The Flower Ornament Scripture

by Thomas Cleary

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of virtues of inexhaustible oceans of knowledge. What are they? The virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the boundless body of reality of all buddhas; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the infinite buddha-works of all buddhas; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the sphere of the enlightened eye of all buddhas; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the infinite, inconceivable roots of goodness of all buddhas; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of all buddhas showering all liberating teachings everywhere; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of all buddhas extolling the qualities of enlightenment; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the various undertakings and practices carried out by all buddhas in the past; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the eternal performance of buddha-work by all buddhas; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of all buddhas comprehending the mental patterns of all sentient beings; the virtue of the inexhaustible ocean of knowledge of the unsurpassable adornments of virtue and knowledge of all buddhas.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of eternal law. What are they? All buddhas always carry out all the transcendent ways. All buddhas are always free from confusion in regard to all things. All buddhas always have universal compassion. All buddhas always have the ten powers. All buddhas always turn the wheel of the Teaching. All buddhas always demonstrate the accomplishment of true awakening for the benefit of sentient beings. All buddhas always gladly lead all sentient beings. All buddhas always correctly remember the truth of nonduality. All buddhas, after having taught sentient beings, always show entry into nirvana without remainder, because the realm of the buddhas has no bounds.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of exposition of the innumerable facets of the Teaching of the buddhas. What are they? All buddhas expound innumerable facets of the realms of sentient beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of the activities of sentient beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of effects of acts of sentient beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of teaching sentient beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of purifying sentient beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of vows of enlightening beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of practices of enlightening beings. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of the ages of becoming and decay of all worlds. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of enlightening beings devotedly purifying buddha-lands. All buddhas expound innumerable facets of the successive emergence in each age of the past, present, and future buddhas in innumerable worlds. All buddhas expound the ways of knowledge of all buddhas.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of performance of buddha-work for sentient beings. What are they? All buddhas manifest physical forms to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas make subtle utterances to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas accept things to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas accept nothing to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas do buddha-work for sentient beings by means of earth, water, fire, and air. All buddhas magically show all realms of objects to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas do buddha-work for sentient beings by various names and epithets. All buddhas do buddha-work for sentient beings by means of the realms of objects of buddha-lands. All buddhas adorn and purify buddha-lands to do buddha-work for sentient beings. All buddhas do buddha-work for sentient beings silently, without words.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of supreme qualities. What are they. All buddhas’ great vows are firm and steadfast and cannot be broken; they do what they say without fail, and there is no duplicity in their words. All buddhas tirelessly practice the deeds of enlightening beings throughout all future ages, in order to perfect and fulfill all virtues. All buddhas will go to untold worlds in order to guide a single sentient being, and do the same for all sentient beings, endlessly. All buddhas universally regard both faithful and scornful beings with great compassion impartially, without any discrimination. All buddhas, from their initial aspiration to their attainment of buddhahood, never lose the determination for perfect enlightenment. All buddhas accumulate immeasurable virtues and dedicate them all to omniscience, with never any attachment to the world or its creatures. All buddhas learn physical, verbal, and mental practices from buddhas, only carrying out buddha-practice, not the practice of the vehicles of individual liberation, all to be dedicated to omniscience, to attain unexcelled true enlightenment. All buddhas emanate great light, that light impartially illumining all places, and illuminating all the buddhas’ teachings, enabling enlightening beings’ minds to become purified and to fulfill universal knowledge. All buddhas give up worldly pleasures, without craving or attachment, and wish that all worldlings would be free from suffering and attain bliss, and have no false ideas. All buddhas, out of compassion for sentient beings, undergo all kinds of hardship, preserving the seed of buddhahood, course in the sphere of buddhahood, leave birth and death, and arrive at the stage of the ten powers.

  “Buddhas remain unhindered in ten ways. What are they? All buddhas can travel to all worlds, remaining unhindered. All buddhas can walk, stand, sit, and recline in all worlds, remaining unhindered. All buddhas can abide in all worlds, remaining unhindered. All buddhas can expound the truth in all worlds, remaining unhindered. All buddhas can abide in the heaven of contentment in all worlds, remaining unhindered. All buddhas are able to enter all the pasts, presents, and futures of the cosmos, remaining unhindered. All buddhas are able to sit at all enlightenment sites in the cosmos, remaining unhindered. All buddhas are able to observe the mental patterns of all sentient beings in each moment of thought, and use their powers of diagnosis, prescription, and occult effects to teach and tune them, remaining unhindered. All buddhas are able to sojourn at the places of innumerable buddhas with one body, and in all places, benefiting living beings, remaining unhindered. All buddhas are able to expound true teachings spoken by infinite buddhas, remaining unhindered.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of supreme adornment. What are they? All buddhas have all the marks and refinements of greatness—this is the first, buddhas’ supreme physical adornment. All buddhas have sixty kinds of vocal sound, each with five hundred elements, each element with countless hundreds of thousands of pure, clear tones adorning it, and they are able, in the midst of all groups in the cosmos, without any qualms or fears, to roar the great lion’s roar, expounding the meaning of the extremely profound teaching of the enlightened, so that all who hear are delighted and are edified according to their faculties and inclinations—this is the second, buddhas’ supreme adornment of speech. All buddhas are endowed with the ten powers, the great concentrations, and the eighteen unique qualities, adorning their mental activity; in their sphere of operation, they comprehend and master all enlightening principles without obstruction, and all attain the adornments of the all-inclusive cosmos of reality as their adornment; they are able to clearly perceive in a single instant the mental patterns, past, present, and future, each different, of the beings of the cosmos—this is the third, the supreme mental adornment of buddhas. All buddhas are able to emanate countless beams of light, each beam of light accompanied by untold webs of light, illumining all buddha-lands, destroying the darkness in all worlds, revealing the emergence of innumerable buddhas, their bodies equal, all pure, their buddha-works all effective, able to cause sentient beings to reach nonregression—this is the fourth, buddhas’ supreme adornment of light. When the buddhas smile, zillions of rays of light radiate from their faces, each light having innumerable, inconceivably many hues of all kinds, lighting up all the worlds in the ten directions; among the masses they utter truthful words, giving innumerable, countless, inconceivably many sentient beings directions for supreme complete perfect enlightenment—this is the fifth, buddhas’ supreme adornment of a smile, free from the delusion and confusion of the world. All buddhas have the reality-body, pure, unobstructed, with ultimate comprehension of all truths, abiding in the cosmos of reality, without
bounds, though being in the world, not getting mixed up in the world, understanding the true nature of the world, acting on transmundane principles, beyond the power of speech, transcending the realms of matter and sense—this is the sixth, the buddhas’ supreme adornment of the reality-body. All buddhas have infinite constant subtle lights with untold colors of all kinds adorning them, forming a treasury of light producing infinite orbs of light illuminating the ten directions without obstruction—this is the seventh, buddhas’ supreme adornment of constant subtle light. All buddhas have boundless sublime forms, delightful sublime forms, pure sublime forms, sublime forms that appear in accordance with the mind, forms that outshine all in the realms of desire, form, and formlessness, unexcelled sublime forms arriving at the other shore—this is the eighth, buddhas’ supreme adornment of sublime forms. All buddhas are born in the family of the buddhas of past, present, and future, accumulate myriad treasures of virtue, ultimately pure, without fault, impeccable, being adorned by the most pure, refined acts among all things, fully accomplishing total knowledge and character beyond reproach—this is the ninth, buddhas’ supreme adornment of human character. All buddhas array themselves with the power of great compassion, ultimately pure, without any cravings, their physical actions forever at rest, their minds well liberated, so that none tire of seeing them, saving all worldly beings, the foremost fields of blessing, the most worthy recipients, mercifully helping all sentient beings to develop stores of unlimited virtue and knowledge—this is the tenth, buddhas’ supreme adornment of the qualities of great kindness and compassion.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of mastery. What are they? All buddhas have command of all the teachings, clearly comprehend all kinds of bodies of expression and nuance, and explain all things with unhindered intellect—this is the first mastery of buddhas. All buddhas teach sentient beings without ever missing the appropriate timing, endlessly explaining the right teaching to them in accord with their states of mind, causing them all to become receptive to truth—this is the second mastery of buddhas. All buddhas are able to cause all worlds throughout space, arrayed in countless different ways, to quake in six ways, causing those worlds to rise or fall, to expand or contract, to combine or dissolve, without ever harming a single living being, the creatures in those worlds being unaware, not cognizant of this happening, not even suspecting it—this is the third mastery of buddhas. All buddhas are able to beautify and purify all worlds by means of spiritual powers, in the space of an instant manifesting the adornments of all worlds, these adornments beyond recounting even in countless eons, all free from defilement, incomparably pure; all the adornments and purities of all buddha-fields they cause to equally enter one field—this is the fourth mastery of buddhas. All buddhas, seeing a single sentient being capable of being taught, extend their lives indefinitely for that being, sitting without fatigue of body or mind, concentrating single-mindedly on that being, without ever becoming heedless or forgetful, guiding that being by appropriate means, with appropriate timing, and also do the same for all living beings as they do for one—this is the fifth mastery of buddhas. All buddhas can go to all worlds, to the realms of action of all enlightened ones, without ever leaving behind any phenomenal realms, the ten directions each different, there being in each direction incalculable oceans of worlds, there being in each ocean of worlds incalculable world systems; by spiritual powers buddhas reach all of them in a single instant, and turn the wheel of the unobstructed pure Teaching—this is the sixth mastery of buddhas. All buddhas, in order to civilize all sentient beings, attain unexcelled complete perfect enlightenment in each mental instant, yet in regard to all elements of buddhahood, they have not already cognized them, do not cognize them, and are not yet to cognize them, and also do not dwell in the stage of learning, yet they know them all, see them all, mastering them without hindrance; with immeasurable knowledge and freedom they teach and tame all sentient beings—this is buddhas’ seventh mastery. All buddhas can do the buddha-work of the ears with their eyes, can do the buddha-work of the nose with the ears, can do the buddha-work of the tongue with the nose, can do the buddha-work of the body with the tongue, can do the buddha-work of the mind with the body, and with the mind can sojourn in all kinds of realms, mundane and transcendental, in all worlds, able to perform immeasurable great buddha-works in each realm—this is buddhas’ eighth mastery. All buddhas can contain all sentient beings in each pore of their bodies, each sentient being’s body equal to untold buddha-lands, yet there is no crowding; each sentient being can pass countless worlds with every step and go on for countless eons, seeing all the buddhas emerging in the world and edifying beings, turning the wheel of the pure Teaching, showing untold phenomena of past, future, and present, the embodiments of sentient beings in various realms of existence throughout space, their comings and goings and deportment, their needs all fully supplied, yet without any obstruction therein—this is buddhas’ ninth mastery. All buddhas, in the space of an instant, manifest as many buddhas as atoms in all worlds, each buddha attaining enlightenment in all universes, sitting on a lotus lion throne in a world of vast arrays of exquisite lotus blossoms, showing the miraculous powers of buddhas, and as in the world of vast arrays of exquisite lotus blossoms, so in untold worlds in all universes, variously arrayed, with various realms of objects, various shapes and forms, various manifestations, various numbers of ages, and as in one instant so in each instant of immeasurable, boundless, incalculable eons, all appearing in one instant, with infinite abodes in one instant, yet without using the slightest power of expedient means—this is buddhas’ tenth mastery.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of measureless, inconceivable ways of fulfillment of buddhahood. What are they? The pure features of all buddhas each contain a hundred blessings. All buddhas accomplish all Buddha teachings. All buddhas perfect all roots of goodness. All buddhas perfect all virtuous qualities. All buddhas can teach all sentient beings. All buddhas can be leaders of sentient beings. All buddhas perfect pure buddha-lands. All buddhas achieve omniscient knowledge. All buddhas develop the physical marks and refinements of greatness; all who see them benefit, this effort is not in vain. All buddhas are imbued with the impartial reality of enlightened ones. All buddhas, after having done their buddha-work, manifest entry into nirvana.

  “Buddhas have ten kinds of skill in means. What are they? All buddhas know all things are beyond idle philosophizing, yet can demonstrate the roots of goodness of all buddhas. All buddhas know all things have no vision and are unknown to each other, have no bondage or release, no reception or assembly, and no consummation, and independently ultimately reach the other shore; meanwhile they know the true reality of all things is unvarying, not different, and they attain freedom, selflessly, without grasping, not destroying ultimate truth; having already reached the state of great freedom, they always observe all realms of reality. All buddhas are forever aloof from all appearances; their minds do not dwell on anything, yet they know all appearances without confusion or error; while they know all appearances have no intrinsic nature of their own, yet they are able to perceive them all in accord with their essence and also manifest the infinite appearances of the various adornments of innumerable physical bodies and pure buddha-lands, gather lamps of knowledge and wisdom, and destroy the delusions of sentient beings. All buddhas abide in the realm of reality; they do not dwell in the past, future, or present, because in Thusness as such there are no marks of the three time frames of past, future, or present; yet they can speak about the emergence in the world of the innumerable buddhas of past, future, and present, causing those who hear to see the realms of all the buddhas. All buddhas, in their physical, verbal, and mental actions, do not create anything, have no coming or going, and no abiding; beyond all categories, they reach the other shore of all things, yet are treasuries of all truths, imbued with immeasurable knowledge, comprehending all kinds of mundane and transmundane things, their knowledge and wisdom unhindered, manifesting immeasurable autonomous spiritual powers, edify
ing the sentient beings of all realms. All buddhas know that all things cannot be seen, are neither one nor different, are neither finite nor infinite, are not coming or going, all being without inherent nature of their own, yet they do not contravene the phenomena of the world; the all-knowers see all things in the midst of nonexistence of own-being or inherent nature; being independent of things, they extensively explain things while always abiding steadily in the real nature of True Thusness. All buddhas know all times in one time; endowed with pure virtues, they enter the absolute state, yet without any attachment to it; in regard to time frames such as day, month, year, eon, becoming, and decomposition, they neither remain within them nor abandon them, yet they are able to show day or night, beginning, middle, and end, one day, one week, a fortnight, a month, a year, a century, an eon, many eons, inconceivable eons, inexpressible eons, as far as all the eons throughout the future, always turning the wheel of the sublime Teaching for the sake of sentient beings, without interruption, without retreating, without pause. All buddhas always remain in the realm of reality, develop the infinite fearlessness of the buddhas, as well as their countless, measureless, inexhaustible, ceaseless, boundless, unique, endless, and true intellectual powers, appropriately demonstrating explanation of all expressions and explanation of all principles, delivering untold millions of discourses using various doctrines adapted to faculties and natures, inclinations and understandings, all ultimately good in the beginning, the middle, and the end. All buddhas, abiding in the pure realm of reality, know all things originally have no names, there being no name of past, present, or future, no name of sentient beings, no name of inanimate beings, no name of country or land, no name of noncountry, no name of law or nonlaw, no name of virtue or nonvirtue, no name of enlightening being, no name of Buddha, no names of sets, no names of nonsets, no name of birth, no name of extinction, no name of existence, no name of nonexistence, no name of unity, no name of variety, because the essential nature of things is inexpressible—all things are without location or position, cannot be explained as assembling or dispersing, as one or as many, no verbalization can reach them, all words fail; though the buddhas speak in various ways according to conventional usage, they do not cling to anything as mental objects, do not make anything up, and avoid all false conceptual attachments: in this way they ultimately reach the other shore. All buddhas know the fundamental nature of all things is null: because it has no birth, it is not form; because it has no manifestation it is not sensation; because it has no names or categories it is not conception; because it has no action it is not conditioning; because it has no grasping it is not consciousness; because it has no access it is not sense mediums; because it apprehends nothing it is not sense elements—yet it does not destroy things, because the original nature has no origination, is like space. All phenomena are empty and quiescent; there is no action or effect, no cultivation, no accomplishment, no production. They are not in sets, yet not out of order; not existent or nonexistent; not born or annihilated, not defiled or pure; not entering or existing; not abiding, not transitory; not edifying, not unedifying; not beings, not not beings; not living, not lifeless; not caused, not causeless. While knowing this, the buddhas know all sentient beings, whether they are rightly stabilized, wrongly stabilized, or not stabilized, and teach them the subtle truth to enable them to reach the other shore, attain the ten powers and four fearlessnesses, be able to roar the lion’s roar, be imbued with universal knowledge, and abide in the realm of buddhahood. These are the ten kinds of skill in means achieved by buddhas.