The Buddha-Way Through the Non-Path
佛道品第八
Mañjuśrī asks how a bodhisattva reaches the buddha-way, and the answer runs directly against expectation: by walking the non-path — committing every wrong without the affliction that makes it wrong. From there, Vimalakīrti turns the question back on Mañjuśrī and draws an even sharper conclusion: every affliction, without exception, is "the seed of the Tathāgata." The chapter closes with a long verse in which Vimalakīrti describes his own household — wisdom as mother, skillful means as father — and then the vast range of ordinary and extraordinary forms, down to a common servant, through which a bodhisattva works unnoticed to bring beings toward awakening.
- This part covers
- Vimalakīrti's answer that a bodhisattva reaches the buddha-way precisely by practicing the non-path — displaying every affliction and every low or broken condition without being bound by it; a chain of questions in which Mañjuśrī names affliction itself, down to all sixty-two views, as "the seed of the Tathāgata"; Mahākāśyapa's rueful admission that arhats, their fetters already severed, can no longer generate this seed at all; and a long verse, spoken in answer to the bodhisattva Puxian Seshen, in which Vimalakīrti describes his household entirely in Dharma terms and then catalogues the enormous range of forms — physician, soldier, prostitute, servant, even medicine and food itself in times of plague and famine — through which a bodhisattva quietly works for the benefit of beings.
- A note on this chapter's language
- Several images in this chapter's opening list of "non-path" practices — the five acts of unmediated retribution, the hell-realms, disease and famine and warfare later in the verse — are standard doctrinal and literary furniture in Buddhist scripture, not gratuitous detail. This page treats them exactly as the text and its commentators do: factually, and in service of the chapter's argument.
30. Practicing the Non-Path
爾時文殊師利問維摩詰言：「菩薩云何通達佛道？」維摩詰言：「若菩薩行於非道，是為通達佛道。」又問：「云何菩薩行於非道？」答曰：「若菩薩行五無間，而無惱恚；至于地獄，無諸罪垢；至于畜生，無有無明、憍慢等過；至于餓鬼，而具足功德；行色、無色界道，不以為勝。示行貪欲，離諸染著；示行瞋恚，於諸眾生無有恚閡；示行愚癡，而以智慧調伏其心；示行慳貪，而捨內外所有，不惜身命；示行毀禁，而安住淨戒，乃至小罪猶懷大懼；示行瞋恚，而常慈忍；示行懈怠，而懃修功德；示行亂意，而常念定；示行愚癡，而通達世間、出世間慧；示行諂偽，而善方便隨諸經義；示行憍慢，而於眾生猶如橋梁；示行諸煩惱，而心常清淨；示入於魔，而順佛智慧，不隨他教；示入聲聞，而為眾生說未聞法；示入辟支佛，而成就大悲，教化眾生；示入貧窮，而有寶手，功德無盡；示入形殘，而具諸相好，以自莊嚴；示入下賤，而生佛種姓中，具諸功德；示入羸劣醜陋，而得那羅延身，一切眾生之所樂見；示入老病，而永斷病根，超越死畏；示有資生，而恒觀無常，實無所貪；示有妻妾采女，而常遠離五欲淤泥；現於訥鈍，而成就辯才，總持無失；示入邪濟，而以正濟度諸眾生；現遍入諸道，而斷其因緣；現於涅槃，而不斷生死。文殊師利！菩薩能如是行於非道，是為通達佛道。」
At that time Mañjuśrī asked Vimalakīrti: "How does a bodhisattva reach mastery of the buddha-way?" Vimalakīrti said: "If a bodhisattva practices the non-path, this is mastery of the buddha-way." He asked further: "How does a bodhisattva practice the non-path?" He answered: "If a bodhisattva commits the five acts of unmediated retribution, yet feels no vexation or anger in doing so; if he arrives among the hell-beings, yet has none of the defilement of their offenses; if he arrives among the animals, yet has none of the faults of ignorance and arrogance; if he arrives among the hungry ghosts, yet is fully endowed with merit; if he practices the paths of the realms of form and formlessness, yet does not regard them as superior. He displays the practice of greed and desire, yet is free of every defiling attachment; he displays the practice of anger, yet holds no resentment toward any being; he displays the practice of stupidity, yet tames his own mind with wisdom; he displays the practice of stinginess and greed, yet gives up everything he has, inner and outer alike, without begrudging even his own body and life; he displays the breaking of the precepts, yet abides securely in pure discipline, dreading even the smallest offense as though it were a great one; he displays the practice of anger, yet is constantly compassionate and forbearing; he displays the practice of laziness, yet diligently cultivates merit; he displays a scattered mind, yet is constantly mindful of concentration; he displays the practice of stupidity, yet penetrates both worldly and transcendent wisdom. He displays the practice of flattery and deceit, yet skillfully follows the true meaning of every sūtra through his own skillful means; he displays the practice of arrogance, yet is, to every being, like a bridge for them to walk over; he displays every affliction, yet his mind is constantly pure. He displays entering into the realm of Māra, yet accords with the Buddha's own wisdom and follows no other teaching; he displays entering the śrāvaka path, yet teaches beings a Dharma they have never heard; he displays entering the pratyekabuddha path, yet accomplishes great compassion in teaching and converting beings. He displays entering into poverty, yet has a treasure-bestowing hand whose merit is inexhaustible; he displays entering a maimed body, yet is adorned with every excellent mark to embellish himself; he displays entering a lowly and base station, yet is born within the Buddha's own lineage, endowed with every merit; he displays entering a feeble and ugly body, yet attains the body of Nārāyaṇa, which every being delights to see; he displays entering old age and sickness, yet has permanently cut off the root of illness and transcended the fear of death; he displays having the ordinary means of livelihood, yet constantly contemplates impermanence and in truth craves nothing at all; he displays having wives, concubines, and attendant women, yet is forever far removed from the mire of the five desires. He appears dull and inarticulate, yet has accomplished eloquence and retains everything without loss; he displays entering a deviant crossing, yet ferries every being across by the true crossing; he manifests entering every path alike, yet cuts off their causes and conditions; he manifests entering nirvāṇa, yet does not cut off birth-and-death. Mañjuśrī, when a bodhisattva is able to practice the non-path in this way, this is mastery of the buddha-way."
Kumārajīva opens by defining "non-path" with some precision: it covers three kinds of thing — the retribution of the lower rebirths, the unwholesome karma that leads to them, and even worldly wholesome action and its ordinary rewards. Anything not consonant with a bodhisattva's true nature that he nonetheless takes up counts as "non-path," and his comparison is to a skilled physician who can turn any substance whatsoever into medicine: the skill is not in avoiding what is normally harmful, but in knowing how to use it. Sengzhao's gloss on why this counts as reaching the buddha-way is the sharper philosophical move: so long as one fixes "the path" as the path and "the non-path" as the non-path, love and hatred both arise and defilement follows, closing off any access to the wondrous, equalizing principle beneath both. Only when this fixing stops — when right and wrong no longer stand apart in the mind — can one "ride" whatever one meets without being carried away by it: viewing good and bad with the same eye, walking against the current as easily as with it, blending into the very dust of the world and growing only brighter for the obscurity. This, Sengzhao says, is what "penetrating without obstruction to the equal buddha-way" actually means.
The list itself is built with more technical precision than a first reading suggests. Sengzhao notes that "anger" and "stupidity" each appear twice for a reason: the first appearance of each, alongside greed, forms the classical triad of the three poisons, matched here against the three wholesome roots; their second appearance, alongside stinginess, precept-breaking, laziness, and a scattered mind, forms the six corruptions matched one-for-one against the six perfections — giving answers precept-breaking, patience answers anger, diligence answers laziness, meditation answers a scattered mind, and wisdom answers stupidity a second time. Read this way, the list is not simply exhaustive; it is answering, item by item, the two standard frameworks a listener already carries for what obstructs the path. The chapter's closing pair — "entering a deviant crossing, yet ferrying every being across by the true crossing" — draws on the same image found later in this sūtra's account of the far shore: a ford that can actually be crossed is the "true crossing," a dangerous or difficult one the "deviant crossing," and on Sengzhao's reading, the buddha-way is the true crossing while every non-Buddhist path is the deviant one — which a bodhisattva can still walk, precisely because he alone knows which crossing is actually safe.
31. The Seed of the Tathāgata
於是維摩詰問文殊師利：「何等為如來種？」文殊師利言：「有身為種，無明有愛為種，貪恚癡為種，四顛倒為種，五蓋為種，六入為種，七識處為種，八邪法為種，九惱處為種，十不善道為種：以要言之，六十二見及一切煩惱，皆是佛種。」曰：「何謂也？」答曰：「若見無為入正位者，不能復發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心。譬如高原陸地不生蓮華，卑濕淤泥乃生此華；如是見無為法入正位者，終不復能生於佛法，煩惱泥中，乃有眾生起佛法耳！又如殖種於空，終不得生，糞壤之地，乃能滋茂；如是入無為正位者，不生佛法，起於我見如須彌山，猶能發于阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，生佛法矣！是故，當知一切煩惱為如來種。譬如不下巨海，不能得無價寶珠；如是不入煩惱大海，則不能得一切智寶。」爾時大迦葉歎言：「善哉，善哉！文殊師利！快說此語。誠如所言，塵勞之疇為如來種；我等今者，不復堪任發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心，乃至五無間罪，猶能發意生於佛法，而今我等永不能發。譬如根敗之士，其於五欲不能復利；如是聲聞諸結斷者，於佛法中無所復益，永不志願。是故，文殊師利！凡夫於佛法有返復，而聲聞無也。所以者何？凡夫聞佛法，能起無上道心，不斷三寶；正使聲聞終身聞佛法、力、無畏等，永不能發無上道意。」
Vimalakīrti then asked Mañjuśrī: "What is the seed of the Tathāgata?" Mañjuśrī said: "Having a body is the seed; ignorance and craving are the seed; greed, anger, and delusion are the seed; the four inverted views are the seed; the five hindrances are the seed; the six sense-bases are the seed; the seven abodes of consciousness are the seed; the eight wrong practices are the seed; the nine states of vexation are the seed; the ten unwholesome paths of action are the seed — in short, the sixty-two views, and every affliction whatsoever, are all the seed of the Buddha." Vimalakīrti said: "What do you mean by this?" He answered: "One who sees the unconditioned and enters the correct stage can no longer give rise to the mind of unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening. It is like how a lotus flower does not grow on a high, dry plateau, but grows instead in low, damp, muddy ground — in just the same way, one who sees the unconditioned Dharma and enters the correct stage can never again give rise to the buddha-dharma; it is only in the mud of affliction that beings ever give rise to the buddha-dharma at all! Or again, it is like planting a seed in the empty sky — it will never grow there; it is only in manured, cultivated soil that it can flourish. In just the same way, one who has entered the correct stage of the unconditioned does not give rise to the buddha-dharma; but one whose view of self still stands as high as Mount Sumeru is nevertheless still able to give rise to the mind of unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening, and give rise to the buddha-dharma! For this reason, know that every affliction whatsoever is the seed of the Tathāgata. It is like how, without descending into the great ocean, one cannot obtain the priceless pearl; in just the same way, without entering the great ocean of affliction, one cannot obtain the treasure of omniscience." At that time Mahākāśyapa exclaimed in praise: "Excellent, excellent, Mañjuśrī! Well have you spoken these words! It is truly as you say — the whole retinue of worldly toil is the seed of the Tathāgata. As for us now, we are no longer capable of giving rise to the mind of unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening — even one who has committed the five acts of unmediated retribution can still give rise to the intention to give rise to the buddha-dharma, yet we ourselves can never again give rise to it at all. We are like a man whose faculties are ruined, who can no longer derive any benefit from the five desires; just so, we śrāvakas, who have cut off every fetter, can gain no further benefit within the buddha-dharma, and can never again aspire to it. For this reason, Mañjuśrī, an ordinary, unenlightened being can still turn back toward the buddha-dharma, but a śrāvaka cannot. And why is this? Because an ordinary being who hears the buddha-dharma is able to give rise to the mind of the unsurpassed path, and does not cut off the Three Jewels; whereas even if a śrāvaka hears the buddha-dharma, the powers, and the fearlessnesses his whole life long, he can never give rise to the intention toward the unsurpassed path."
Sengzhao's gloss on "having a body" as the first and root seed goes to the heart of why this whole chain of increasingly ordinary things — craving, the four inverted views, the sense-bases, all the way to the sixty-two views — can be called the Tathāgata's seed at all: "the mind has no fixed dwelling; it follows what it encounters and changes — in the deviant it is deviant, in the correct it is correct. Deviant and correct differ, but their seed is not different." Turning from deviance to correctness, or from evil to good, does not require some separate, uncaused correctness or goodness arising out of nowhere; correctness necessarily arises from deviance, just as good necessarily arises from evil. Daosheng's simile makes the same point in a single image: this is a grain-seed, and the two similes that follow — the lotus that grows only in low, muddy ground, and the crop that grows only in manured soil, never in empty space — describe the germination itself, not the seed's identity. One who has already entered the "correct stage" fixed in the unconditioned — an arhat, in effect, whose fetters are already severed — has, in Sengzhao's words, no further fear of birth-and-death and no further want; having reached that quiet, there is nothing left to drive him toward anything higher. An ordinary being, still afflicted and still gripped by self-view "as high as Mount Sumeru," has exactly the raw material — the unrest — that the arhat no longer has. Hence, Sengzhao writes, "ordinary beings carry the name of turning back; the two vehicles carry the shame of ruined faculties" — and hence Mahākāśyapa's own image of a man whose faculties are ruined, no longer even capable of desiring the five pleasures he has already exhausted.
This is one of the sūtra's starkest claims, and Sengzhao does not pretend it sits easily beside everything else in the tradition. He notes directly that the Lotus Sūtra teaches the opposite outcome for the very same śrāvakas — that even one who has stopped partway along the two lesser vehicles "will, in the end, certainly become a buddha." His way of holding both together is not to soften either: nirvāṇa, he writes, is "the truth of the Way, the utmost of the wondrous," and it is genuinely true that one whose habitual residue is not yet exhausted, whose inner obstruction is not yet removed, cannot seek that utmost truth with an afflicted spirit still clinging to it. What this sūtra calls the śrāvaka's final, unmoving rest — endlessly long by any ordinary measure, and total from the standpoint of an unenlightened being looking on — the Lotus Sūtra addresses instead from far enough down that road to see the stillness eventually give way. Different sūtras, on Sengzhao's reading, are speaking to different points along the same path, each one raising or lowering its estimate of the lesser vehicle to suit who is actually listening — which is exactly why, he says, "the scriptures do not agree in what they say."
32. Vimalakīrti's True Household
爾時會中有菩薩，名普現色身，問維摩詰言：「居士！父母妻子、親戚眷屬、吏民知識，悉為是誰？奴婢僮僕、象馬車乘，皆何所在？」於是維摩詰以偈答曰：
「智度菩薩母， 方便以為父， 一切眾導師， 無不由是生。 法喜以為妻， 慈悲心為女， 善心誠實男， 畢竟空寂舍。 弟子眾塵勞， 隨意之所轉， 道品善知識， 由是成正覺。 諸度法等侶， 四攝為伎女， 歌詠誦法言， 以此為音樂。 總持之園苑， 無漏法林樹， 覺意淨妙華， 解脫智慧果。 八解之浴池， 定水湛然滿， 布以七淨華， 浴此無垢人。 象馬五通馳， 大乘以為車， 調御以一心， 遊於八正路。 相具以嚴容， 眾好飾其姿， 慚愧之上服， 深心為華鬘。 富有七財寶， 教授以滋息， 如所說修行， 迴向為大利。 四禪為床座， 從於淨命生， 多聞增智慧， 以為自覺音。
At that time there was a bodhisattva in the assembly named Puxian Seshen ("Manifesting Every Form"), who asked Vimalakīrti: "Householder, who exactly are your father and mother, your wife and children, your relatives, your household, and your officials and acquaintances? And your slaves and servants, your elephants, horses, and carriages — where are all of these?" Vimalakīrti answered him in verse:
"The perfection of wisdom is the bodhisattva's mother, skillful means is his father — every guide and teacher of the multitudes is born from none other than these. Joy in the Dharma is his wife, the mind of loving-kindness and compassion is his daughter, a good and truthful mind is his son, and the ultimate stillness of emptiness is his house. The multitude of worldly toil are his disciples, turned about however he wishes; the qualities of the path are his good friends, and by these he accomplishes true awakening. The Dharma of the perfections are his companions and equals, the four means of attraction are his singing girls; chanting and reciting the words of the Dharma — this is his music. Dhāraṇī, the power of total retention, is his garden and park; the undefiled Dharma is the forest of trees within it; the factors of awakening are its pure and wondrous flowers, and liberation and wisdom are its fruit. The eight liberations are his bathing pool, filled to overflowing with the calm water of concentration; strewn across it are the seven pure flowers, in which this stainless man bathes. The five supernormal powers race like elephants and horses, the Great Vehicle is his chariot, guided and controlled by a single mind, roaming the eightfold noble path. The major marks adorn his countenance, the minor excellent marks ornament his form; shame and conscience are his finest robe, and the profound mind is his garland of flowers. He is rich with the seven treasures, teaching others so that they too may prosper; practicing exactly as he teaches, and dedicating the merit — this is the greatest profit of all. The four dhyānas are his bed and seat, arising from a pure livelihood; vast learning increases his wisdom, and this is the music that wakes him each morning."
Sengzhao explains exactly why this question gets asked at all: "Vimalakīrti's skillful means moves without fixed direction, its hiding and showing hard to fathom — outwardly he displays a household just like anyone in the world, while inwardly he takes the Dharma itself as his household. Fearing that the confused would see only the outward form and miss the way beneath it, this question arises." Puxian Seshen's own name — "manifesting every form" — is itself a clue to why he is the one asking; Daosheng reads the whole exchange as making explicit the root beneath Vimalakīrti's outward manifestation, tracing it back to its true source rather than to birth-and-death. Every family term Vimalakīrti offers in reply maps onto a specific Dharma category, and Kumārajīva glosses several of these mappings closely: wisdom is called "mother" and skillful means "father" partly on etymological grounds he notes from the source language, but also because wisdom, though it illuminates, needs the outward-facing work of skillful means to actually accomplish anything for beings — much as a mother alone, without a father's part, does not complete a household. The "single mind" that serves as charioteer gets its own careful gloss: Kumārajīva explains it as what the tradition also calls "harmony," the balance among three tendencies within cultivation of the path — arousal, restraint, and equanimity — so that a mind prone to scatter is gathered in, a mind sinking into dullness is roused, and a mind rightly balanced is simply allowed to proceed, exactly as a skilled charioteer neither whips a swift horse nor reins in a slow one past what the road requires.
A few images are worth having in full. The "seven pure flowers" floating on the pool of concentration are, per Kumārajīva, the seven stages of purification — purity of precepts, of mind, of view, of resolving doubt, of discerning path from non-path, of knowing what has been practiced and cut off, and finally the purity of nirvāṇa itself — each one, in this telling, blossoming directly out of settled concentration the way a flower rests on still water. And the closing image of "vast learning" as "the music that wakes him each morning" draws on a specific custom Kumārajīva records: in foreign courts, when a king was due to rise, musicians would wait for the first light and then play softly to wake him — not sound at random, but sound timed exactly to draw a sleeper up out of rest. Vast learning, on this reading, plays the same role for a bodhisattva resting in the deep stillness of the fourth dhyāna: not a disturbance of that stillness, but the one sound gentle and well-timed enough to draw him back out of it into engagement with beings.
33. Feeding on the Dharma, Answering Every Age's Affliction
「甘露法之食， 解脫味為漿， 淨心以澡浴， 戒品為塗香。 摧滅煩惱賊， 勇健無能踰， 降伏四種魔， 勝幡建道場。 雖知無起滅， 示彼故有生， 悉現諸國土， 如日無不見。 供養於十方， 無量億如來， 諸佛及己身， 無有分別想。 雖知諸佛國， 及與眾生空， 而常修淨土， 教化於群生。 諸有眾生類， 形聲及威儀， 無畏力菩薩， 一時能盡現。 覺知眾魔事， 而示隨其行， 以善方便智， 隨意皆能現。 或示老病死， 成就諸群生， 了知如幻化， 通達無有礙； 或現劫盡燒， 天地皆洞然， 眾人有常想， 照令知無常。 無數億眾生， 俱來請菩薩， 一時到其舍， 化令向佛道。 經書禁呪術， 工巧諸伎藝， 盡現行此事， 饒益諸群生。 世間眾道法， 悉於中出家， 因以解人惑， 而不墮邪見。 或作日月天， 梵王世界主， 或時作地水， 或復作風火。 劫中有疾疫， 現作諸藥草， 若有服之者， 除病消眾毒； 劫中有飢饉， 現身作飲食， 先救彼飢渴， 却以法語人； 劫中有刀兵， 為之起慈悲， 化彼諸眾生， 令住無諍地。
"The ambrosia of the Dharma is his food, the taste of liberation is his drink; a pure mind is his bath, and the qualities of discipline are his perfumed unguent. He crushes and destroys the bandit of affliction, courageous and vigorous beyond all rival; he subdues the four kinds of Māra, and raises the victory banner at the site of awakening. Though he knows there is neither arising nor ceasing, he displays birth for the sake of others; he manifests fully throughout every land, seen everywhere like the sun. He makes offerings to the immeasurable koṭis of tathāgatas of the ten directions, with no thought that discriminates between these buddhas and himself. Though he knows that every buddha-land, and every being within it, is empty, he constantly cultivates pure lands, teaching and converting the multitude of beings. Whatever forms, voices, and bearing every kind of being may have, the bodhisattva of fearless power can manifest every one of them at once. Aware of every deed of the māras, he displays himself following their very conduct; by the wisdom of his skillful means, he can manifest however he wishes. At times he displays old age, sickness, and death, to bring the multitude of beings to accomplishment, while himself fully knowing all of it to be illusory transformation, penetrating it without any obstruction; at times he manifests the great fire that ends an eon, in which heaven and earth are entirely ablaze, so that those with the notion of permanence are shown clearly to know impermanence. Innumerable koṭis of beings all come together to entreat the bodhisattva; he arrives at each of their homes at one and the same time, converting them all toward the buddha-way. Scriptures, spells and incantations, every skilled craft and art — he displays and practices every one of these fully, to benefit the multitude of beings. Among every path and teaching found in the world, he goes forth as a renunciant within each of them, and by this resolves people's confusion, without himself ever falling into wrong views. At times he becomes the sun-deva or the moon-deva, or Brahmā, lord of the world; at other times he becomes earth or water, or again he becomes wind or fire. When an eon holds pestilence and disease, he manifests as every kind of medicinal herb; whoever takes it has their sickness removed and every poison dispelled; when an eon holds famine, he manifests his own body as food and drink, first relieving their hunger and thirst, and only afterward speaking the Dharma to them; when an eon holds warfare, he gives rise to loving-kindness and compassion for their sake, converting those beings so that they abide in a state free of contention."
Kumārajīva marks a turn at "he crushes and destroys the bandit of affliction": everything before this line described how a bodhisattva's own household nourishes him; everything from here on describes what he then does with that strength. He also distinguishes two kinds of severing within the couplet itself — "crushing" the bandit of affliction is a suppressive, provisional cutting-off, while "subduing the four Māras" is the permanent kind — and the victory banner that follows draws on an actual foreign military custom: an army that defeats its enemy plants a banner to mark the win, and a bodhisattva who has subdued the four Māras plants the same kind of banner at the site of his own awakening. Sengzhao frames the long catalogue that follows — offerings to buddhas without number, manifesting every form beings might have, appearing to walk alongside the māras' own conduct in order to undo it from within — as together praising a single capacity he calls the bodhisattva's "power of responsive transformation": because his household is nothing but the Dharma itself, he can manifest without any of the limits an ordinary household would place on him.
The verse's move into disaster and want is worth reading as continuous with everything before it rather than as a change of register. Kumārajīva glosses the medicinal-herb image with an account current in his own time: certain foreign lands were said to have wondrous herbs shaped like a person, an elephant, or a horse, some so potent that a sufferer needed only to see or hear of them for their illness to lift. The warfare verse gets an even more specific story attached to it — of Vasumitra, who descends from the Trāyastriṃśa heaven to be born as a crown prince in a future age when human lifespans have fallen to ten years amid constant violence, and who teaches the people that their ancestors' far longer lives were lost precisely for want of loving-kindness; as they take up his teaching, lifespans lengthen generation after generation, reaching eighty-four thousand years by the time of Maitreya. The verse's claim — that a bodhisattva meets illness, famine, and war not by explaining them away but by becoming medicine, food, and the cause of reconciliation itself — is offered, on this reading, as something closer to a historical pattern than an abstraction.
34. Every Form the World Requires
「若有大戰陣， 立之以等力， 菩薩現威勢， 降伏使和安。 一切國土中， 諸有地獄處， 輒往到于彼， 勉濟其苦惱； 一切國土中， 畜生相食噉， 皆現生於彼， 為之作利益。 示受於五欲， 亦復現行禪， 令魔心憒亂， 不能得其便。 火中生蓮華， 是可謂希有， 在欲而行禪， 希有亦如是。 或現作婬女， 引諸好色者， 先以欲鉤牽， 後令入佛智； 或為邑中主， 或作商人導， 國師及大臣， 以祐利眾生。 諸有貧窮者， 現作無盡藏， 因以勸導之， 令發菩提心。 我心憍慢者， 為現大力士， 消伏諸貢高， 令住無上道。 其有恐懼眾， 居前而慰安， 先施以無畏， 後令發道心。 或現離婬欲， 為五通仙人， 開導諸群生， 令住戒忍慈。 見須供事者， 現為作僮僕， 既悅可其意， 乃發以道心， 隨彼之所須， 得入於佛道， 以善方便力， 皆能給足之。 如是道無量， 所行無有涯， 智慧無邊際， 度脫無數眾。 假令一切佛， 於無量億劫， 讚歎其功德， 猶尚不能盡。 誰聞如是法， 不發菩提心？ 除彼不肖人， 癡冥無智者。」
"Should there be a great battlefield with armies drawn up, he first establishes both sides with equal strength; the bodhisattva then manifests his own awe-inspiring power, subduing them until they are at peace. In every land, wherever there is a hell, he goes there at once, to labor at relieving its suffering and distress; in every land, wherever animals devour one another, he manifests being born among them, to work for their benefit. He displays himself partaking of the five desires, and also displays himself practicing meditative absorption, throwing the mind of Māra into such confusion that it can find no opening at all. A lotus flower growing in the midst of fire — this may truly be called a rare thing; to remain amid desire while practicing meditation is a rare thing in just the same way. At times he manifests as a woman of pleasure, drawing in those who are fond of beauty, first luring them in with the hook of desire, and only afterward leading them into the Buddha's own wisdom; at times he becomes the head of a town, or a caravan-leader among merchants, a royal preceptor, or a great minister, in order to bless and benefit beings. To those who are poor and destitute, he manifests as an inexhaustible treasury, and by this exhorts and guides them, so that they give rise to the mind of awakening. To one whose mind is arrogant and conceited, he manifests as a man of great strength, dissolving and subduing every trace of pride, until he abides in the unsurpassed path. To those multitudes gripped by fear, he stands before them and comforts them, first bestowing fearlessness upon them, and only afterward leading them to give rise to the mind of the path. At times he manifests as one who has renounced desire and lust, a seer possessed of the five supernormal powers, opening and guiding the multitude of beings, so that they abide in discipline, patience, and loving-kindness. Seeing those who need someone to serve and attend them, he manifests as a servant, and once he has pleased their minds, he then leads them to give rise to the mind of the path; whatever it is that each of them needs, in order to enter the buddha-way, by the power of his skillful means, he is able to fully supply it. Such a way is immeasurable, its practice without any limit; his wisdom is without any boundary, delivering and liberating countless beings. Even if every buddha, across immeasurable koṭis of eons, were to praise his merit, they still could not exhaust it. Who, hearing such a Dharma as this, would not give rise to the mind of awakening? Excepting only the unworthy, those benighted in delusion and devoid of wisdom."
Kumārajīva grounds the verse's turn toward hell-realms and predation among animals in a story from the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra: in a past age when people had lost all sense of propriety and were on the verge of harming an elder among them, a monkey, an elephant, and a bird each showed the elder reverence in turn, and the people, seeing beasts behave with more decency than they themselves had shown, were moved to cultivate goodness and reconcile with one another — the same structure, on a smaller scale, as a bodhisattva being born into a realm of predation "to work for its benefit." The pairing of "partaking of the five desires" with "practicing meditative absorption" gets Sengzhao's own gloss on why Māra is thrown into confusion by it: seeing indulgence, Māra would call it meditation and be wrong; seeing meditation, he would call it indulgence and be wrong again — the two are held in a single figure without seam, which is exactly what "a lotus growing from fire" is being used to name. For the verse's boldest single figure — manifesting as a woman of pleasure to draw in the desirous, then lead them to wisdom — Sengzhao's comment is characteristically terse: 反欲以順, "turning desire itself around into accord with the Way." Desire is not exchanged for its opposite; it is used against itself.
The image of appearing as "a man of great strength" for the arrogant carries its own small metaphor from Sengzhao: pride sits like a mountain peak that no water can settle on, so the bodhisattva first appears as something that can press that peak down, and only then can the water of the Dharma find anywhere to pool. And the chapter's very last line — "excepting only the unworthy, those benighted in delusion and devoid of wisdom" — draws, in Sengzhao's reading, on an old and much older-than-Buddhist figure of speech, the same shape as the line "a lesser man, hearing of the Way, laughs at it out loud": however bright the sun and moon may be, they are of no use at all to one who cannot see. It is a blunt note to end an otherwise expansive chapter on, and Sengzhao does not soften it — the verse has just finished describing a bodhisattva who will become a servant, a prostitute, food in a famine, and a soldier's equal on a battlefield rather than turn away from a single being; the only kind of listener this teaching cannot reach, it says, is one who will not look at it at all.