buddha named Boundless Light shares the very same name as Amitābha himself — yet, appearing kalpas as distant as the sands of the Ganges before this present age, he cannot be Amitābha himself, but rather a different buddha bearing this same name. Many buddhas share the very same name in this way — just as there was an ancient Śākyamuni before our own.

"Twelve Tathāgatas appearing one after another within this same kalpa": according to the Larger Sūtra of Amitāyus, these are: the buddha Boundless Light, Boundless-Edge Light, Unobstructed Light, Unrivaled Light, Flame-King Light, Pure Light, Joyful Light, Wisdom Light, Unceasing Light, Inconceivable Light, Indescribable Light, and Light Surpassing Sun and Moon. First, Boundless Light: true wisdom illuminating principle itself, without any limit or measure at all. Second, Boundless-Edge Light: provisional wisdom illuminating phenomena, without any boundary or edge at all. Third, Unobstructed Light: this light of loving-kindness granting joy, without any obstruction at all. Fourth, Unrivaled Light: this light of compassion relieving suffering, with nothing capable of opposing it at all. Fifth, Flame-King Light: light and sound responding and transforming, attaining freedom thereby. Sixth, Pure Light: delusion and defilement both left behind, giving rise to this pure light. Seventh, Joyful Light: causing others to receive great benefit, giving rise to great joy thereby. Eighth, Wisdom Light: through great wisdom, breaking through every delusion. Ninth, Unceasing Light: constantly emitting this light from his own body, never once interrupted. Tenth, Inconceivable Light: its own wondrous function inexhaustible, beyond all conception. Eleventh, Indescribable Light: complete with every virtue, beyond all description. And twelfth, Light Surpassing Sun and Moon: peering into the heavens and surveying the earth, surpassing everything there is. These twelve Tathāgatas appeared in the world one after another, within this same single kalpa.

"The very last of these, named Light Surpassing Sun and Moon": though the sun and moon give off their own light, they cannot illuminate beneath an overturned basin — yet this buddha's own light, shining forth across every age, past and present alike, entirely undiminished, surpasses even a thousand suns in its own brightness. "Taught me the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha": read according to this present sūtra's own text, this refers specifically to this last of the twelve buddhas; yet according to the larger sūtra's own account, these twelve names are, in fact, alternate titles for the single buddha Amitāyus, one single buddha-body throughout — so that this present account, describing twelve buddhas appearing one after another instead, would not, strictly speaking, describe one and the same being. "Taught me": instructing him directly in words is called "teaching" — this teaching being exactly the Buddha's own skillful method for liberating sentient beings, teaching them to cultivate a cause that will bring about its corresponding fruit, teaching them to leave suffering behind and attain happiness instead.

"The samādhi of recollecting the Buddha" is exactly this same supreme, skillful means — cultivating a cause to bring about its fruit, leaving suffering behind to attain happiness. Recollecting the Buddha is the very practice of purifying one's own three karmic activities; samādhi is the very attainment of this same purity, whether through actual practice or through principle, the mind undivided and undisturbed. If one can genuinely recollect the Buddha, one will surely attain this samādhi; and if one wishes to attain this samādhi, one need only recollect the Buddha. Recollecting the Buddha takes four forms: first, recollecting the Buddha by holding his name, hearing the Buddha's own name spoken and reciting it single-mindedly; second, recollecting the Buddha by contemplating his image, setting up an image of the Buddha and fixing one's gaze upon it; third, recollecting the Buddha by contemplative visualization, using one's own mind's eye to behold the Tathāgata directly; and fourth, recollecting the Buddha through true reality itself, that is, recollecting one's own nature, the true buddha of the dharma-body itself. These four forms of recollecting the Buddha differ in name, and differ, too, in the depth of the principle each involves.

The recollection of the Buddha spoken of in this present chapter is exactly recollection by holding his name — and this, in turn, divides into recollection through actual practice and recollection through principle. Recollection through actual practice: there is a mind capable of recollecting, and a name of the Buddha that is recollected, the mind single-mindedly fixed upon the Buddha, mind and Buddha never departing from one another. I have often told others: the method of recollection through actual practice is this — within the mind, there is nothing but the Buddha, and, apart from the Buddha, no mind exists at all; reciting with the mouth, recollecting with the mind; recollecting with the mind, reciting with the mouth; every single word arising from the mind, every single word issuing from the mouth, every single word entering back in through the ear. Reciting in this way, one never falls into dullness or distraction, each recitation continuing on from the last, without a single break. Should one's mouth grow dry from reciting so long, it is permissible to recollect with the mind alone, without reciting aloud — but it is never permissible to recite aloud without the mind's own recollection accompanying it. There are, further, two images for this method of recollecting the Buddha: first, one should be like a cat catching a mouse, one's entire attention gathered up at once, every hair on the body standing on end; and second, one should be like a hen brooding over her eggs, every other thought set entirely aside, food and drink alike forgotten. If one is truly able to recollect the Buddha in this way, then, though this remains recollection through actual practice alone, not only is rebirth in the Pure Land assured, but awakening to the underlying principle, too, may be hoped for in time. As Chan Master Konggu put it: "there is no need to inquire into who it is that recollects the Buddha — simply continue this single-minded recollection directly, and a day of awakening will come of itself" — exactly this.

Recollection through principle requires no separate point of inquiry at all — one need only take up this single phrase, "Amitābha Buddha," and, even as one recollects it, turn this very recollection back upon itself: apart from this very recollecting mind, there is no Buddha there for me to recollect at all — this mind is itself the Buddha; and apart from this very Buddha recollected, there is no mind there capable of recollecting the Buddha either — this Buddha is itself the mind. Subject and object both, together, vanish; mind and Buddha become one and the same — this is exactly the middle way, recollecting the Buddha according to principle itself. Reciting the Buddha's name the whole day through, and yet, the whole day through, there is no Buddha there to be recollected at all; free of recollection the whole day through, and yet, the whole day through, recollecting, moment after moment, the Buddha himself. Were one to say this recollection genuinely exists, then this very recollecting mind can, in the end, never be found at all, and this very Buddha recollected is free of every mark, beyond every name; yet were one to say it is empty, then this very recollecting mind remains, throughout, vividly aware, and this very Buddha recollected remains, throughout, plainly, distinctly present. Recollecting the Buddha in this way, neither emptiness nor existence can be established at all, mind and Buddha become one and the same — and so recollection by holding the name comes to penetrate through to true reality itself. Though these four forms of recollecting the Buddha grow deeper, each one further than the last, once recollection through principle has borne its own fruit, this fruit, too, penetrates all the way back through each of the earlier three in turn.

"Samādhi" is a Sanskrit term, meaning "correct concentration" — that is, the mind undivided and undisturbed, this very fruit of recollecting the Buddha borne to completion. There is, further, both the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha through actual practice with a single, undivided mind, and the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha through principle with a single, undivided mind. What is meant by the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha through actual practice with a single, undivided mind? Hearing that this teaching of recollecting the Buddha can carry one directly across the three realms, swiftly escaping birth and death altogether, one believes this deeply, without the slightest doubt, vows to be reborn in the Pure Land, and fixes one's mind single-mindedly upon it, every single recitation plainly distinct, each moment's recollection continuing on from the last, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, holding to this one thought alone, with no second thought at all — that is, using this single thought to displace every other thought entirely, no longer thrown into confusion by inner delusion or outer circumstance. As the Sūtra of the Establishment of Luminous Concentration puts it: "whether in empty solitude, or amid the crowd's own turmoil, unifying the mind throughout; even amid slander, loss, praise, or blame, unifying the mind throughout" — exactly this. This much can be attained through actual practice alone, though it has not yet penetrated through to the underlying principle — attaining only the power of faith accomplished, not yet having seen the path itself; belonging only to the gate of samādhi, without wisdom present within it at all — capable only of subduing falseness, not yet capable of breaking through it entirely. Rebirth in the Pure Land, among the nine grades of lotus blossom, would fall, at this level, among the middle three grades — the depth of one's own effort determining whether one falls among the upper, middle, or lower three grades in turn; and the lower three grades belong to those who have not yet attained this same samādhi of recollecting the Buddha with a single, undivided mind, whether through actual practice or through principle, at all.

And what is meant by the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha through principle with a single, undivided mind? Hearing that this teaching of recollecting the Buddha is itself the unsurpassed, profound, and wondrous form of meditation, one observes closely, at the very moment of recollecting the Buddha, that recollecting the Buddha is exactly recollecting one's own mind — mind and Buddha one and the same, subject and object not two different things at all — utterly still, and yet constantly illuminating: this is recollection without recollection; illuminating, and yet constantly still: this is recollection that is itself no recollection at all. Fully understanding that the Buddha is exactly the mind, and the mind is exactly the Buddha, mind and Buddha's own distinction dissolved away, subject and object's own feeling of separation vanished entirely, utterly still and unmoving, calm and ever-abiding. This does not focus exclusively on outward phenomena, but purely cultivates contemplation of principle itself, and, this power of contemplation accomplished, is capable of seeing the truth directly — hence belonging to the very gate of wisdom; while also attaining samādhi at the same time, abiding securely within this mind-only Pure Land, personally beholding Amitābha as one's own nature itself. Rebirth in the Pure Land, at this level, falls among the upper three grades — birth here being birth decisively assured, and yet, in truth, no actual "going" involved at all, since even the Land of Bliss, said to lie a hundred thousand million lands away, never actually departs from this single mind to begin with.

"Samādhi" is a general term for meditative contemplation, as the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra puts it: "every form of meditative concentration that gathers in the mind is called samādhi." This is here called "the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha," also named "the samādhi of a single practice." The Sūtra of Mañjuśrī's Perfection of Wisdom has the Buddha tell Mañjuśrī: "one who wishes to enter the samādhi of a single practice should dwell in a quiet, solitary place, setting aside every scattered thought, taking hold of no outward appearance at all, fixing the mind upon a single buddha, reciting his name exclusively, facing in whatever direction that buddha may be found, the body held upright and directly facing him, and continuing this recollection of this single buddha, moment after moment without a break. Within this very recollection, one is thereby able to see the buddhas of the past, future, and present alike — for the merit of recollecting a single buddha is no different from the merit of recollecting boundless buddhas at once. One who attains this samādhi of a single practice comes to know, thereby, every teaching found in every sūtra completely."

One might ask: "does this teaching mean recollecting the buddhas of the ten directions, or recollecting Amitābha Buddha specifically?" The answer: it means recollecting Amitābha Buddha specifically. The bodhisattva Samantavaipulya once asked the Buddha: since every one of the ten directions has its own buddha-land, why does the Buddha praise the western land alone? The Buddha answered: the people of Jambudvīpa hold minds prone to confusion and disorder — having them fix their minds upon a single object alone is what actually brings about rebirth there; were they instead to recollect the buddhas of the ten directions all at once, their own objects of focus would multiply and their minds would scatter, and no samādhi could ever be accomplished at all. And, further, since every buddha shares this same, single dharma-body, to recollect a single buddha is already to recollect every buddha at once.

And, further, reciting Amitābha's own name accords directly with this buddha's own original vow, which states: "should sentient beings of the ten directions, hearing my own name, recollect it even as few as ten times, and yet fail to be reborn there, may I myself not attain complete awakening." If even ten recollections suffice for rebirth there, how much more so a single, undivided mind's own constant recollection! This teaching of recollecting the Buddha has, since ancient times, been called "the shortest of all short paths" — for simply continuing this pure recollection without a break is enough, of itself, to bring about rebirth there. It is like a swift steed, outpacing every other horse and yet still falling short of a dragon's own flight; or a soaring crane, already surpassing every ordinary bird and yet unable to rival the great roc's own ascent. The swift steed and the soaring crane stand for recollecting the Buddha through other gates of practice; the ordinary horses and birds stand for every other teaching besides; the dragon's flight and the roc's ascent stand for recollection by holding the Buddha's own name directly — for it is this teaching of recollecting the Buddha's name alone that, simply by holding fast to these six resounding syllables, brings about rebirth in the Pure Land, perfectly realizing the three kinds of non-regression at once, its own effort the simplest of all, its own result the swiftest of all.

Sūtra: "It is like two people, one wholly given to remembering the other, while the other constantly forgets him — such two people, whether they happen to meet or not, whether they see each other or not, remain, in effect, as good as strangers. But should both, instead, remember each other, this shared remembrance growing ever deeper between them, then, life after life, they remain together like a form and its own shadow, never parting from one another."

Commentary: This shows that remembering alone, on one side only, accomplishes nothing. It is like two people in this present world — referring here to close friends or family — one wholly given to remembering, holding this friend or relative constantly in mind, while the other, his own mind given wholly to other concerns, forgets this same friend or relative entirely. "Such two people" refers back to this same pair, one remembering, one forgetting; and so, whether these two happen to meet or not, whether they see each other or not — "happen to meet" and "see each other" speak of the one who remembers; "or not" and "or not" speak of the one who forgets. These two people stand for the Buddha and sentient beings: "remember" here means to hold in mind, recalling without ever forgetting; "recollect" means fixing one's attention upon something, never letting it go. The one wholly given to remembering stands for the Buddha holding sentient beings in mind; the other, who constantly forgets, stands for sentient beings failing to recollect the Buddha. The Buddha's own constant remembrance of sentient beings carries two distinct senses: first, because the Buddha holds this same great vow of compassion, seeing every sentient being as originally one and the same body with himself — he himself having already attained complete awakening and nirvāṇa, while sentient beings remain, even now, caught in the wheel of birth and death, never understanding it — and so he carries forward this great vow of compassion, constantly holding sentient beings in mind; and second, because the Buddha holds this same mind of perfect equality — even at the causal stage, as a bodhisattva, he never once, in a single thought, set sentient beings aside, how much less, then, now that he has become a buddha, viewing every being upon this great earth as though each were his own only child, and so, with this same mind of perfect equality, constantly holds them in mind.

Sentient beings' own failure to recollect the Buddha likewise carries two distinct senses: first, because sentient beings' own obstruction runs so heavy, bound fast by delusion, karma, and suffering, unable to free themselves — unwilling even to cultivate the causes and effects leading to rebirth among gods and humans, how much less, then, this teaching of recollecting the Buddha — and so they fail to recollect him at all; and second, because sentient beings' own wisdom remains so darkened, failing to recognize that this supreme, wondrous Dharma of recollecting the Buddha is capable of severing affliction, understanding birth and death, and accomplishing the buddha-path itself — that recollecting the Buddha in this very life can sever every afflicted, false thought, and, at the moment of death, bring about rebirth there, transcending the wheel of birth and death across the three realms directly, and that, once reborn in that land, one perfectly realizes non-regression and swiftly accomplishes the buddha-path — failing to give rise to this faith, unwilling to vow rebirth there, and so unwilling to recollect the Buddha at all.

"Whether they happen to meet or not, whether they see each other or not": these same two people stand for exactly this — the Buddha holding sentient beings in mind, while sentient beings fail to recollect the Buddha in turn. The Buddha, through the power of this great vow of compassion, constantly holds sentient beings in mind, roaming and transforming this Sahā world, so that sentient beings might happen to meet him, or see him directly — as when Amitābha manifested as Chan Master Fenggan, in Tiantai, within Taizhou, Zhejiang, appearing as an ordinary bhikṣu whom no one recognized at all — this being exactly "happening to meet" amounting to not meeting at all, "seeing" amounting to not seeing at all, entirely because of this lack of any power of recollecting the Buddha, and this lack of any vow to actually seek out Amitābha directly.

That Chan Master Fenggan was Amitābha's own manifestation comes from Hanshan's own words. Fenggan dwelt at Guoqing Monastery on Mount Tiantai, living in the rice-milling room, often riding a tiger in and out of the monastery grounds, and no one there knew who he truly was. One day, Fenggan invited Hanshan and Shide to journey together to Mount Wutai, saying: "come with me, and you are of my own kind; do not come with me, and you are not." Hanshan asked him: "what would we do at Wutai?" Fenggan answered: "pay homage to Mañjuśrī there." Hanshan said: "then you are not of my own kind — I will not go with you." And so Fenggan set out alone, traveling as far as Hangzhou, where he happened to meet a man named Lü Qiuyin, who had waited many years for an official appointment, his own family fallen into poverty — and who had just then been appointed prefect of Taizhou by the provincial government, but had suddenly fallen ill with a headache that no treatment could relieve. Fenggan came specially to visit him, but the gatekeeper turned him away. Fenggan said: "I have come specially to save his very life — why, then, will you not let me see him?" The gatekeeper reported this, and Lü at once agreed to receive him. Fenggan asked: "what ails you?" Lü said: "my head aches as though it would split apart." Fenggan said: "fetch a cup of water, and I will treat you." He then recited a mantra over it, placed the water in the palm of his own hand, and struck Lü's head with it three times — and the pain ceased at once. Lü, deeply grateful, asked after the master's own Dharma name, and which monastery he dwelt in. He answered: "my name is Fenggan; I dwell at Guoqing Monastery, on Mount Tiantai, in Taizhou." Lü asked: "are there others at this monastery whose own attainment of the path equals yours, Master?" Fenggan answered: "I myself have no attainment of the path at all. The eminent monks dwelling there — Hanshan, a manifestation of Mañjuśrī, and Shide, a manifestation of Samantabhadra — both dwell within Guoqing Monastery, roaming and transforming beings in our own land." Lü prepared gifts to thank him, but Fenggan refused them and departed. Three days after taking up his own post, Lü went to Guoqing Monastery to offer incense, and asked the guest-prefect monk there where he might find these two great beings, Hanshan and Shide, so that he might be shown to them and pay his respects. The guest-prefect said: "these two are simply mad monks — what business could Your Excellency have with them?" Lü said: "I wish only to pay them my respects." The guest-prefect said: "then have them summoned here." Lü said: "no — I will go to them myself." And so he was led to the kitchen, where Hanshan and Shide were warming themselves by the stove, talking and laughing together, though no one else could make out what they were saying. The guest-prefect called out to them: "Hanshan! Shide! Come here — His Excellency wishes to speak with you." The moment Lü saw them, he prostrated himself on the ground at once — and the two of them fled. Lü pursued them, all the way to a rocky cliff at Hanshan, where the two vanished inside; Hanshan turned back and called out: "thief! thief! thief! Fenggan has talked too much — we have no business with Amitābha here — why bow to us at all?" Lü hurried to look within the cliff, but they were nowhere to be found. Hanshan and Shide never again appeared after this, and Fenggan, too, never returned to Guoqing Monastery from that time on — for once a sage's own manifestation among humankind has been revealed, he can no longer remain there. Lü, searching the mountain afterward for whatever traces remained, transcribed many poems the two great beings had left behind, upon the rocky cliffs, the bamboo and trees of the mountain, and the walls of nearby villages — every one of them expounding the Buddha-dharma, admonishing the world — and these are published and circulated even now. This account is recorded here to confirm this very same fact: that the Buddha holds sentient beings in mind, while sentient beings fail to recollect the Buddha, and so, whether they happen to meet or not, whether they see each other or not, nothing comes of it at all.

This shows that mutual remembrance, held by both together, is never parted. "Should both, instead, remember each other, this shared remembrance growing ever deeper between them": they can then naturally see and grow close to one another, never departing from each other at all, even, life after life, remaining together like a form and its own shadow — standing for how sentient beings' own recollection of the Buddha matches the Buddha's own remembrance of sentient beings exactly: held in mind for so long, never forgotten, at every time, in every place, the Buddha never departing from the mind, all the way to the very end of one's own life, never once forgotten even then. "Life after life" — that is, from this present life onward, into every future life — remaining just like a form and its own shadow, never diverging, never departing from one another. "All the way... onward" is an abbreviated expression here — not only does one constantly behold the Buddha in this present life, but even after rebirth there, one constantly follows the Buddha in further study, exactly like a form and its own shadow, never departing, never separated. This image of a form and its shadow, never parted, carries two distinct senses: first, it stands for how sentient beings who recollect the Buddha are certain to behold the Buddha in turn, sentient being and Buddha never departing from one another — corresponding to what follows: "recollecting the Buddha and holding him in mind, now or in ages to come, one is certain to behold the Buddha"; and second, it stands for how sentient beings who recollect the Buddha are certain to attain buddhahood in turn — cause and fruit never departing from one another, recollecting the Buddha being the cause, attaining buddhahood being the fruit — exactly as Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva, through this very mind of recollecting the Buddha, attained the patient acceptance of the unborn, and now, in the Land of Bliss, assists Amitābha in spreading his own teaching, awaiting his own succession, in turn, to the buddha King of the Mountain of Universal Light and Merit — that is, recollecting the Buddha is certain to result in attaining buddhahood, cause and fruit never departing from one another at all.

Sūtra: "The Tathāgatas of the ten directions, in their compassion, hold sentient beings in mind exactly as a mother holds her own child in mind. But should the child run away and disappear, what use would the mother's own remembrance be? Yet should the child hold his own mother in mind exactly as the mother holds him in mind, then mother and child, through every life they pass through, are never far apart from one another."

Commentary: The analogy above, of two people, spoke only of friends — a somewhat distant relation still; this present analogy, of mother and child, speaks instead of one's own flesh and blood — a bond closer still. The first five lines here correspond to what came before, showing that remembrance on one side alone accomplishes nothing; the last four lines, likewise corresponding to what came before, show that mutual remembrance, held by both, is never parted. And, further, the first three lines here correspond to the earlier "one wholly given to remembering," while the next two correspond to "the other constantly forgets." The Tathāgata is the mother here; sentient beings are the child. Among all worldly forms of loving affection, none is more urgent and intense than a mother's own love for her child — even when the child will not heed her own teaching, she still holds him in mind, moment after moment, never once letting him go. Should the child grow rebellious, forgetting her own kindness and betraying her own virtue, committing every kind of unfilial act, a mother's own thought of him might, in time, grow faint, her own heart filling with regret and resentment instead — yet the Buddha's own thought of sentient beings surpasses even this: the more severe a being's own rebellion and wrongdoing, the deeper still the Buddha's own thought of him grows. And, further, a mother's own love for her child lasts only for the span of a single lifetime, while the Buddha's own thought of sentient beings is a compassion without end, following them through life after life, never once regressing.

Here it is said that the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, in their compassion, hold sentient beings in mind: "compassion" means pity and sorrow; "hold in mind" means guarding and protecting. Sentient beings, caught so long in the wheel of birth and death, enduring every kind of suffering, are thus held in pity and sorrow by the Buddha; and though caught in birth and death, their own buddha-nature is never lost, and so they are, further, guarded and protected by the Buddha as well. As the Sūtra of Samādhi puts it: "what fills every buddha's own mind is nothing but this same great compassion." This compassion takes as its own object precisely suffering sentient beings — whenever a buddha sees a sentient being caught in suffering and affliction, it is exactly like an arrow piercing his own heart, and he wishes only to draw out this suffering at once — no different at all from a mother's own heart, seeing her own child in pain, holding him in mind in exactly the same way.

One might ask: the analogy above spoke of one person wholly given to remembering, standing for Amitābha holding sentient beings in mind, and one person who constantly forgets, standing for sentient beings failing to recollect the Buddha — why, then, does this present passage speak instead of "the Tathāgatas of the ten directions"? The answer: this carries two distinct senses. First, it may refer to Amitābha alone — since there exist countless Amitābhas throughout the three times and the ten directions alike. As the Contemplation Sūtra puts it: "from the buddha-land of Golden Light below, all the way up to the buddha-land of the King of Light above, and everything in between, there are boundless, countless divided bodies of the buddha Amitāyus" — hence, "the Tathāgatas of the ten directions." Second, it may refer generally to the buddhas of the ten directions as a whole — meaning that it is not Amitābha alone whose own compassionate vow is like this, but that the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, too, hold this very same compassion in mind — showing precisely that every buddha, alike, walks this same path.

"Should the child run away and disappear": this stands for sentient beings failing to recollect the Buddha, falling instead into the lower destinies, enduring the most extreme suffering there. "What use would the mother's own remembrance be": this stands for the Buddha's own remembrance of sentient beings, on his side alone, accomplishing nothing, unable to bring about any benefit at all. One might ask: "is this 'running away and disappearing' the same as 'constantly forgetting' above, or different?" The answer: not recollecting the Buddha, one cannot behold the Buddha — even when actually encountering him, it amounts to not meeting him at all, to not seeing him at all, failing, either way, to receive the Dharma's own benefit — in this, the two are the same. But they differ in this respect: the one who "constantly forgets" simply fails, for now, to recollect the Buddha — and should the Buddha continue to hold him in mind, he may yet, in time, give rise to this very resolve, and benefit may still result. But this one who "runs away and disappears" does not merely forget — he may, further, actively revile the Buddha as well, bringing this very calamity upon himself through his own lack of faith, falling into the three lower destinies — and, however much the Buddha may continue to hold him in mind even then, what use could this possibly be? This is exactly what is meant by "accomplishing nothing at all." As with the old woman east of the city, whom the Buddha wished to liberate, yet who, refusing to believe in the Buddha, unwilling even to see him, fled into her own room — the Buddha pointed his own hand at the wall, and the wall turned transparent like glass; she then covered her own eyes with both hands, still unwilling to see the Buddha even so. This alone is proof enough that remembrance on one side alone accomplishes nothing at all.

"Yet should the child hold his own mother in mind exactly as the mother holds him in mind, then mother and child, through every life they pass through, are never far apart from one another": the first two lines here correspond to the earlier "should both, instead, remember each other, this shared remembrance growing ever deeper between them"; the last two correspond to the earlier "life after life... never parting from one another" — this being exactly mutual remembrance, held by both together, bearing its own fruit. Should the child hold his own mother in mind, exactly as the mother holds her own child in mind, thought matching thought perfectly between them, the mother becoming a truly loving mother, the child becoming a truly filial son — not only will mother and child never part from one another in this present life, but, passing through life after life to come, this same bond between mother and child will never be exhausted, never departing, never growing distant from one another at all. The child here is the sentient being; the mother is the Buddha. Should a sentient being be able to hold the Tathāgata in mind exactly as the Tathāgata holds sentient beings in mind, then sentient being and Buddha resonate together perfectly, and, quite naturally, life after life, one constantly beholds the Buddha, constantly follows him in further study, never growing distant from him at all. Having taught this samādhi of recollecting the Buddha, that buddha then offered these two further images, of distant friends and of mother and child alike, precisely so that sentient beings who recollect the Buddha might see how the very merit of this recollection advances by degrees, growing closer, day by day — not only is beholding the Buddha thereby assured, but the hope of attaining buddhahood itself lies within reach as well!

Sūtra: "If a sentient being's own mind holds the Buddha in mind and recollects him, then, now or in ages to come, that being is certain to behold the Buddha, drawing near to the Buddha before very long — requiring no further skillful means at all, this mind opens of itself. It is like a person steeped in fragrance, whose own body naturally carries this same fragrance with it — this is called being adorned by fragrance and light."

Commentary: What follows now applies the analogy directly to the doctrine — matching only the benefit that comes from mutual remembrance held by both together, not the fruitlessness of remembrance on one side alone. The first two lines here emphasize the word "mind" — one must genuinely hold the Buddha in mind, genuinely recollect him with the mind itself, ruling out mere recitation with the mouth while the mind itself takes no part. "Holding in mind" means recalling without forgetting, yet admitting of occasional interruption — a more occasional recollection; "recollecting" means fixing one's attention without ever letting it scatter, continuing moment after moment without a break — a constant holding in mind. Should a sentient being's own mind constantly hold the Buddha in mind, constantly recollect him, stamping the Buddha directly upon the mind itself, kept there at every single moment, never forgotten for an instant — as Repentance-Master Ciyun put it: "wherever one's own affairs and duties may take him, so long as the inner mind never forgets the Buddha, this is called holding him in mind." It is like a person in this world whose mind remains fixed upon some urgent matter — even while going about speaking, coming and going, sitting or lying down, engaged in every kind of task, this does not prevent this same matter from remaining held secretly in mind, as vividly present as ever. The mind that recollects the Buddha should be exactly the same. Should this recollection ever lapse, one should gather it back at once — and, over time, this becomes second nature, this recollection continuing spontaneously, without the slightest further effort of will required at all. And, further, whenever a false thought arises in the mind, one should recollect the Buddha at once, using this true recollection to counter this false thought directly, and the false thought will dissolve of itself. Should one see another person suffering, one should, with this very mind that recollects the Buddha, extend compassion to them as well, wishing that they, too, might be freed from suffering — continuing on in this way, recollecting the Buddha with the mind held fast upon him, one becomes capable of accomplishing every merit belonging to the Pure Land itself.

This holding the Buddha in mind and recollecting him admits of both actual practice and principle — already explained above, though a further brief account may be given here. Recollection through actual practice means fixing the mind single-mindedly, with not the slightest difficulty in doing so, the mind that recollects and the Buddha recollected both plainly distinct, holding to this single recollection alone, with no other thought at all, each recollection continuing on from the last, thereby accomplishing the power of samādhi itself — exactly what the Awakening of Faith calls "recollecting the Buddha through this single-minded cause and condition." Recollection through principle means using this wondrous, bright light of the mind to illuminate one's own nature perfectly, subject and object one and the same, mind and Buddha not two different things at all, holding to this single object alone, with no other object at all, calm, still, and spiritually bright, thereby accomplishing the power of wisdom itself — exactly what the Awakening of Faith calls "though recollecting, there is, in truth, no one who recollects, and nothing recollected either." As explained above, these two forms of holding the Buddha in mind, through actual practice and through principle, benefit all three roots of capacity equally: one of superior wisdom cultivates recollection through principle exclusively; one of duller capacity cultivates recollection through actual practice exclusively; and one of middling capacity first cultivates through actual practice, and only later enters into principle — each matched to their own particular capacity, not to be generalized as though only one approach applied to everyone alike.

"Now or in ages to come, that being is certain to behold the Buddha": beholding the Buddha in this present life may occur, for one whose own effort in recollecting the Buddha has grown pure, within a dream — as the Lotus Sūtra puts it: "should one, within a dream, see the Tathāgatas seated upon their lion-thrones, surrounded by their own assemblies, teaching the Dharma," and so on; or it may occur within samādhi itself — as the Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra describes, setting a fixed period of forty-nine days to seek this very confirmation directly, its own text saying: "should a person recollect a single buddha of a single direction single-mindedly, whether walking or sitting, by the end of these forty-nine days, that buddha will manifest his own body before him directly, and he will thereby attain rebirth there"; or, according to the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra, setting a period of ninety days instead, its own text saying: "should a person vow to spend ninety days constantly walking or constantly standing, the mind fixed single-mindedly throughout, he will, within this very samādhi, come to behold Amitābha Buddha directly." As the Contemplation Sūtra puts it: "Amitāyus Buddha's own excellent marks and radiant light pervade the worlds of the ten directions, gathering in every sentient being who recollects him, never once letting them go" — hence, within meditative contemplation, one is able to behold him directly in every case. Master Huiyuan, the first patriarch of Mount Lu, beheld this sacred vision three times across his own life — and, the third time, seeing the Buddha's own body filling the whole of empty space, he knew, of himself, that the time of his own rebirth there had come, and so gathered his own assembly to tell them of these visions of the Buddha, before and now, took his leave of every worldly connection, and devoted himself diligently to recollecting the Buddha alone. And, indeed, when the appointed time finally arrived, he bid farewell to his own disciples and, seated in full lotus posture, recollecting the Buddha, passed away and was reborn there.

There are also cases of beholding the Buddha directly, in the very midst of reciting his name in this present life — as the Wǎngshēng Jí recounts: once, the wife of Ge Jizhi recollected the Buddha single-mindedly; though her own family was poor, she wove cloth all day long, and, with every single throw of her own shuttle, recited the Buddha's name once — continuing this practice, year after year, without ever growing weary of it. Her own husband, a follower of Daoist teaching, urged her instead to cultivate the alchemical art of the golden elixir; she, in turn, urged him to study the Buddha-dharma — yet he would not follow her, and so each continued to cultivate their own separate path. One day, while she was weaving, in the very midst of reciting the Buddha's name, she beheld Amitābha's own entire body appear in the sky before her, and at once bowed down in reverence, calling out to her husband, Jizhi, to come and see — yet Jizhi could see only the Buddha's own upper body, adorned and radiant, and likewise bowed down in reverence at once. From this time on, he too came to believe, and husband and wife together cultivated this same pure karma, and together attained rebirth in the Pure Land.

Beholding the Buddha in ages to come may occur when one's own karmic retribution is exhausted and life comes to its end, the Buddha appearing to welcome one directly. As the Buddha Speaks of Amitābha Sūtra puts it: "holding fast to this name, whether for a single day, or continuing up to seven days, the mind undivided and undisturbed throughout — when this person's own life comes to its end, Amitābha Buddha, together with his own assembly of sages, will appear directly before him, and this person, his own mind free of any confusion at the very moment of death, will attain rebirth at once in Amitābha Buddha's own Land of Bliss." Or it may occur through being reborn within a lotus womb, this lotus opening to reveal the Buddha directly — for one who has taken a whole lifetime of recollecting the Buddha as his own cause is certain to attain this same rebirth as his own fruit: the eighth consciousness departing through the very crown of the head, a transformation-body of the Buddha coming to welcome him, and his own rebirth entrusted to a lotus blossom, among the nine grades, this lotus itself serving as his own father and mother. The relative height of one's own grade depends entirely on how diligently or how idly one recollected the Buddha across this same lifetime — the lotus blossoms within this treasure-pool are, in no sense, something Amitābha himself fabricates or transforms into being, but are, rather, planted entirely by the very power of mind and vow belonging to the sentient being who recollects the Buddha. The very moment a sentient being, anywhere throughout the worlds of the ten directions, hears this teaching of recollecting the Buddha and resolves to recollect him, seeking rebirth in the Pure Land, a single lotus bud at once forms within this seven-jeweled pool, that being's own name marked upon it. Where recollection of the Buddha is diligent, this blossom grows large very quickly, its own color bright and radiant; where recollection is lax, this blossom grows large only slowly; and should one's resolve regress and one cease to recollect the Buddha at all, this blossom withers away entirely. The very moment diligence and idleness diverge, flourishing and withering follow at once — this is the wondrous, hidden correspondence between cause and effect. And when this life comes to its end and rebirth follows, one is reborn directly within one's own blossom, already formed — and, however many are reborn there at once, never once confused or mismatched with one another — this is the wondrous, plain distinction between higher and lower grades alike. This lotus blossom is exactly the very palace where one sheds one's own ordinary shell, the very spiritual dwelling where one's own life of wisdom finds its rest. As these nine grades of blossom open, some sooner, some later, according to one's own grade — yet the very moment any such blossom opens, one beholds the Buddha and hears the Dharma directly, perfectly realizing the three kinds of non-regression at once. The body one receives there is the color of pure gold, complete with all thirty-two major marks, one's own lifespan there as boundless as the Buddha's own.

"Certain" here carries three distinct senses: first, cause and fruit corresponding to one another exactly — taking the cause of recollecting the Buddha, one attains the fruit of beholding him in turn, and, should one attain rebirth there, whether sooner or later, buddhahood itself is certain to follow. Second, the mutual resonance of cause and response — this power of recollection serving as what draws forth the response, this manifested body serving as the response itself, and this path of mutual resonance between them is certain, without the slightest deviation. And third, the accord of original and initial enlightenment — devoting oneself exclusively to recollection through principle, recollecting the buddha of one's own original nature, this initial enlightenment's own effort growing deep, until original enlightenment itself stands revealed, and one beholds, within one's own mind, the very buddha of the dharma-body directly. All of this is a fixed, unchanging principle — hence, "certain to behold the Buddha."

The section above, on recollection through actual practice, describes beholding another buddha — whether in a dream, in the sky, or at the very moment of death; recollection through principle, by contrast, describes original enlightenment itself standing revealed, beholding the buddha of the dharma-body directly, that is, beholding one's own buddha. "Drawing near to the Buddha before very long" admits of two readings: first, having already beheld the Buddha — whether in a dream, in the sky, or in broad daylight — one's own eventual rebirth there, this lotus opening to reveal the Buddha directly, now lies close at hand; the earlier beholding of the Buddha was of his manifestation-body, while this present beholding is of his true body itself. Second, having already attained recollection through principle, beholding the buddha of one's own nature directly, advancing in cultivation from this point onward, one is reborn within the very highest grade of lotus, which opens the very same night, beholding Amitābha face to face, personally hearing this wondrous Dharma directly, suddenly realizing the forbearance of the unborn nature of all things — and so one draws near, before very long, to the very ground of ultimate buddhahood itself!

"Requiring no further skillful means at all, this mind opens of itself": in terms of recollection through actual practice, this teaching of recollecting the Buddha is itself the most excellent, extraordinary skillful means of all, requiring no other skillful gate whatsoever to help reveal one's own nature — not even needing to contemplate an image, or visualize the Buddha, or investigate a point of inquiry directly, how much less any other method besides! In terms of recollection through principle, recollecting the Buddha is exactly recollecting the mind itself, mind and Buddha one and the same, self and other not two different things at all — how, then, could one ever depart from this mind-only buddha of one's own, borrowing some other buddha outside the mind as a mere skillful means instead? "This mind opens of itself" is exactly recollection through principle bearing its own fruit. As the ancients put it: "a single moment's recollection in accord with the Buddha is itself a single moment's buddhahood; recollection after recollection in accord with the Buddha is itself buddhahood after buddhahood." This mind, this Buddha, opening and becoming manifest of itself, one thereby accomplishes one's own buddhahood — through this very mind that recollects the Buddha, original and initial enlightenment become one, and ultimate buddhahood itself is accomplished.

This offers an analogy for how holding the Buddha in mind and recollecting him is certain to result in buddhahood itself. Just as a person steeped in fragrance naturally carries this same fragrance upon his own body, so too, within this teaching, does a person who recollects the Buddha naturally come to share in the Buddha's own qualities: reciting the Buddha's own name is steeping oneself in the fragrance of the Buddha's own name; drawing near the Buddha's own body is steeping oneself in the fragrance of the Buddha's own body; opening the Buddha's own mind is steeping oneself in the fragrance of the Buddha's own mind. One who recollects the Buddha thus comes to have both body and mind steeped in this same fragrance of the Buddha — standing for all three roots of capacity, superior, middling, and lesser: the superior capacity steeped in the fragrance of the Buddha's own mind, the middling capacity in the fragrance of the Buddha's own body, and the lesser capacity in the fragrance of the Buddha's own name. The last two lines here give the very name of this samādhi, likewise the name of this Dharma-gate itself: adorning one's own original enlightenment, buddha as one already is, with the very fragrance of the Buddha's own dharma-body and the very light of his own wisdom. The mind that recollects the Buddha, formless, without any mark at all, unborn and unceasing, is exactly the dharma-body itself; and this same mind, complete with the nature of spiritual awareness, is exactly wisdom itself. Now, recollecting the Buddha in this way, adorning one's own original, enlightened mind and buddha with the Buddha's own dharma-body's fragrance and his own wisdom's light — hence, "adorned by fragrance and light." As the Awakening of Faith puts it: "just as ordinary worldly clothing carries, in truth, no fragrance of its own at all, and yet, should someone perfume it with incense, it comes to carry this fragrance — so too does the defiled dharma of ignorance carry, in truth, no pure activity of its own at all, and yet, perfumed by suchness itself, it comes to carry this same pure function." This "defiled dharma of ignorance" is exactly this same buddha of original enlightenment, one's own very mind, hidden away within the shell of ignorance itself. That treatise makes plain the tathāgatagarbha's own mind, still entangled within; this present sūtra illustrates the tathāgatagarbha's own mind, freed from this same entanglement — hence it speaks of "this mind opens of itself," exactly this same buddha of original enlightenment, one's own very mind, opening and becoming manifest at last.

Sūtra: "At my own causal stage, I took up this very mind of recollecting the Buddha, and thereby entered the patient acceptance of the unborn. Now, in this present world, I gather in those who recollect the Buddha, and lead them home to the Pure Land."

Commentary: Of these first three lines, the first states his cause; the second encompasses both cause and fruit together; the third states his fruit — all three, alike, belonging to the benefit of himself; the last three lines belong to the benefit of others. "At my own causal stage" recounts his own cultivation at the very causal stage itself — taking up this mind of recollecting the Buddha as his own root, causal-stage mind. The Buddha is what is recollected; the mind is what does the recollecting — and this mind is not the sixth, discriminating consciousness at all. Some in the world hold that recollecting the Buddha is merely a matter of reciting with the mouth — this is mistaken; and even to say it is a matter of recollecting with the discriminating mind of consciousness is likewise mistaken. The very mind capable of this recollection is the unborn, unceasing, perfectly calm, true mind of the sense-faculty's own nature itself. Since Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva speaks explicitly of gathering in all six sense-faculties together, this pure recollection continuing without a break, it would be mistaken to say this refers only to recollection through consciousness alone — and equally mistaken to say it refers only to recollection through the mind-faculty in isolation. This present chapter belongs to the Dharma-gate of "the great element of the faculties" — were it to speak only of the mind-faculty alone, it would be indistinguishable from Subhūti's own Dharma-gate of the mind-faculty discussed earlier. The meaning of "gathering in all six sense-faculties together" is explained further below; this recollecting of the Buddha is exactly what the first decisive meaning described: "attaining this original, bright awakening's own unborn, unceasing nature, take this as the causal-stage mind — only then can cultivation and realization at the fruit-stage be perfectly accomplished." "Entered the patient acceptance of the unborn": this is exactly the fruit brought about by this same cause. "Entered" means realized directly; "the unborn" is the very principle entered into; "acceptance" means the mind of wisdom abiding securely within this same principle — that is, exactly the very samādhi of wisdom itself. Recollecting the Buddha is what enters; this very forbearance is what is entered into. The principle of the unborn remains, from beginning to end, never different from itself — that is, unborn and unceasing; delusion and awakening make no difference to it at all — that is, neither defiled nor pure; sentient being and Buddha are equal within it — that is, neither increasing nor decreasing; yet the very stage at which one realizes and enters this forbearance still differs from one practitioner to the next. As this very sūtra's own passage on the three gradual stages puts it: "every Tathāgata's own secret, perfect, pure, and wondrous reality manifests within this very stage" — one who reaches this point attains, at once, the forbearance of the unborn nature of all things — that is, the first abiding of the perfect teaching, where this same forbearance is attained directly, one portion of ignorance broken through, one portion of the three virtues realized, dividing one's own body across a hundred realms, manifesting the eight aspects of a buddha's own life. As the Sūtra of Humane Kings puts it: "the bodhisattva of the patient acceptance of the unborn" refers to what is called "the distant, unmoving wisdom of contemplation" — "distant" being exactly the seventh ground, "far-traveling"; "unmoving" being exactly the eighth ground, "immovability"; and "wisdom of contemplation" being exactly the ninth ground, "skillful wisdom." Considered in this light, the underlying principle realized, earlier or later, remains one and the same — yet the actual depth of practice by which it is realized certainly does differ. It is like an elephant, a horse, and a rabbit, three animals crossing the very same river: the river they cross is the same river throughout, and yet how deeply each enters the water differs considerably — the rabbit crosses along the surface, its feet barely touching the water; the horse stretches its head above the water, its body passing through the water itself; and the elephant submerges its entire body, walking along the very riverbed below. Each surpasses the one before it in turn — and a great bodhisattva of the real teaching, penetrating all the way to the very source and depths of the Dharma's own current, reaches the very bottom of this same river. Mahāsthāmaprāpta, whose own rank is that of equal enlightenment, must have realized this same forbearance at a stage far from shallow indeed. Having recounted his own benefit above, he now turns this same benefit to himself into a benefit for others as well.

"Now, in this present world, I gather in those who recollect the Buddha, and lead them home to the Pure Land": "this present world" refers to our own land, this Sahā world of the five turbidities; "the Pure Land" refers to the western Land of Bliss, pure and undefiled in all five respects. "Gather in" means to receive and hold — applying to both the one who gathers and those gathered in alike: the one who gathers in is Mahāsthāmaprāpta himself; those gathered in are those who recollect the Buddha. During their own lifetime, he gathers them in through the power of loving-kindness, so that the practitioner's own mind of recollecting the Buddha remains firm and never regresses; and at the moment of death, he gathers them in through the power of his own vow, so that the practitioner's own right mindfulness shines forth clearly, and he is thereby welcomed and led to rebirth there.

This present world is like a traveler's inn; that other land is one's own true home. It is like a person who has abandoned his own father and fled, wandering off to some other land, drifting and exposed with nowhere to turn — and this bodhisattva is like a close friend, urging him to recollect the Buddha, that is, pointing out to him the very road home, and, further, giving him provisions for the journey, so that he might finally return to his own homeland and behold his own birth parents once more. Recollecting the Buddha itself already carries within it the three provisions of faith, vow, and practice: faith gives rise to recollection, and without faith there is no recollection at all — recollection thus already carries the provision of faith; taking recollection of the Buddha as the cause, one vows to seek the fruit of rebirth there — recollection thus already carries the provision of vow; and reciting the Buddha's name moment after moment, practicing diligently without ever growing weary — recollection thus already carries the provision of practice as well. This recollection of the Buddha, complete with faith, vow, and practice together, is exactly this same gift of three provisions for the journey home. Only one complete with these three provisions of faith, vow, and practice together may properly be called one who recollects the Buddha, and only such a one truly attains rebirth in the Pure Land at all.

And, further, recollecting the Buddha already carries within it these same three provisions: hearing this teaching of recollecting the Buddha taught, and holding no doubt about it in one's own mind at all, is called faith; having believed, and thereby coming to understand it, giving rise to a mind that delights in and aspires toward it, is called vow; and, having vowed, then actually recollecting the Buddha, the mind diligent and vigorous throughout, is called practice. As the Amitābha Sūtra puts it: "if there is one who has faith, he should give rise to this vow" and "hold fast to this name" — exactly this.

And, further, recollecting the Buddha already carries within it these same three kinds of wisdom, of hearing, reflection, and cultivation: hearing the Buddha's own name and believing it thoroughly, without the slightest doubt, is the wisdom of hearing; holding it in mind, constantly, never once forgetting it, is the wisdom of reflection; and continuing this recollection without ever letting it lapse, without a single interruption, is the wisdom of cultivation. As the Buddha-Bhūmi-śāstra puts it: "a bodhisattva walks these same three wondrous wisdoms in journeying to and from the Pure Land" — one who recollects the Buddha must, in exactly the same way, be complete with these same three kinds of wisdom before he can attain rebirth there at all.

Sūtra: "As the Buddha now asks after perfect penetration: without any need for further selection at all, simply gathering in all six sense-faculties together at once, this pure recollection continuing without a break, and thereby attaining samādhi, is foremost."

Commentary: The first line here restates the question originally posed — earlier in fascicle 5, the Buddha asked: "let me now ask you: at your very first resolve, awakening to the eighteen elements, which one brought you to perfect penetration? And by what skillful means did you enter samādhi?" — hence this restatement of the original question. The next three lines recount his own original cause; the last two make plain what he himself has realized. "Without any need for further selection at all": the Buddha had earlier displayed the merit of each of the six sense-faculties in full detail, instructing everyone to choose carefully whichever one they might enter through, promising to make this plain for them, so that they might advance — yet I, too, at my own causal stage, though likewise cultivating and realizing through the sense-faculty, required no such selection at all. "Gathering in all six sense-faculties together": outwardly, making no selection at all among the appearance of the six sense-faculties — the eye, the ear, and the rest; inwardly, making no selection at all among the function of these six faculties — seeing, hearing, and the rest. "Gathering in together" means gathering in only this single, essential brightness alone, no longer letting it rely on any single faculty to condition any single object — and once this single, essential brightness is thus gathered in, the function of all six faculties ceases to operate separately at all, and all six faculties are, in this very way, gathered in together at once! "This pure recollection continuing without a break": freedom from every stray thought is called "pure"; the mind fixed single-mindedly upon the Buddha is called "recollection"; "continuing" means this recollection continuing on, moment after moment, without a single interruption. A single moment's recollection in accord with the Buddha is itself a single moment's buddhahood; recollection after recollection in accord with the Buddha is itself buddhahood after buddhahood — "in accord" here meaning exactly mind and Buddha becoming one and the same, this very mind being itself the Buddha, this very Buddha being itself the mind, recollection that is itself no recollection at all, no recollection that is nonetheless itself recollection — falling neither into the extreme of emptiness nor of existence, returning entirely to the middle way itself — this is exactly this single, undivided mind realized through principle itself.

"Attaining samādhi": this is exactly the fruit brought about by this very cause — from this root cause of cultivation, realizing the fruit of perfect penetration itself. The Sanskrit samādhi means "holding both equally," also rendered "reaching both equally" — "holding equally" meaning holding calm and wisdom in perfect, sustained balance together, doubly free of both torpor and agitation at once; "reaching" meaning arriving there directly — through this same equal balance of calm and wisdom, one is thereby able to arrive at this most excellent samādhi itself. "Is foremost": this points to gathering in all six sense-faculties together, this very teaching of recollecting the Buddha, as foremost of all. One might ask: "when Mañjuśrī selects among all twenty-five approaches to perfect penetration, he chooses Avalokiteśvara's own ear-faculty, his verse declaring: 'for accomplishing the mind of nirvāṇa, Avalokiteśvara's own method is best' — how, then, can this teaching of recollecting the Buddha also be called foremost?" The answer: matched to the particular capacity of this world — the sentient beings of this Sahā world having the sharpest ear-faculty of all — Avalokiteśvara's own method is rightly selected. But considered generally, applicable throughout the ten directions at once, this teaching of recollecting the Buddha, gathering in all six sense-faculties together, transcending the three realms directly, cutting straight through birth and death itself, swiftly realizing bodhi — there is no other gate whatsoever that can compare to it, and so it, too, is rightly called foremost." This closes the seventh testimony, Mahāsthāmaprāpta's own perfect penetration through the great element of the faculties, and, together with it, closes the first section as a whole — the brief testimonies of all twenty-four sages.