The Flower Ornament Scripture

by Thomas Cleary

  Is hard to get to meet

  Even in countless eons.

  Buddha emits great light

  Visible to all the world;

  Preaching extensively for the multitudes,

  He benefits all living beings.

  Buddha appears in the world

  Removing the darkness of ignorance;

  Such a lamp of the world

  Is rare and hard to get to behold.

  Having cultivated generosity, self-control, and patience,

  Diligence and meditation,

  And ultimate transcendent wisdom,

  With them he lights the world.

  The Buddha has no peer;

  None comparable can be found.

  Without comprehending real truth

  No one can perceive him.

  Buddha’s body and psychic powers

  Are inconceivably free:

  Neither going nor coming,

  He speaks the truth to liberate.

  If any can see and hear

  The pure Teacher of humans and gods,

  They’ll leave forever the states of woe

  And cast off all miseries.

  For measureless, countless eons

  He cultivated enlightening practice;

  Who cannot know the meaning of this

  Cannot attain buddhahood.

  If one can know this meaning,

  One’s virtues will surpass

  One who makes offerings to countless Buddhas

  For inconceivable eons.

  Even if one gives to a Buddha

  Countless lands full of jewels,

  If one knows not this meaning,

  One never attains enlightenment.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Victory, imbued with power from the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  As in the summer months

  With the sky clear and cloudless,

  The radiant sun blazes with light

  Filling the ten directions,

  That light boundless,

  Impossible to measure

  Even by those with eyes,

  Let alone the blind—

  So are the Buddhas—

  Their virtues are boundless;

  Even in inconceivable eons

  No one can know them in detail.

  All things have no provenance

  And no one can create them:

  There is nowhere whence they are born,

  They cannot be discriminated.

  All things have no provenance,

  Therefore they have no birth;

  Because there is no birth,

  Neither can extinction be found.

  All things are birthless

  And have no extinction either;

  Those who understand in this way

  Will see the Buddha.

  Because things have no birth,

  Their inherent nature is nonexistent;

  One who analyzes and knows this

  Will arrive at the profound truth.

  Because things have no inherent nature

  No one can comprehend them;

  When understanding things in this way,

  Ultimately nothing is understood.

  That which is said to have birth

  Is to manifest lands—

  If one can know the nature of lands

  One’s mind will not be confused:

  Examining according to truth

  The nature of the world and lands,

  If one is able to know this,

  One can explain all things.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Fearlessness, by the power of the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  The Buddha’s immense body

  Reaches the extremities of the cosmos;

  Without leaving this seat

  It pervades all places.

  Whoever, hearing this teaching,

  Respects and has faith in it,

  Shall forever escape all the miseries

  Of the states of woe.

  Even going to many worlds,

  Uncountably numerous,

  Single-mindedly desiring to hear

  Of the powers of the Buddha,

  And such qualities of Buddhas,

  Their unexcelled enlightenment,

  Even wanting to hear for a moment,

  None is able to do so.

  If any in the past

  Believed this aspect of Buddha,

  They have already become Buddhas

  And are lamps of the world.

  If any will get to hear

  Of the Buddha’s free powers,

  And having heard will believe,

  They too will become Buddhas.

  If any in the present

  Can believe this teaching of Buddha,

  They will also become Buddhas

  And expound the teaching fearlessly.

  This teaching is hard to encounter

  Even in countless eons:

  If any get to hear it,

  Know it is the power of past vows.

  If any can accept and hold

  Such teachings of Buddha,

  And, upholding them, spread them too,

  They will become Buddhas.

  How much the more so those who work diligently,

  Firm of mind, not giving up:

  You should know such people

  Will certainly attain enlightenment.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Conscience, empowered by the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  If people get to hear

  This rare teaching of freedom

  And can produce a joyful mind

  They’ll soon remove the webs of doubt.

  The one who knows and sees all

  Speaks these words himself;

  There’s nothing the Buddha knows not,

  Therefore he’s inconceivable.

  Never from lack of wisdom

  Has wisdom ever been born:

  Worldlings are always in the dark,

  And therefore none can produce it.

  Just as form and nonform

  Are two and not one,

  So are knowledge and ignorance:

  They are essentially different.

  As signs and signlessness,

  Birth-death and nirvana,

  Are distinct and not the same,

  So are knowledge and nescience.

  When a world first comes to be

  There’s no sign of decay:

  So it is with knowledge and ignorance:

  Their characteristics are not simultaneous.

  Like the enlightening beings’ first state of mind

  Does not coexist with their final state of mind,

  So it is with knowledge and nescience:

  These two minds do not coexist.

  Just as bodies of consciousness

  Are individual and don’t combine,

  So also knowledge and ignorance

  Ultimately have no communion.

  Just as a panacea

  Can eliminate all toxins,

  So also can knowledge

  Extinguish all ignorance.

  The Enlightened is unexcelled

  And also has no peer;

  He has no compare at all

  And is therefore hard to meet.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Energy, empowered by the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  All things have no differentiation;

  No one can know them:

  Only among Buddhas are they known,

  Because Buddhas’ knowledge is ultimate.

  Just as gold and gold color

  Are in essence no different,

  So also phenomena and nonphenomena

  Are in essence no different.

  Sentient beings and not sentient beings

  Are both without reality:

  In this way the natures of all things
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  In truth are nonexistent.

  Just as the future

  Has not the marks of the past,

  So also do all things

  Not have any marks at all.

  Just as the signs of birth and death

  Are all unreal,

  So also are all things

  Void of intrinsic nature.

  Nirvana cannot be grasped,

  But when spoken of there are two kinds,

  So it is of all things:

  When discriminated, they are different.

  Just as based on something counted

  There exists a way of counting,

  Their nature is nonexistent:

  Thus are phenomena perfectly known.

  It’s like the method of counting,

  Adding one, up to infinity;

  The numbers have no substantial nature:

  They are distinguished due to intellect.

  Just as the worlds have an end

  When burnt in the final holocaust

  Yet space is not destroyed:

  So is the Buddha’s knowledge.

  These sentient beings of the universe

  Each grasp characteristics of space:

  So it is of the Buddhas;

  Worldlings conceive of them arbitrarily.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Power, by the Buddha’s power, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  All realms of living beings

  Are in the past, present, or future:

  The living beings of past, present, and future

  All dwell in the five clusters.

  The five clusters are based on actions,

  Actions are based on mind:

  Mental phenomena are like phantoms,

  And so indeed is the world.

  The world doesn’t make itself,

  Nor is it made by another:

  Yet it has a formation

  And also has a disintegration.

  Though the world has a formation

  And a disintegration,

  One who understands the world

  Would not speak this way.

  What is the world,

  What is not a world?

  World and not world

  Are only distinctions of name.

  The three times and five clusters

  Are called the world,

  Their extinction is “not the world”:

  Thus they are just temporary names.

  How are the clusters explained?

  What nature do they have?

  The nature of the clusters is indestructible,

  So it is called unborn.

  Analyzing these clusters,

  Their nature is fundamentally empty and nil;

  Because it is empty, it cannot be destroyed:

  This is the meaning of birthlessness.

  Since sentient beings are thus,

  So also are the Buddhas;

  Buddhas and Buddha-teachings

  Intrinsically have no existence.

  If any can know these things

  Truly, without delusion,

  The one who knows and sees all

  Will always be before them.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Practice, empowered by the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  As in all worlds

  All the solid elements

  Have no independent existence

  Yet are found everywhere,

  So also does the Buddha-body

  Pervade all worlds,

  Its various physical forms

  Without abode or origin.

  Just because of activities

  Do we say the name “living beings”—

  And there is no action to be found

  Apart from living beings.

  The nature of action is fundamentally empty and nil,

  But is that on which beings are based,

  Everywhere producing all physical forms,

  And yet coming from nowhere.

  This is the active power of forms,

  Impossible to conceive:

  If one comprehends the basis,

  Therein no object is seen.

  The Buddha-body is also like this:

  It cannot be conceived;

  Its various physical forms

  Appear in all lands in the cosmos.

  The body is not the Buddha,

  Nor is Buddha a body:

  Only reality is the body,

  Permeating all things.

  If one can see the Buddha-body

  Pure as the nature of reality,

  Such a one has no doubt

  Or confusion about the Buddha.

  If one sees all things

  As in essence like nirvana,

  This is seeing the Enlightened

  Ultimately without abode.

  If one cultivates right awareness

  And clearly sees true awakening,

  Signless, without discrimination,

  This is an inheritor of truth.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Awareness, imbued with the power of Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  It’s like a painter

  Spreading the various colors:

  Delusion grasps different forms

  But the elements have no distinctions.

  In the elements there’s no form,

  And no form in the elements;

  And yet apart from the elements

  No form can be found.

  In the mind is no painting,

  In painting there is no mind;

  Yet not apart from mind

  Is any painting to be found.

  That mind never stops,

  Manifesting all forms,

  Countless, inconceivably many,

  Unknown to one another.

  Just as a painter

  Can’t know his own mind

  Yet paints due to the mind,

  So is the nature of all things.

  Mind is like an artist,

  Able to paint the worlds:

  The five clusters all are born thence;

  There’s nothing it doesn’t make.

  As is the mind, so is the Buddha;

  As the Buddha, so living beings:

  Know that Buddha and mind

  Are in essence inexhaustible.

  If people know the actions of mind

  Create all the worlds,

  They will see the Buddha

  And understand Buddha’s true nature.

  Mind does not stay in the body,

  Nor body stay in mind:

  Yet it’s able to perform Buddha-work

  Freely, without precedent.

  If people want to really know

  All Buddhas of all times,

  They should contemplate the nature of the cosmos:

  All is but mental construction.

  Then the enlightening being Forest of Knowledge, receiving power from the Buddha, looked over the ten directions and said in verse,

  The grasped cannot be grasped,

  The seen cannot be seen,

  The heard cannot be heard:

  The one mind is inconceivable.

  The finite and the infinite

  Are both ungraspable;

  If any want to apprehend them,

  Ultimately they apprehend nothing.

  To say what should not be said

  Is self-deception;

  When one’s own task is not complete,

  One cannot gladden others.

  Those who wish to laud the Buddha’s

  Boundless body of wondrous form

  Could not express it fully

  Even in countless eons.

  Just as the wish-fulfilling jewel

  Can manifest all colors,

  Being colorless yet manifesting color,

  So are all the Buddhas.

  Also like clear space

  Is formless and invisible

  And thou
gh it shows all forms

  None can see space,

  So it is with the Buddhas;

  They manifest infinite forms everywhere

  Yet are not in the province of mental activity

  So no one is able to see them.

  Though the Buddha’s voice is heard,

  The sound is not the Buddha;

  And yet not apart from sound

  Can the Truly Awake be known.

  Enlightenment has no coming or going;

  It’s apart from all discriminations:

  How then can one

  Say he is able to see it?

  The Buddhas have no doctrine:

  How could Buddha have any explanation?

  It is just in accord with one’s own mind

  One thinks Buddha expounds such a doctrine.

  BOOK TWENTY-ONE

  Ten Practices

  THEN THE ENLIGHTENING BEING Forest of Virtues, imbued with the Buddha’s power, entered into absorption in the skillful meditation of enlightening beings; when he had entered this absorption, there appeared before him Buddhas from beyond as many lands as atoms in ten thousand buddha-lands from each direction, and all were named Forest of Virtues. They said to the enlightening being Forest of Virtues, “Very good it is, O Child of Buddha, that you are able to enter this concentration in skillful meditation. Good man, it is the collective empowerment of the Buddhas of the same name, as many as atoms in ten thousand buddha-lands from each of the ten directions, and also the power of the past vows and the spiritual force of Vairocana Buddha, as well as the power of the virtues of the enlightening beings, that enables you to enter this concentration and expound the teaching, for the sake of increasing in enlightened knowledge, deep entry into the realm of reality, comprehension of the realms of sentient beings, nonobstruction in what is entered into, nonhindrance in the realm of activity, attainment of infinite skill in means, embracing of the essence of all knowledge, conscious realization of all truths, knowledge of all faculties, and ability to uphold and explain all the teachings; in other words, it is for initiating ten kinds of practice of enlightening beings. Good man, you should receive the spiritual power of the Buddhas to expound this teaching.”

  Then the Buddhas bestowed on the enlightening being Forest of Virtues unobstructed knowledge, unattached knowledge, uninterrupted knowledge, teacherless knowledge, knowledge without folly, unvarying knowledge, unerring knowledge, immeasurable knowledge, invincible knowledge, unflagging knowledge, and knowledge that cannot be taken away. Why? Because the power of this concentration is naturally thus.

  Then the Buddhas each extended their right hands and patted the enlightening being Forest of Virtues on the head, whereupon he rose from concentration and addressed the enlightening beings, saying, “O Buddha Children, the practice of enlightening beings is inconceivable, equal to the space of the cosmos. Why? Because enlightening beings cultivate practice in emulation of the Buddhas of past, present, and future. Buddha-Children, great enlightening beings have ten kinds of practices, which are expounded by the Buddhas of past, present, and future. What are the ten? (1) The practice of giving joy; (2) beneficial practice; (3) the practice of nonopposition; (4) the practice of indomitability; (5) the practice of nonconfusion; (6) the practice of good manifestation; (7) the practice of nonattachment; (8) the practice of that which is difficult to attain; (9) the practice of good teachings; (10) the practice of truth.