“Even if the beings of a billion worlds were to come up, all at the same moment, and ask questions, each of them asking questions with countless nuances, each one asking a different question, the enlightening beings would take in every tone and nuance, and with a single utterance would satisfy all those beings’ minds. Even if the beings of untold worlds all came up in the same moment and asked questions, each with innumerable nuances, each different, the enlightening beings would take them all on instantly and edify them all with a single utterance. Pervading untold worlds, they expound the Teaching according to beings’ dispositions, faculties, and inclinations. Sitting in discourse on the Teaching, receiving the empowerment of the buddhas, they simultaneously face all beings, doing the work of buddhahood.
“All the more do they undertake the absorption of the light of knowledge in this way: ‘Even if on a single point there be buddhas as numerous as atoms in untold worlds teaching in the same immeasurable number of assemblies, each buddha teaching according to the differences of all those innumerable beings, presenting to each being’s disposition of mind an equally immeasurable number of teachings, and as one buddha does in one assembly, so also all buddhas, and as in one point so in all universes, there we should produce a memory of such enormous extent and receive the revelation of the Teaching at once from all the buddhas without missing a single word. We should purify the ability to express with certainty such revelation of wisdom as will instantly satisfy all the beings in the aforementioned assemblies, with their various groups, ways, and tendencies, as well as the beings in so many worlds.’
“Enlightening beings who have reached this stage of Good Mind, becoming all the more single-minded in their focus of attention, day and night, entering the sphere of buddhas, joining the company of buddhas, reach the profound liberation of enlightening beings. Enlightening beings acting in accord with such knowledge never stop the vision of buddhas in concentration—in each age seeing countless buddhas, they honor, respect, and venerate them. With immense vision of buddhas they ceaselessly attend them respectfully and ask the buddhas questions. They attain mental command of the Teaching and can expound it.
“Those purified roots of goodness of enlightening beings become all the more beyond compare. Just as gold fashioned into ornaments, perfected by a skilled goldsmith and put on the head or neck of a universal monarch, cannot be outshone by the adornments of all minor kings and people of the four continents, in the same way the roots of goodness of enlightening beings in the stage of Good Mind, well arrayed by the light of great knowledge, are so purified that they cannot be outshone by all listeners, individual illuminates, and enlightening beings in lower stages. The light of their roots of goodness, shining on the mental tangles of afflictions of sentient beings, put an end to them. Just as great Brahmas of million-world systems illumine the thickets and lowlands in all worlds of the million-world system, in the same way does the light of roots of goodness of enlightening beings in this stage of Good Mind shine on the mental thickets of afflictions of sentient beings and put an end to them. Of the ten transcendent ways, transcendent power is predominant in these enlightening beings, while they practice the others as best they can.
“This is a summary explanation of the ninth stage of enlightening beings, called Good Mind, the full details of which would take forever to tell. Most of the enlightening beings in this stage become great Brahmas of enormous power, lords of a million worlds, eminent, unsurpassed, seers of what is beneficial, masterful, able and strong in the exposition of the ways of transcendence of all listeners, individual illuminates, and enlightening beings, invincible in answering questions according to beings’ dispositions. Whatever actions they undertake, whether by giving, kind speech, beneficial action, or cooperation, it is never apart from thoughts of Buddha, the Teaching, the Community, enlightening beings, the practices of enlightening beings, the ways of transcendence, the stages, the powers, expertises, and unique qualities of Buddhas, and ultimately omniscience in all its aspects. Why? Because they want to become the best of beings, unexcelled leaders and guides, and ultimately omniscient refuges.
“With this desire they exert their energy, by which exertion of energy they attain in one instant as many concentrations as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, see as many buddhas as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands and become aware of their power, shake as many worlds as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, go to as many buddha-lands as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, illumine as many lands as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, mature as many beings as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, abide for as many eons as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, penetrate as many eons past and future as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, ascertain as many ways of entry into the Teaching as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, and manifest as many bodies as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands, manifesting each body accompanied by as many enlightening beings as atoms in countless millions of buddha-lands. Beyond that, enlightening beings with the power of vows perform, by the excellence of their vows, countless transformations, of the body, aura, mystic powers, vision, sphere of action, voice, conduct, adornment, power, resolution, and performances.”
Then Diamond Matrix spoke these verses describing this stage:
Contemplating with immeasurably powerful intellect,
With very subtle knowledge, atom-splitting knowledge,
Thus entering into the abode of the secret of buddhas,
They reach the ninth stage, benefactors of the world.
Their mental command and concentration are great,
Their far-reaching mystic knowledge enters all lands.
With certainty of knowledge and power, this is the abode of steadfastness of the conquerers—
The wise with commitment and compassion enter this ninth stage.
Those who have reached this stage, holders of buddhas’ treasury,
Know what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral,
What is tainted and worldly, and what is transcendent,
What is conceivable and what is inconceivable.
They examine what is certain and what is uncertain,
And foster the practices accomplishing the Three Vehicles.
Teachings of the stages, according to inclinations and conduct,
They prepare and enter the world accordingly.
With superior subtle intellect following such knowledge,
They search out the mental tangles of sentient beings:
They search out the various tangles of mind
And comprehend who can be taught, what the end and the beginning are.
They comprehend beginningless afflictions, in their interrelatedness of application,
As well as the continuity of their courses through compulsive propensities,
And in terms of the various differences in process of action,
And the vanishing of effect with extinction of cause.
They comprehend which faculties are weak, middling, and strong,
And continuity between past and future:
Inclinations of various kinds, and whether or not they are pure,
They comprehend, all, eighty-four thousand.
Worldly beings are developed into different dispositions,
Gone into the tangles of afflictions and views, beginningless, endless, never cut off,
Continually bound up with the mind
Born together with and stuck to inclinations and propensities.
Those inclinations and propensities are not real things,
They have no location and are not apart from mind;
Hard to know, unconquerable by the states of meditation,
They can be cut off only by the diamond thunderbolt of the Path.
Entering the variety of six courses of migration of life,
Craving being the moisture, ignorance the shade, action the field,
Consciousness the seeds, name and form the simult
aneous sprouts—
Thus do they see beings in the world, beginningless and endless.
Those beings’ minds are full of the action of afflictions, according to patterns of habit—
Apart from this they have no desire for further continuation of transmigration.
The enlightening beings know who are stabilized in truth, in error, and indeterminate,
Who are those sunk in views, and who are those with knowledge.
With these reflections, stationed in this stage,
Enlightening beings reveal the Teaching in different ways
According to people’s dispositions, faculties, and inclinations,
Versed in analytic knowledge, meanings, elocution, and expression.
They are in the position of preachers of the Teaching,
Like lions, like bulls, like majestic mountains;
They shower the sweet rain of the elixir of immortality,
Just as the water spirits fill the sea.
Skilled in seeking out meanings, as well as the essence of things,
Comprehending all expressions, they have mastered elocution;
Having attained countless millions of decades of concentration spells,
They hold the Teachings as the ocean holds the rain.
Thus having attained concentration by purification through spells,
They see thousands of buddhas in one instant;
And having gained the treasure of the Teaching, they expound it,
Reaching each and every sphere with its purifying sound.
They set the various beings of the billion worlds
Free by means of the three treasures,
Satisfying all according to their faculties and dispositions,
Like water spirits filling the ocean.
With even greater virtue they exert their energy
And think how there are, in a minute point,
Unthinkable numbers of buddhas teaching, and various beings;
Hearing the teachings, they hold them as the earth holds seeds.
As many beings as there are in the ten directions,
All sit in a single circle of assembly:
Appearing to them all in a single instant, enlightening beings
Will satisfy them all with a single utterance.
Stationed here, masters of the Teaching, highest of humans and gods,
They become children of buddhas, moving by the teachings:
Day and night they are in the company of the buddhas,
Established in profound tranquillity, firm in knowledge and liberation.
They attend millions of buddhas
And become purified, like the adornments of a monarch;
Their light overcomes the obscurities of afflictions
Like the light of Brahma illumining a million worlds.
In this stage they become Brahma gods, imbued with virtue,
And satisfy beings with the teachings of the Three Vehicles.
What they undertake is for the benefit of all beings;
Following enlightened knowledge, they attain virtue and knowledge.
In a single instant they attain as many concentrations
As atoms in immeasurable lands, steadfast:
Seeing the buddhas of the ten directions, they hear the Teaching,
And beyond that, by willpower, they work innumerable miracles.
“Thus has been told the ninth stage of those contemplating great knowledge, profound, hard to see, subtle, the ninth stage of enlightening beings, called Good Mind.”
Thus having heard of unsurpassed practice, millions of celestials of the Pure Abodes were delighted; they stood in the sky, their senses enraptured, and paid honor to the Buddha. Endless millions of enlightening beings hovering in the sky were gladdened; they burnt clouds of incense, incomparably delightful, destroying the afflictions of the world. The king of the heaven of power, pleased, was in the sky with a retinue of trillions, all respectfully showering vestments, beautiful, excellent, by the hundreds. Many goddesses, their senses delighted, honored the Buddha respectfully, playing trillions of musical instruments, uttering such words as these:
The Buddha, sitting in one land,
Appears reflected in all lands;
Bodies of millions of varieties, pleasing,
Pervade the reaches of the cosmos.
From one hair of the Buddha light beams
Emerge, annihilating the afflictions of the world;
The elemental particles of the land may be counted,
But the number of those light beams cannot be known.
Sometimes they show buddhas imbued with supreme characteristics
Turning the wheel of the highest teaching;
Sometimes there appears the lord of humans, pure and calm,
With his most excellent, unsurpassed conduct, in other lands.
The Guide is seen in the abode of happiness,
Dying there and so coming to earth,
In the womb, thus in millions of lands,
Or seen being born there in the land.
The Guide, going forth for the sake of the world
And becoming supremely enlightened,
So turning the wheel of the Teaching,
Is seen in millions of lands.
Just as a magician versed in the arts of magic
Shows many objects for people,
So does the Teacher, versed in supreme knowledge,
Show all bodies to people.
Empty, quiescent, essentially signless,
The nature of things is equal to space—
The enlightened Teacher, by ultimate truth,
Shows the exalted sphere of buddhas.
As is the essence of the buddhas,
So is that of sentient beings—found in the nature of things.
Signs and signlessness are equal in that way—
All things are ultimately signless.
Those who seek enlightened knowledge
Abandon assumptions, notions, imaginations;
Aware that being and nonbeing are the same in essence,
They will quickly become supreme human leaders.
Having spoken thousands of such sweet words, the goddesses, looking at the Buddha, became silent and remained quiet. Knowing the assembly was settled, the fearless Moon of Liberation asked Diamond Matrix, the dauntless enlightening being, “Tell us, in order, all the characteristics, qualities, and sphere of those who come to the tenth stage, as well as their marks and miracles.”
Diamond Matrix said, “Those enlightening beings who, having wisely reflected on the possibilities of knowledge up to the ninth stage, have made a thorough and discerning investigation, have thoroughly fulfilled pure practices, have gathered inexhaustible provisions, have acquired great stores of virtue and knowledge, have attained great, far-reaching compassion, are familiar with the distinctions and differentiations of worldly realms, have gone into the thickets of the realms of sentient beings, focus their perception and attention on approaching entry into the sphere of buddhas, and are intent on the powers, expertises, and other qualities of buddhahood, are said to have reached the stage of coronation with omniscience in all its aspects.
“Furthermore, enlightening beings who accord with this knowledge and have reached the stage of coronation realize a concentration called undefiled, one called entry into the analysis of differentiations of the cosmos, one called array of adornments of the pinnacle of enlightenment, one called flower of lights of all appearances, one called oceanic container, one called oceanic plenitude, one called vast as space, once called ascertainment of the intrinsic essence of all things, one called adjusting to the mental behavior of all beings, and one called appearing in the presence of all buddhas. Beginning with these, they realize incalculable millions of concentrations.
“They enter and emerge from all these concentrations, and, having attained skill in concentration, they experience all the effects of concentration. At the end of the incalculable millions of concentrati
ons, one realizes a concentration of enlightening beings called bearing coronation by the special property of omniscient knowledge. At the moment one realizes this concentration, there appears an immeasurable lotus made of the finest jewels, as large as ten billion-world universes, inlaid with all kinds of jewels, beyond the range of all worlds, arisen from transmundane roots of goodness, existing in the realm of the essence of illusoriness, appearing based on the cosmos, beyond the range of the heavens, with a jewel stem, a pericarp of incomparable sandalwood, a fringe of huge emeralds, leaves of shining gold, its body flowering with innumerable rays of light, its interior filled with all the finest jewels, covered with a boundlessly vast net of jewels, surrounded by as many great jewel lotuses as atoms in ten billion-world universes.
“The enlightening being, in a corresponding form, stands by and, immediately upon attainment of the concentration bearing coronation with the special qualities of omniscience, appears seated on the great jewel lotus. As soon as the enlightening being is seated on this great jewel lotus, as many enlightening beings as there are surrounding jewel lotuses come from the ten directions, circle that enlightening being, and sit on those great surrounding jewel lotuses, and each of them enter a million concentrations, while gazing on the central enlightening being. Immediately upon everyone’s entry into concentration, all worlds quake, all ills cease, all universes are pervaded with revealing light, all worlds are purified, the names of all buddha-lands are voiced, all enlightening beings of the same practice gather, all celestial and human music and song sound forth, all beings become blissful, the inconceivable honoring and attendance of all the perfectly enlightened ones commence, and the circles of all the buddhas are made known.
The Flower Ornament Scripture Page 102