Regarding Living Beings
觀眾生品第七
How should a bodhisattva regard the beings his compassion is for, if none of them turn out to have any fixed nature at all? A chain of questions traces every affliction back to a rootless root; and a goddess who has lived in Vimalakīrti's room for twelve years scatters flowers, out-argues Śāriputra, and swaps bodies with him to make her point.
- This part covers
- A list of similes for how a bodhisattva regards beings, several deliberately naming things that do not exist even within the standard technical categories; the four immeasurable minds redefined without a fixed object; a chain of questions tracing affliction back to a rootless root, from which the sūtra says "every phenomenon is established"; and the goddess of Vimalakīrti's room, whose scattered flowers, twelve-year residence, and debate with Śāriputra over transforming out of her female body close the chapter.
- A note on this chapter's hardest passage
- The goddess-and-Śāriputra exchange is one of this sūtra's most-discussed passages, and modern and ancient readers tend to notice different things in it. This page's reading note tries to give both readings honestly rather than picking one.
25. How a Bodhisattva Views Living Beings
爾時文殊師利問維摩詰言：「菩薩云何觀於眾生？」維摩詰言：「譬如幻師，見所幻人，菩薩觀眾生為若此。如智者見水中月，如鏡中見其面像，如熱時焰，如呼聲響，如空中雲，如水聚沫，如水上泡，如芭蕉堅，如電久住，如第五大，如第六陰，如第七情，如十三入，如十九界，菩薩觀眾生為若此。如無色界色，如焦穀牙，如須陀洹身見，如阿那含入胎，如阿羅漢三毒，如得忍菩薩貪恚毀禁，如佛煩惱習，如盲者見色，如入滅盡定出入息，如空中鳥跡，如石女兒，如化人起煩惱，如夢所見已寤，如滅度者受身，如無因之火，菩薩觀眾生為若此。」
At that time Mañjuśrī asked Vimalakīrti: "How does a bodhisattva view living beings?" Vimalakīrti said: "It is like how a conjurer views the person he himself has conjured up — a bodhisattva views beings in just this way. It is like a wise man seeing the moon reflected in water, like seeing one's own face in a mirror, like a mirage in the heat, like the echo of a shout, like a cloud in the sky, like a mass of foam on water, like a bubble on water, like the supposed firmness of a plantain trunk, like lightning lasting a long time, like a fifth great element, like a sixth aggregate, like a seventh sense-faculty, like a thirteenth sense-field, like a nineteenth sense-realm — a bodhisattva views beings in just this way. It is like form in the formless realm, like a sprout from a scorched seed, like a stream-enterer's view of a fixed self, like a non-returner entering a womb, like an arhat's three poisons, like a bodhisattva who has attained acquiescence still breaking the precepts out of greed and anger, like a buddha's residual habitual tendencies, like a blind man seeing colors, like the breath going in and out of one absorbed in the cessation of perception and feeling, like a bird's track in the sky, like the child of a barren woman, like the afflictions of a conjured person, like what is seen in a dream after one has already woken, like a being already extinguished still taking on a body, like fire without smoke — a bodhisattva views beings in just this way."
Sengzhao situates this chapter as answering a question the previous one leaves open: having just heard, at length, that a bodhisattva's illness arises "because all beings are sick," a listener could easily conclude that beings must therefore exist as fixed, substantial objects for that compassion to be directed at. This chapter heads that off directly. A number of the similes in this list are chosen with technical precision rather than as loose poetry — "a fifth great element," "a sixth aggregate," "a thirteenth sense-field," "a nineteenth sense-realm" all name things that do not exist even within the standard Abhidharma count of four elements, five aggregates, twelve sense-fields, and eighteen sense-realms. The comparison is deliberately to something that has no place in the schema at all, not merely to something rare or hard to see.
The list moves, in its second half, from purely fictional comparisons to ones drawn from real but paradoxical cases within the tradition's own doctrine — a stream-enterer who should, by definition, no longer hold a fixed view of self; an arhat, whose three poisons should already be extinguished; a bodhisattva who has attained the acquiescence to non-arising yet still, in the story of this very sūtra, shows anger or breaks precepts as a display. These are not simple contradictions for their own sake; they extend the same point into cases a careful listener might otherwise think are exceptions. A bodhisattva's compassion, this chapter is arguing, does not require believing that the beings it is directed toward have any more fixed a nature than a fifth element or a barren woman's child — which is precisely what makes it compassion without the subtle self-interest of "saving something real for myself to have saved."
26. Loving-Kindness Without an Object
文殊師利言：「若菩薩作是觀者，云何行慈？」維摩詰言：「菩薩作是觀已，自念：『我當為眾生說如斯法。』是即真實慈也。行寂滅慈，無所生故；行不熱慈，無煩惱故；行等之慈，等三世故；行無諍慈，無所起故；行不二慈，內外不合故；行不壞慈，畢竟盡故；行堅固慈，心無毀故；行清淨慈，諸法性淨故；行無邊慈，如虛空故；行阿羅漢慈，破結賊故；行菩薩慈，安眾生故；行如來慈，得如相故；行佛之慈，覺眾生故；行自然慈，無因得故；行菩提慈，等一味故；行無等慈，斷諸愛故；行大悲慈，導以大乘故；行無厭慈，觀空無我故；行法施慈，無遺惜故；行持戒慈，化毀禁故；行忍辱慈，護彼我故；行精進慈，荷負眾生故；行禪定慈，不受味故；行智慧慈，無不知時故；行方便慈，一切示現故；行無隱慈，直心清淨故；行深心慈，無雜行故；行無誑慈，不虛假故；行安樂慈，令得佛樂故。菩薩之慈，為若此也。」文殊師利又問：「何謂為悲？」答曰：「菩薩所作功德，皆與一切眾生共之。」「何謂為喜？」答曰：「有所饒益，歡喜無悔。」「何謂為捨？」答曰：「所作福祐，無所悕望。」
Mañjuśrī said: "If a bodhisattva sees beings in this way, how does he practice loving-kindness?" Vimalakīrti said: "Having made this observation, a bodhisattva thinks to himself: 'I should teach beings a Dharma exactly like this.' This itself is true loving-kindness. He practices a loving-kindness of stillness, since it gives rise to nothing; he practices a loving-kindness free of heat, since it has no affliction in it; he practices a loving-kindness of equanimity, since it regards the three times equally; he practices a loving-kindness free of contention, since nothing arises in it to contend with; he practices a loving-kindness of non-duality, since inner and outer do not unite in it; he practices a loving-kindness that cannot be destroyed, since it is, in the end, entirely at rest; he practices a firm loving-kindness, since his mind cannot be broken; he practices a pure loving-kindness, since the nature of every phenomenon is itself pure; he practices a boundless loving-kindness, since it is like empty space; he practices the loving-kindness of an arhat, since it breaks the bandit of every fetter; he practices the loving-kindness of a bodhisattva, since it brings peace to beings; he practices the loving-kindness of a tathāgata, since it attains the mark of suchness; he practices the loving-kindness of a buddha, since it awakens beings; he practices a spontaneous loving-kindness, since it is attained without any external cause; he practices the loving-kindness of awakening itself, since it is of a single, equal flavor; he practices an unequaled loving-kindness, since it has cut off every craving; he practices a loving-kindness of great compassion, since it guides beings by way of the Great Vehicle; he practices a loving-kindness free of weariness, since it observes emptiness and no-self; he practices a loving-kindness of Dharma-giving, since it holds nothing back; he practices a loving-kindness of upholding discipline, since it converts those who break the precepts; he practices a loving-kindness of patience, since it protects both self and other; he practices a loving-kindness of diligence, since it takes up the burden of every being; he practices a loving-kindness of meditative concentration, since it does not partake of any pleasurable flavor; he practices a loving-kindness of wisdom, since it never fails to know the right moment; he practices a loving-kindness of skillful means, since it manifests in every form needed; he practices a loving-kindness without concealment, since its straightforward mind is pure; he practices a loving-kindness of deep mind, since it is free of any mixed conduct; he practices a loving-kindness without deception, since it is never false or hollow; he practices a loving-kindness of peace and joy, since it brings beings to the joy of buddhahood. Such is a bodhisattva's loving-kindness." Mañjuśrī then asked further: "What is meant by compassion?" He answered: "It means sharing every merit one has made with every being alike." "What is meant by sympathetic joy?" He answered: "It means rejoicing without regret in whatever benefits one has brought about." "What is meant by equanimity?" He answered: "It means seeking no reward at all for whatever blessing one has done."
This is one of several long enumerations across this sūtra built from a single repeated shape — here, "he practices an X loving-kindness, since Y" — and it is worth reading as one substance approached from roughly thirty angles rather than thirty separate virtues. Sengzhao's summary line makes the point explicit: "all these names above are each the substance of true loving-kindness itself; it is because this loving-kindness already has this capacity that it earns this name — none of it is borrowed from some other practice merely to serve as a label." The sequence moves, roughly, from the most abstract metaphysical qualifications (stillness, equanimity across the three times, non-duality of inner and outer) toward increasingly concrete ethical ones (patience that protects both self and other, diligence that shoulders the burden of beings, giving that holds nothing back) — the same loving-kindness examined first as what it is, and then as what it does.
The three brief definitions of compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity that close the section are worth noticing for their restraint after such a long list: compassion is simply sharing one's own merit with every being without distinction; sympathetic joy is delight without regret in whatever good has been accomplished; equanimity is doing good while expecting nothing back. Kumārajīva notes that the śrāvaka path also teaches these four immeasurable minds, but without the capacity to genuinely benefit beings at the scale a bodhisattva's version does — the difference, on his reading, is not that a bodhisattva feels more loving-kindness than an arhat, but that this loving-kindness, unattached to any fixed object, is not bounded in the way an ordinary compassion attached to particular, substantial people would be.
27. The Rootless Root From Which Every Phenomenon Is Established
文殊師利又問：「生死有畏，菩薩當何所依？」維摩詰言：「菩薩於生死畏中，當依如來功德之力。」又問：「菩薩欲依如來功德之力，當於何住？」答曰：「菩薩欲依如來功德力者，當住度脫一切眾生。」又問：「欲度眾生，當何所除？」答曰：「欲度眾生，除其煩惱。」又問：「欲除煩惱，當何所行？」答曰：「當行正念。」又問：「云何行於正念？」答曰：「當行不生不滅。」又問：「何法不生？何法不滅？」答曰：「不善不生，善法不滅。」又問：「善、不善孰為本？」答曰：「身為本。」又問：「身孰為本？」答曰：「欲貪為本。」又問：「欲貪孰為本？」答曰：「虛妄分別為本。」又問：「虛妄分別孰為本？」答曰：「顛倒想為本。」又問：「顛倒想孰為本？」答曰：「無住為本。」又問：「無住孰為本？」答曰：「無住則無本。文殊師利！從無住本，立一切法。」
Mañjuśrī asked further: "If a bodhisattva fears birth-and-death, what should he rely on?" Vimalakīrti said: "In the midst of the fear of birth-and-death, a bodhisattva should rely on the power of the Tathāgata's own merit." He asked further: "If a bodhisattva wishes to rely on the power of the Tathāgata's merit, where should he abide?" He answered: "If a bodhisattva wishes to rely on the power of the Tathāgata's merit, he should abide in delivering every being." He asked further: "If he wishes to deliver beings, what should he remove?" He answered: "If he wishes to deliver beings, he should remove their afflictions." He asked further: "If he wishes to remove afflictions, what should he practice?" He answered: "He should practice right mindfulness." He asked further: "How does one practice right mindfulness?" He answered: "One should practice non-arising and non-ceasing." He asked further: "What thing does not arise, and what thing does not cease?" He answered: "What is unwholesome does not arise, and what is wholesome does not cease." He asked further: "What is the root of the wholesome and the unwholesome?" He answered: "The body is their root." He asked further: "What is the root of the body?" He answered: "Desire and craving are its root." He asked further: "What is the root of desire and craving?" He answered: "False discrimination is their root." He asked further: "What is the root of false discrimination?" He answered: "Inverted perception is its root." He asked further: "What is the root of inverted perception?" He answered: "Having no fixed abode is its root." He asked further: "What is the root of having no fixed abode?" He answered: "Having no fixed abode has no root at all. Mañjuśrī, it is from this rootless root of having no fixed abode that every phenomenon is established."
This chain of ten questions works backward, each answer becoming the next question's target, until it arrives at something that turns out to have no further root to trace — and Sengzhao's image for the whole descent is worth having in mind while reading it: "the mind is like water — when still, it reflects; when stirred, it cannot. Muddied by delusion and craving, fanned by the wind of wrong views, it surges and churns without ever once settling." Every inverted perception in a being's mind, on this reading, arises the way ripples arise on water — not because the water has some fixed "rippling nature," but because nothing is holding it still. That absence of anything to hold still — "having no fixed abode" — is not itself one further thing among the others in the chain; it is what makes the whole chain of arising possible in the first place, precisely because it is not itself pinned down by anything either.
The chapter's final line — "from this rootless root, every phenomenon is established" (從無住本，立一切法) — became one of the single most quoted phrases from this entire sūtra in later Chinese Buddhist thought, cited for centuries afterward by thinkers well beyond this text's own commentarial tradition. Sengzhao's own gloss keeps its two-sided character intact rather than resolving it into either pure negation or pure affirmation: "if the absence of any dharma is taken as the root, then something arises by way of that absence — nothing arises without depending on this absence — and so there is, strictly speaking, no further root beneath it." The same rootlessness that explains how affliction arises in an unenlightened mind is, in this reading, identical to the groundless ground from which every phenomenon whatsoever — wholesome or not — comes to be.
28. The Goddess, the Flowers, and the Room's Eight Wonders
時維摩詰室有一天女，見諸大人聞所說法，便現其身，即以天華散諸菩薩、大弟子上。華至諸菩薩，即皆墮落，至大弟子，便著不墮。一切弟子神力去華，不能令去。爾時天女問舍利弗：「何故去華？」答曰：「此華不如法，是以去之。」天曰：「勿謂此華為不如法。所以者何？是華無所分別，仁者自生分別想耳！若於佛法出家，有所分別，為不如法；若無所分別，是則如法。觀諸菩薩華不著者，已斷一切分別想故。譬如人畏時，非人得其便；如是弟子畏生死故，色、聲、香、味、觸得其便也。已離畏者，一切五欲無能為也；結習未盡，華著身耳！結習盡者，華不著也。」舍利弗言：「天止此室，其已久如？」答曰：「我止此室，如耆年解脫。」舍利弗言：「止此久耶？」天曰：「耆年解脫，亦何如久？」舍利弗默然不答。天曰：「如何耆舊大智而默？」答曰：「解脫者無所言說，故吾於是不知所云。」天曰：「言說文字，皆解脫相。所以者何？解脫者，不內不外，不在兩間；文字亦不內不外，不在兩間。是故，舍利弗！無離文字說解脫也。所以者何？一切諸法是解脫相。」舍利弗言：「不復以離婬、怒、癡為解脫乎？」天曰：「佛為增上慢人說離婬、怒、癡為解脫耳；若無增上慢者，佛說婬、怒、癡性，即是解脫。」舍利弗言：「善哉，善哉！天女！汝何所得？以何為證？辯乃如是！」天曰：「我無得無證，故辯如是。所以者何？若有得有證者，即於佛法為增上慢。」舍利弗問天：「汝於三乘為何志求？」天曰：「以聲聞法化眾生故，我為聲聞；以因緣法化眾生故，我為辟支佛；以大悲法化眾生故，我為大乘。舍利弗！如人入瞻蔔林，唯嗅瞻蔔，不嗅餘香。如是，若入此室，但聞佛功德之香，不樂聞聲聞、辟支佛功德香也。舍利弗！其有釋、梵、四天王，諸天、龍、鬼神等，入此室者，聞斯上人講說正法，皆樂佛功德之香，發心而出。舍利弗！吾止此室十有二年，初不聞說聲聞、辟支佛法，但聞菩薩大慈大悲、不可思議諸佛之法。舍利弗！此室常現八未曾有難得之法。何等為八？此室常以金色光照，晝夜無異，不以日月所照為明，是為一未曾有難得之法；此室入者，不為諸垢之所惱也，是為二未曾有難得之法；此室常有釋、梵、四天王、他方菩薩來會不絕，是為三未曾有難得之法；此室常說六波羅蜜不退轉法，是為四未曾有難得之法；此室常作天人第一之樂，絃出無量法化之聲，是為五未曾有難得之法；此室有四大藏，眾寶積滿，賙窮濟乏，求得無盡，是為六未曾有難得之法；此室釋迦牟尼佛、阿彌陀佛、阿閦佛、寶德、寶炎、寶月、寶嚴、難勝、師子響一切利成，如是等十方無量諸佛，是上人念時即皆為來，廣說諸佛秘要法藏，說已還去，是為七未曾有難得之法；此室一切諸天嚴飾宮殿、諸佛淨土，皆於中現，是為八未曾有難得之法。舍利弗！此室常現八未曾有難得之法，誰有見斯不思議事，而復樂於聲聞法乎？」
At that time there was a goddess dwelling in Vimalakīrti's room, who, seeing these great beings listening to the Dharma being taught, manifested her own form, and scattered heavenly flowers over the bodhisattvas and the great disciples. When the flowers reached the bodhisattvas, they all fell away at once; but when they reached the great disciples, they clung to them and would not fall. All the disciples used their spiritual power to try to remove the flowers, but could not make them fall. The goddess then asked Śāriputra: "Why are you trying to remove these flowers?" He answered: "These flowers are not in accordance with the Dharma, and so I am trying to remove them." The goddess said: "Do not say that these flowers are not in accordance with the Dharma. And why? These flowers make no discrimination at all — it is you yourself, sir, who are giving rise to a discriminating thought. If, having gone forth within the Buddha's own Dharma, one still makes discriminations, this is what is not in accordance with the Dharma; if one makes no discrimination, this is what is truly in accordance with the Dharma. Look at these bodhisattvas — the flowers do not cling to them, because they have already cut off every discriminating thought entirely. It is like how, when a person feels fear, non-human spirits find their opening; just so, it is because you disciples still fear birth-and-death that form, sound, smell, taste, and touch find their opening in you. Once one is free of this fear, the five desires can do nothing at all; it is only because your habitual residue is not yet exhausted that the flowers cling to your bodies at all — for one whose habitual residue is exhausted, the flowers do not cling." Śāriputra said: "Goddess, how long have you been dwelling in this room?" She answered: "I have been dwelling in this room for as long as an elder's liberation." Śāriputra said: "Has it truly been that long?" The goddess said: "And how long, exactly, has an elder's liberation itself lasted?" Śāriputra fell silent and did not answer. The goddess said: "How is it that one so senior and so wise falls silent?" He answered: "Liberation is not something that can be put into words — that is why I do not know what to say about it." The goddess said: "Speech and written words are themselves marks of liberation. And why? Because liberation is not within, not without, and not located anywhere in between; and words, too, are not within, not without, and not located anywhere in between. Therefore, Śāriputra, one cannot speak of liberation by departing from words. And why? Because every phenomenon whatsoever is itself a mark of liberation." Śāriputra said: "But is liberation not simply freedom from lust, anger, and delusion?" The goddess said: "The Buddha teaches 'freedom from lust, anger, and delusion' as liberation only for the sake of those who are excessively conceited; for one without such conceit, the Buddha teaches that the very nature of lust, anger, and delusion is itself liberation." Śāriputra said: "Excellent, excellent, goddess! What have you attained, what have you realized, that your eloquence reaches this far?" The goddess said: "I have attained nothing and realized nothing — that is exactly why my eloquence is what it is. And why? Because whoever has attained something, or realized something, has thereby fallen into conceit with respect to the Buddha's own Dharma." Śāriputra asked the goddess: "Which of the three vehicles do you yourself aspire to?" She answered: "When I teach beings by the Dharma of the śrāvaka, I am a śrāvaka; when I teach beings by the Dharma of causes and conditions, I am a pratyekabuddha; when I teach beings by the Dharma of great compassion, I am of the Great Vehicle. Śāriputra, it is like a person entering a campaka forest, who smells only the campaka flowers and no other scent; just so, one who enters this room smells only the fragrance of the Buddha's own merit, and takes no delight in the fragrance of the merit of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha. Śāriputra, whatever devas, dragons, and spirits of Indra's or Brahmā's retinue, or of the Four Heavenly Kings, enter this room, on hearing this superior being expound the true Dharma, all come to delight in the fragrance of the Buddha's merit, and give rise to the awakening-mind before they leave. Śāriputra, I have dwelt in this room for twelve full years now, and in all that time I have never once heard the Dharma of the śrāvaka or the pratyekabuddha spoken here — I have heard only the bodhisattva's great loving-kindness, great compassion, and the buddhas' own inconceivable Dharma. Śāriputra, this room constantly manifests eight rare and wondrous qualities never found elsewhere. What are these eight? This room is constantly illuminated by a golden light, day and night alike, never depending on the light of sun or moon — this is the first rare and wondrous quality. Whoever enters this room is untroubled by any defilement — this is the second rare and wondrous quality. This room is never without a constant stream of visitors — Indra, Brahmā, the Four Heavenly Kings, and bodhisattvas from other lands — this is the third rare and wondrous quality. This room constantly teaches the six perfections and the Dharma of non-retrogression — this is the fourth rare and wondrous quality. This room constantly resounds with the foremost music of devas and humans, playing forth the immeasurable sound of the Dharma's own transformation — this is the fifth rare and wondrous quality. This room contains four great treasuries, filled to overflowing with every kind of jewel, providing for the poor and relieving the destitute without ever running out — this is the sixth rare and wondrous quality. Whenever this superior being calls them to mind, Śākyamuni Buddha, Amitābha Buddha, Akṣobhya Buddha, and every other immeasurable buddha of the ten directions all come here at once, expound at length the secret treasuries of every buddha's Dharma, and then return again — this is the seventh rare and wondrous quality. Every adorned palace of every deva, and every pure buddha-land, appears within this room — this is the eighth rare and wondrous quality. Śāriputra, this room constantly manifests these eight rare and wondrous qualities — who, having seen such inconceivable things, could still take delight in the Dharma of the śrāvaka?"
Kumārajīva's explanation of the flower simile is direct: the room, being wholly untainted by any teaching short of the Great Vehicle, has no room in it for a "pure" versus "impure" distinction to apply to something as simple as a scattered flower — the disciples, still carrying unexhausted habitual residue, are the ones for whom the flower has anywhere to cling. His account of the non-human-spirit simile is worth having in full, since the sūtra compresses it to a single clause: a rākṣasa once disguised itself as a horse, and a traveler, not suspecting anything, rode it without hesitation; partway along, the horse asked him, "Is this a fine horse?" — testing for fear — and the traveler, sensing danger, drew his knife and asked in turn, "Is this a fine knife?", showing no trace of fright; the rākṣasa, finding no opening, did not dare harm him. Fear, in other words, is what a predator (or, here, an affliction) actually feeds on — and the disciples' clinging flowers demonstrate the same mechanism working on the five desires.
The list of the room's eight wonders functions the way several catalogues elsewhere in this sūtra do — capping an argument with something the assembly can witness directly rather than merely be told. Worth noting for readers following this site's other sūtra translations: the buddhas named as visiting at the goddess's recollection include both Śākyamuni and Amitābha, the central figures of the Amitābha and Immeasurable Life sūtras translated elsewhere on this site, alongside Akṣobhya, whose own buddha-land this sūtra will visit directly in a later chapter — a small thread connecting this text to the wider Pure Land literature it otherwise stands apart from.
29. "Why Don't You Transform Out of Your Female Body?"
舍利弗言：「汝何以不轉女身？」天曰：「我從十二年來，求女人相了不可得，當何所轉？譬如幻師化作幻女，若有人問：『何以不轉女身？』是人為正問不？」舍利弗言：「不也！幻無定相，當何所轉？」天曰：「一切諸法亦復如是，無有定相，云何乃問不轉女身？」即時天女以神通力，變舍利弗令如天女，天自化身如舍利弗，而問言：「何以不轉女身？」舍利弗以天女像而答言：「我今不知何轉而變為女身？」天曰：「舍利弗！若能轉此女身，則一切女人亦當能轉。如舍利弗非女而現女身，一切女人亦復如是，雖現女身，而非女也。是故佛說一切諸法非男、非女。」即時天女還攝神力，舍利弗身還復如故。天問舍利弗：「女身色相今何所在？」舍利弗言：「女身色相，無在無不在。」天曰：「一切諸法，亦復如是，無在無不在。夫無在無不在者，佛所說也。」舍利弗問天：「汝於此沒，當生何所？」天曰：「佛化所生，吾如彼生。」曰：「佛化所生，非沒生也。」天曰：「眾生猶然，無沒生也。」舍利弗問天：「汝久如當得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提？」天曰：「如舍利弗還為凡夫，我乃當成阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。」舍利弗言：「我作凡夫，無有是處。」天曰：「我得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，亦無是處。所以者何？菩提無住處，是故無有得者。」舍利弗言：「今諸佛得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提，已得、當得如恒河沙，皆謂何乎？」天曰：「皆以世俗文字數故，說有三世，非謂菩提有去、來、今。」天曰：「舍利弗！汝得阿羅漢道耶？」曰：「無所得故而得。」天曰：「諸佛、菩薩亦復如是，無所得故而得。」爾時維摩詰語舍利弗：「是天女已曾供養九十二億佛，已能遊戲菩薩神通，所願具足，得無生忍，住不退轉；以本願故，隨意能現，教化眾生。」
Śāriputra said: "Why do you not transform out of this female body of yours?" The goddess said: "For these twelve years I have searched for the mark of a 'female' and have never been able to find one at all — what, then, is there to transform? It is like a conjurer who conjures up an illusory woman: if someone were to ask her, 'Why do you not transform out of your female body?' — would that be a proper question at all?" Śāriputra said: "No — an illusion has no fixed mark, so what would there be to transform?" The goddess said: "Every phenomenon, in just the same way, has no fixed mark at all — so why, then, do you ask why I do not transform out of my female body?" At that moment the goddess, by her spiritual power, transformed Śāriputra to look exactly like herself, a goddess, while she herself took on a form exactly like Śāriputra's, and asked him: "Why do you not transform out of your female body?" Śāriputra, now in the form of a goddess, answered: "I no longer know how it is that I have come to be transformed into this female body at all!" The goddess said: "Śāriputra, if you are able to transform out of this female body, then every woman should equally be able to transform out of hers. Just as you, Śāriputra, though not a woman, now appear in a woman's body, every woman, in just the same way, though appearing in a woman's body, is not truly a woman at all. This is why the Buddha teaches that no phenomenon is truly male or truly female." At that the goddess withdrew her spiritual power, and Śāriputra's body returned to its original form. The goddess asked Śāriputra: "Where, now, has the form and color of that female body gone?" Śāriputra said: "The form and color of a female body is neither anywhere nor nowhere at all." The goddess said: "Every phenomenon, in just the same way, is neither anywhere nor nowhere — and this 'neither anywhere nor nowhere' is exactly what the Buddha himself has taught." Śāriputra asked the goddess: "When you pass away from this place, where will you be reborn?" The goddess said: "I will be born wherever a buddha's own transformation is born; I am born just as that is born." He said: "But a buddha's transformation is not something that passes away and is reborn at all." The goddess said: "Beings, too, are exactly the same — there is no passing away and being reborn for them either." Śāriputra asked the goddess: "How long will it be before you attain unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening?" The goddess said: "It will be exactly as long as it takes for you, Śāriputra, to become an ordinary, unenlightened being again — only then will I attain unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening." Śāriputra said: "That I should become an ordinary being again is simply not possible." The goddess said: "And that I should attain unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening is, in exactly the same way, not possible either. And why? Because awakening has no fixed abode at all — and so there is no one who attains it." Śāriputra said: "But the buddhas, who have already attained unsurpassed, perfect and complete awakening, who are attaining it now, and who will attain it in the future — they are as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. What, then, are we to make of this?" The goddess said: "It is only by way of ordinary, conventional words and numbers that one speaks of three times at all — it is not that awakening itself truly has a past, a future, and a present." The goddess then said: "Śāriputra, have you yourself attained the fruit of arhatship?" He said: "It is precisely because there is nothing attained that I have attained it." The goddess said: "The buddhas and bodhisattvas, in exactly the same way — it is precisely because there is nothing attained that they attain it." At that time Vimalakīrti said to Śāriputra: "This goddess has already made offerings to ninety-two koṭis of buddhas; she is already able to sport freely with a bodhisattva's spiritual powers, her vows are already fully accomplished, she has attained the acquiescence to the birthlessness of phenomena, and abides in non-retrogression; and it is by the power of her own original vow that she is able to manifest herself however she wishes, in order to teach and convert beings."
This exchange is among the most discussed passages in the sūtra, and ancient and modern readers tend to arrive at it with different questions, so it is worth giving both honestly rather than smoothing over the gap. Sengzhao reads Śāriputra's opening question at face value, as assuming an "unobstructed wisdom" wearing an "obstructed body" — and reads the goddess's whole reply, including the striking device of literally swapping bodies with Śāriputra so he experiences from the inside what he had only argued about from the outside, as one more application of this chapter's governing point: nothing has a fixed mark, so "who is beautiful, who is ugly, that anyone should wish to transform them?" On this reading the passage is doing exactly what the mustard-seed feat and the flower-and-disciples scene were doing — showing a category a listener treats as solid (Sumeru's size, ritual purity, and here, sex) has no fixed nature to hold onto once actually examined. Sengzhao's commentary does not read the passage as being about social status between women and men specifically; for him it is a case study in the emptiness of fixed marks generally, with "female" simply the example at hand.
A modern reader is likely to notice something Sengzhao's commentary does not comment on at all: Śāriputra's question itself only makes sense against a background assumption, widespread enough elsewhere in Mahāyāna literature to have its own name (轉女成男, "transforming a female body into a male one"), that being born female was itself a lesser or more obstructed condition — a premise other sūtras treat as a genuine problem solved by promising women rebirth as men as a reward for merit. The goddess's answer does not defend that premise or accept its terms; she dissolves the category it depends on, showing "male" and "female" equally without fixed mark, so that the very demand to transform out of one into the other is exposed as resting on a distinction that was never really there. Whether this fully answers the question a present-day reader is likely to ask first — why the exchange assumes, without anyone raising it, that the desirable direction of transformation runs only one way — is worth sitting with honestly rather than deciding on the goddess's, or the ancient commentators', behalf. The text itself gives the goddess the clear rhetorical and doctrinal victory in the scene it stages; what it does not do is have anyone ask why a man should transform into a woman, and the commentary tradition preserved here does not raise that asymmetry either.