The Flower Ornament Scripture
Page 127
Thus do they enter all lands,
Whose number cannot be known.
All worlds
Enter one land:
The worlds do not become one,
Yet there is no mixup.
Worlds are inverted and upright,
Some high, some low—
All are the perceptions of beings:
The enlightening discern them all.
The wide worlds
Are infinite, boundless;
They know all kinds are one
And know that one is various.
The Universally Good offspring of Buddha
Can, by Universally Good knowledge,
Know the number of lands,
Though the number is boundless.
They know the projections of worlds,
The projections of lands and beings,
The projections of teachings and buddhas—
All to the ultimate point.
All worlds,
Micro- and macrocosmic,
Various different arrays—
All arise from action.
Infinite enlightening beings
Learn to enter the reality realm;
Their spiritual powers free,
They reach everywhere in the ten directions.
If the names of those worlds were spoken
For eons as many as beings,
They still could not be all told—
Only Buddha can reveal them.
The various names
Of the worlds and buddhas
Could not be fully told
Even in countless eons.
The most excellent wisdom,
The teachings of buddhas of all times,
Are born from the realm of reality
And fill the state of enlightenment.
With pure, unobstructed mindfulness,
Boundless, unimpeded wisdom,
They analyze the reality realm
To reach the other shore.
The worlds of the past,
Great and small,
The arrangements they have developed,
Buddhas know in an instant.
The human lions therein
Cultivate the various practices of buddhas,
Attain to true awakening,
And manifest their freedoms.
Enlightening beings know all
Such buddhas of the future,
The most noble of humans
In boundless ages to come,
All their undertakings,
All their various states,
How they strive in practice,
And therein attain enlightenment.
They know their congregations,
Their life spans, and the beings they teach,
By what means they teach,
Turning the wheel of truth for the masses.
Knowing this, enlightening beings
Abide in the stage of Universally Good practice,
Their knowledge and wisdom, thoroughly clear,
Giving birth to all the buddhas.
They enter deeply
Into all the buddha-lands
There are in the present
And arrive at the reality realm.
All the present buddhas
In all those worlds
Are masters of teaching,
Unhindered in discourse.
They also know their congregations,
Pure lands, and adaptive powers;
For countless million eons
They always ponder these things.
The awesome psychic powers
And endless stores of knowledge
Of the noble Tamers of the World,
The enlightening beings know all.
Producing unobstructed eyes,
Unobstructed ears, noses, bodies,
And unobstructed universal tongues,
They can gladden sentient beings.
Their supreme, unobstructed minds
Are broad and totally pure;
Their knowledge pervading all,
They know all things of all times.
They study all projections,
Projections of lands and beings,
Of worlds and civilizations,
And finally reach the other shore of projections.
The various distinctions of all worlds
All are there due to perceptions and thoughts;
Entering buddhas’ knowledge of means,
They clearly understand all this.
For each of untold groups
They manifest embodiment
Causing all to see the Buddha,
And liberating boundless beings.
The profound knowledge of buddhas
Is like the sun coming out in the world,
Ever appearing everywhere
In all lands.
They realize all worlds
Are provisional names, without reality;
Sentient beings and worlds
Are like dreams, like shadows.
They do not produce false discriminatory views
About the things of the world:
Those free from false discrimination
Do not even see false discriminations.
Measureless, countless eons
They understand are one moment;
And they know a moment has no moment—
Thus do they see the world.
Innumerable lands
They cross over in an instant,
Yet through measureless eons
They don’t move from their original place.
Untold eons
Are the space of a moment;
Not seeing long or short,
They find ultimate instantaneousness.
Mind is in the world,
World is in the mind—
About this they do not wrongly create
Discriminations of duality and nonduality.
Beings, worlds, ages,
Buddhas and Buddha teachings—
All are like illusory projections:
In the reality realm all is equal.
Throughout the lands of the ten directions
They manifest infinite bodies;
Knowing bodies arise from conditions,
They have no attachments at all.
Based on nondual knowledge
They manifest the buddhas,
Without attachment to nonduality,
Knowing there is no duality or nonduality.
They realize that all worlds
Are like flames, like lights,
Like echoes, like dreams,
Like illusions, like emanations.
Thus they accordingly enter
The sphere of action of the buddhas
And achieve Universally Good knowledge
Illumining all the profound realm of truth.
Attachments to beings and lands
They completely give up,
Yet rouse minds of great compassion
And purify all worlds.
Enlightening beings always rightly remember
The marvelous teachings of the buddhas,
Pure and clear as space,
Yet producing great expedient means.
Seeing the world always deluded,
They determine to save and liberate all:
Their undertakings are all pure,
Extending throughout all universes.
Buddhas and enlightening beings,
Buddhist principles and things of the world—
If you see their reality,
All are no different from one another.
Buddhas’ reality-body matrix
Is in all worlds,
Yet while being in the world
Has no attachment to the world.
Just as in clear water
Reflections have no coming or going,
The reality-body’s being in the world
Is also like this.
Thus freed from attachment,
Body and world are both pure:
Clear and still as space,
There is no birth at all.
Knowing the body has no end,
No birth and no destruction,
Being neither eternal nor impermanent,
They show it in all worlds.
Destroying false views,
They point out correct insight:
The essence of things has no coming or going,
Is uninvolved with self or possession.
As when a skilled magician
Causes various things to appear,
Their coming is from nowhere
And they go nowhere,
The nature of illusions is not finite
Nor is it infinite,
But in the midst of the crowd
He manifests the finite and infinite,
Similarly by the mind in silent concentration
Cultivating roots of goodness
Produces all buddhas,
Neither finite nor infinite:
Finiteness and infinity
Are deluded notions—
Comprehending all states of being,
The enlightening do not cling to finiteness or infinity.
The buddhas’ most profound truth
Is vast, deep, ultimate quiescence;
Their profound, measureless knowledge
Knows the deepest states.
Enlightening beings are freed from delusion,
Their purity of mind is continuous;
By means of spiritual powers
They skillfully liberate numberless beings.
To those not at rest they bring rest,
To those at peace they show the site of enlightenment.
Thus do they go throughout the cosmos,
Their minds without attachment.
Not dwelling on ultimate reality
And not entering nirvana,
Thus they go throughout the worlds
Enlightening living beings.
The classes of phenomena and beings
They know without being attached;
Everywhere showering the rain of truth,
They fill and enrich all worlds.
In all worlds
They realize true awakening moment to moment
Yet cultivate the practice of enlightening beings
Without ever retreating.
The various bodies in the world
They know all completely;
Thus knowing physical phenomena
They realize the body of buddhas.
They know all sentient beings,
All ages and lands,
Throughout the ten directions, boundless,
Entering fully into the ocean of knowledge.
Beings’ forms are infinite;
For each the buddhas manifest a body.
The buddhas’ bodies are boundless—
The wise observe them all.
What they know in one moment
Manifests the buddhas,
Impossible to fully tell
Even in measureless eons.
The buddhas can manifest their bodies
Passing finally away in any place;
In an instant innumerable relics
Are individually divided.
Thus those of certain knowledge
Know the infinite will for enlightenment
Of the seekers of buddhahood
In the ages to come.
Ability to know in this way
All the enlightened ones
Of past, present, and future
Is called maintaining the practice of Universal Good.
Thus distinctly knowing
Countless stages of practice,
Entering the abode of wisdom,
The cycle never rolls back.
Subtle, extensive knowledge
Entering deeply into the sphere of buddhahood
And having entered, not regressing
Is called Universally Good wisdom.
All the supremely noble ones
Enter the realm of buddhahood;
Their practice never regressing,
They attain unexcelled enlightenment.
The different individual actions
Of infinitely many minds
All come from accumulations of conceptions:
The equanimous know them all.
Defiled or undefiled,
Learners’ minds, nonlearners’ minds—
Untold numbers of minds
They know at every moment.
They know they are not one or two,
Not defiled and not pure,
And also without mixture—
All arise from one’s own notions.
Thus they clearly see
All living beings
With minds and thoughts each different
Creating various worlds.
By such means
Cultivating supreme practice
And being reborn from the Teaching
They can be called Universally Good.
Sentient beings all wrongly produce
The conceptions of the good and bad states;
Because of this they may be born in heaven
Or then again fall into hell.
Enlightening beings see the worlds
As produced by the action of false ideas;
Because false ideas are boundless
Infinite too are the worlds.
All lands are manifestations
Of the network of conceptions;
By the means of the net of illusion
One can instantly enter them all.
Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body,
And the intellect too are thus—
Conceptions of the world are different;
All can be equally contained therein.
In each object of the eye
There are infinite eyes immanent,
Their various natures different,
Measureless, unspeakable.
What is seen has no difference
And also no mixup;
Everyone, according to his own acts,
Experiences the resulting consequences.
The power of Universal Good is infinite,
Knowing them all completely;
In all objects of eyes
There is great knowledge immanent.
Thus enlightening beings know distinctly
Every worldly realm
And cultivate all enlightening practices
Without ever turning back.
Buddhas teach, beings teach,
And lands teach too:
Everything in all times teaches thus—
The enlightening ones know every particular.
The future is the past,
The present is the future,
The three times look to each other;
The enlightening understand each.
Thus in infinite ways
They awaken the worlds:
No boundaries can be found
To the means of total knowledge.
BOOK THIRTY-SEVEN
Manifestation of Buddha
THEN, from the circle of white hair between his brows, the Buddha emitted a great beam of light called manifestation of the realizer of Thusness, accompanied by countless trillions of light beams. That light illumined all the worlds in the whole cosmos, circling ten times to the right, revealing the immeasurable powers of the enlightened, awakening countless enlightening beings, shaking all worlds, extinguishing the suffering of all states of misery, eclipsing the abodes of all demons, and showing all buddhas sitting on the seat of enlightenment attaining perfect awakening, as well as all the assemblies at the sites of enlightenment. Having done all this, the light returned and circled the assembly of enlightening beings, then entered the head of the enlightening being Wondrous Qualities of Natural Origination of Buddha.
Now the masses at this enlightenment site were elated, ecstatic; they thought, “How extraordinary! Now that the B
uddha has radiated great light, surely he will expound a most profound great teaching.” Then the enlightening being Wondrous Qualities of Natural Origination of Buddha, on a lotus blossom seat, bared his right shoulder, knelt on his right knee, joined his palms, turned toward the Buddha with total attention, and spoke these verses:
The Truly Awake, the Virtuous, the Great Sage, emerges,
Comprehending all objects, reaching the Other Shore,
Equal to the buddhas of past, present, and future;
Therefore I now pay reverent obeisance.
Having risen to the shore of the signless realm
And appeared in a body magnificently arrayed with wondrous marks,
He radiates thousands of undefiled beams of light
And destroys the hordes of demons entirely.
All the worlds in the ten directions
He causes to quake without exception,
Yet without frightening a single sentient being
Such is the spiritual power of the Felicitous One.
Equal in essence to space and the cosmos,
He can remain as stable as they.
All the living, without count or measure,
He has destroyed evil and removed defilements.
Working hard at austere practices for countless ages,
He fully attained the highest enlightenment,
His knowledge unhindered in the midst of all objects,
Of the same nature as all the buddhas.
The Guide radiates these great beams of light,
Shaking the worlds in the ten directions;
Displaying measureless mystic powers,
They have returned and entered my body.
Well able to learn the definitive teaching,
Countless enlightening beings have assembled here
And inspired me to ask about the Teaching,
Wherefore I now petition the Sovereign Teacher.
This assembly is now clear and serene,
Able to liberate all in the world,
Their wisdom boundless, without attachments—
Such eminent sages have all gathered here.
The benefactor of the world, the noble guide,
With wisdom and energy beyond measure
Now illumines the crowd with great light
Causing me to ask about the unexcelled Teaching.
Who can truly expound in full
The profound realm of the great wizard?
Who is the inheritor of the Buddha doctrine?
Noble Guide of the World, please show us.
Then the Buddha emitted a great beam of light, called unimpeded confidence, from his mouth, accompanied by countless trillions of light beams, illumining all worlds in the cosmos, circling ten times to the right, showing the various controlling powers of the Buddha, awakening innumerable enlightening beings, shaking all the worlds of the ten directions, extinguishing the pains of all states of misery, eclipsing all abodes of demons, and showing all the buddhas on the seat of enlightenment attaining true awakening, as well as the assemblies at all those sites of enlightenment. Having done all this, the lights came back, circled the assembly of enlightening beings, and entered the mouth of the enlightening being Universally Good, after which the body and lion throne of Universally Good surpassed their former condition, and that of the other enlightening beings a hundredfold, surpassing all except the lion throne of the Buddha.