The Flower Ornament Scripture

by Thomas Cleary

  Steadfast and unshakable.

  Their minds without fear,

  They aid living beings

  And thoroughly annihilate

  All demons and afflictions.

  Enlightening beings’ great benevolence and compassion

  Are like layers of dense clouds;

  Three superknowledges flash lightning,

  Paranormal powers thunder,

  And with the four intellectual powers

  They rain water of eight qualities

  Moistening all to relieve

  The fever of afflictions.

  The citadel of truth of enlightening beings

  Has transcendent wisdom for walls,

  Conscience for a deep moat,

  Knowledge as its battlements.

  Opening wide the gate of liberation,

  Right mindfulness always guards it.

  The four truths are the level royal road,

  The six spiritual powers are the arsenal.

  The banners of the great Teaching

  Are hoisted all around;

  The demons of the three worlds

  Cannot enter at all.

  The condor of enlightening beings

  Has magic for its steady feet,

  Skillful means for its mighty wings,

  Kindness and compassion its clear eyes;

  Perched on the tree of all knowledge,

  It watches the ocean of existence,

  Snatches human and celestial dragons

  And places them on the shore of nirvana.

  Enlightening beings’ sun of truth

  Rises in the world,

  Its full orb of conduct

  Running swiftly by psychic travel,

  Shining with the light of wisdom,

  Maturing the herbs of faculties and powers,

  Destroying the darkness of afflictions,

  Evaporating the ocean of craving.

  The moon of the light of knowledge of enlightening beings

  Has the realm of reality for its sphere,

  Coursing through ultimate emptiness,

  Seen by all the world.

  In the minds of consciousness of the three worlds,

  It waxes and wanes through time.

  Among the stars of the Two Vehicles,

  It has no peers at all.

  The bodies arrayed with virtues

  Of enlightening beings, spiritual sovereigns,

  Are replete with all embellishments and marks of greatness,

  Looked up to by all humans and celestials.

  Pure eyes of skillful means,

  A diamond scepter of wisdom,

  They have mastery of spiritual law

  And civilize beings with truth.

  Enlightening beings, as great Brahma lords,

  Independently transcend the three worlds;

  They have ended all confusion by actions

  And are imbued with benevolence and equanimity.

  Everywhere they manifest their bodies

  And enlighten with the voice of truth.

  In the three worlds

  They uproot erroneous views.

  Enlightening beings, as controlling celestials,

  Are beyond the realm of birth and death;

  Their sphere is always pure,

  Their wisdom never recedes.

  Ending the path of lesser vehicles,

  They receive the spiritual coronation.

  Full of virtue and knowledge,

  Their fame is heard everywhere.

  Enlightening beings’ knowing mind

  Is clear and pure as space:

  There is no essence, no reliance—

  All is ungraspable.

  They have great autonomous power,

  Able to accomplish tasks in the world.

  Themselves embodying pure conduct,

  They induce others to do likewise.

  Enlightening beings’ earth of skills

  Benefits sentient beings;

  Enlightening beings’ water of compassion

  Drowns afflictions;

  Enlightening beings’ fire of wisdom

  Burns the brush of delusive conditioning;

  Enlightening beings’ wind of nonabiding

  Goes through the void of existence;

  Enlightening beings are like precious jewels,

  Able to save the poor;

  Enlightening beings are like thunderbolts,

  Able to smash perverted views;

  Enlightening beings are like ornaments,

  Adorning the body of existence;

  Enlightening beings are like wishing jewels,

  Enhancing all actions.

  Enlightening beings’ virtues are like flowers,

  Always producing the branches of enlightenment;

  Enlightening beings’ vows are like garlands,

  Always hung on the necks of sentient beings;

  The fragrance of enlightening beings’ pure conduct

  Is sustained, without neglect or offense;

  The perfume of enlightening beings’ knowledge

  Scents the three worlds;

  Enlightening beings’ powers are like screens

  Able to block the dust of afflictions;

  Enlightening beings’ knowledge is like a standard,

  Able to defeat the enemy pride;

  Their sublime action is colored silk

  Adorning their knowledge;

  Conscience is clothing

  Covering all living beings;

  Enlightening beings’ unobstructed vehicle

  They ride out of the three worlds.

  Enlightening beings’ elephant of power

  Is tame at heart;

  Enlightening beings’ horse of psychic travel

  Bounds over all existences;

  Enlightening beings, dragons of teaching,

  Shower on the minds of all beings;

  Enlightening beings, udumbara flowers,

  Are rarely met in the world;

  Enlightening beings, courageous generals,

  Subdue all demons;

  Enlightening beings’ wheel of teaching

  Is like what the buddhas turn;

  Enlightening beings’ lamp disperses darkness

  So people can see the right road;

  Enlightening beings’ river of virtue

  Always follows the course of truth.

  Enlightening beings’ bridge of effort

  Liberates all kinds of beings;

  Their great knowledge and universal vows

  Together make a sturdy ship,

  Bringing in sentient beings

  And settling them safely on the shore of enlightenment.

  Enlightening beings’ garden of freedom

  Truly delights sentient beings;

  Enlightening beings’ flowers of liberation

  Adorn the palace of knowledge;

  Enlightening beings are like wonderful medicines

  Destroying the diseases of afflictions;

  Enlightening beings are like the snowy mountains,

  Producing the herb of wisdom;

  Enlightening beings are equal to buddhas,

  Awakening sentient beings.

  In buddhas’ mind is nothing else

  But true awakening and awakening others;

  Whence buddhas come forth,

  Thence come enlightening beings;

  And like the omniscient,

  They enter universality by knowledge.

  Enlightening beings skillfully lead

  All living beings;

  Enlightening beings naturally awaken

  To the sphere of omniscience;

  Enlightening beings’ measureless power

  Cannot be destroyed by the world;

  Enlightening beings’ fearless knowledge

  Knows sentient beings and phenomena:

  All worlds,

  Forms and characteristics different,

  Their languages and terms,

  They can all
distinguish.

  Though detached from name and form,

  They manifest various appearances;

  No sentient beings can fathom their path:

  Such virtues have enlightening beings accomplished.

  Realizing natures are all natureless,

  They have no clinging to existence or nonexistence;

  This universal knowledge

  Has no end and no dependence:

  I now will explain

  In order to gladden sentient beings.

  Though knowing the appearances of things

  Are like illusions, all empty and null,

  Yet with compassion and commitment

  And the spiritual power of buddhas

  Enlightening beings, by mystical projection,

  Show innumerable various things.

  Such qualities as this

  You all should hear about.

  With one body they can manifest

  Unlimited different bodies;

  Without mind or object,

  They respond to all beings.

  In one voice

  They can utter all words;

  The languages of all beings

  They can produce according to type.

  Forever free of an afflicted body,

  They manifest an autonomous body;

  They know things cannot be explained,

  Yet make various explanations.

  Their minds are always silent and cool,

  Clear and pure as space,

  Yet they adorn lands everywhere,

  Showing all beings.

  They have no attachment to the body

  Yet are able to manifest bodies

  In all worlds,

  Taking on birth according to need.

  Though born in all places,

  They do not dwell on birth;

  They know bodies are like space,

  Variously appearing, according to mind.

  The body of enlightening beings is boundless,

  Appearing in all places,

  Always honoring and serving

  The most worthy of people.

  Perfumes, flowers, music,

  Banners, pennants, and jeweled canopies,

  They present to the buddhas,

  Always with a pure mind.

  Without leaving the assembly of one buddha

  They are present in all buddhas’ places;

  In those great congregations

  They ask about problems and listen to the Teaching.

  Hearing the Teaching, they enter concentration

  On each of numberless points,

  And likewise emerge from concentration

  With endless manifestations.

  With knowledge and skill in means

  They realize the world is all illusory,

  Yet are able to manifest boundless

  Illusory things of the world.

  They manifest various forms,

  As well as minds and languages;

  They enter the net of ideas,

  Yet without ever clinging.

  Sometimes they manifest initial determination

  To benefit the world;

  Sometimes they manifest long-time practice,

  Boundlessly extensive.

  Charity, morality, tolerance, energy,

  Meditation, and wisdom,

  The four boundless minds, four integrative practices,

  And all such higher principles

  They may show carried to fulfillment,

  Accepting them without false notions.

  Sometimes they manifest immanent buddhahood,

  Anointed and crowned by the enlightened;

  Sometimes they appear like listeners,

  Or like the self-awakened.

  Everywhere in ultimate nirvana,

  Still they do not give up enlightenment practice.

  They may appear as Indras,

  Or as Brahma kings,

  Sometimes surrounded by goddesses,

  Sometimes alone and silent.

  Sometimes they appear as monks

  Quietly taming their minds;

  Sometimes they appear as monarchs,

  Ordering the laws of society.

  Sometimes they appear as artful women,

  Sometimes as ascetics;

  They may appear to enjoy sensual pleasures

  Or to enter meditations.

  Sometimes they appear newborn,

  Sometimes young, old, or dying;

  Any who tried to conceive of this

  Would be doubtful and go mad.

  Sometimes they appear in celestial palaces,

  Sometimes they manifest spiritual descent;

  Sometimes they enter or abide in the womb,

  Sometimes they are buddhas preaching.

  Sometimes born, sometimes extinct,

  Sometimes they appear to enter halls of learning;

  They may be with consorts,

  Or apart from society practicing meditation.

  Sometimes they sit on the site of enlightenment

  And naturally realize true awakening;

  Sometimes they manifest active teaching,

  Or they may appear as beginning seekers of truth.

  They may appear as embodiments of Buddha,

  Sitting at peace in infinite lands;

  Or they may be cultivating the nonregressive path,

  Accumulating means of enlightenment.

  They penetrate countless ages

  And reach the Other Shore of them all,

  Infinite ages a single moment of thought,

  A single moment of thought, infinite ages.

  All ages are not ages,

  But they show them as ages to the world;

  There is no advent and no accumulation,

  Yet they accomplish the tasks of the ages.

  In a single atom

  They see all buddhas

  In all places everywhere,

  There being nowhere there is no buddha.

  Lands, beings, phenomena—

  They see them all, in order,

  Through incalculable ages,

  Ultimately inexhaustible.

  Enlightening beings know the number of living beings

  Is vast beyond bound:

  All those creatures’ bodies

  Arise from measureless causal relations;

  As they know one is infinite,

  So indeed are all.

  According to their competence,

  They teach the uninstructed;

  They know the faculties of sentient beings,

  Superior, middling, inferior, are not the same.

  They also know faculties change,

  And which can be taught and which cannot,

  And that one faculty and all faculties

  Are mutually interrelated,

  And their subtle individual differences,

  And their precise order.

  They also know the mental behavior

  Of beings past, present, and future,

  Their inclinations and understandings,

  All their vexing habits.

  They realize all actions

  Have no coming or going.

  Once they know people’s behavior,

  They tell them the unexcelled Teaching.

  They know thoroughly all kinds

  Of defiled and pure conduct;

  In an instant becoming enlightened,

  They accomplish omniscience.

  Dwelling in buddhas’ inconceivable

  Mind of ultimate knowledge,

  Instantly they are able to know

  The actions of all beings.

  Having mastered the functional power

  Of enlightening beings’ spiritual knowledge,

  They can in a single moment

  Travel to boundless lands.

  Going swiftly like this

  Throughout endless ages,

  There is nowhere they do not reach,

  Yet without stirring a hai
r.

  Just as a skilled magician

  Makes all kinds of forms appear

  Yet one finds in those illusions

  Neither form nor nonform,

  Likewise do enlightening beings

  Use the magic of knowledge of means

  To manifest various forms

  Throughout the world.

  As the clear sun and moon,

  Bright mirrors in the sky,

  Reflect in myriad waters

  Without being mixed up by the waters,

  Likewise, you should know,

  Enlightening beings’ wheel of truth

  Appears in the water of minds in the world

  Without being mixed up by the world.

  Just as a man in a dream

  Makes all kinds of things

  And may go on for millennia

  Without one night ending,

  Enlightening beings dwelling in the essence of reality

  Reveal all phenomena,

  And while countless eons may end,

  Their instantaneous knowledge is endless.

  As in mountain canyons

  And in palatial halls

  All sounds are echoed

  Without discrimination,

  Enlightening beings dwelling in the essence of reality

  Can, with autonomous knowledge,

  Widely utter words adapted to types,

  Also without discrimination.

  As one seeing a mirage

  And thinking it is water

  Chases it but finds no drink

  And becomes even thirstier,

  So too is the case

  Of sentient beings’ afflicted minds;

  Enlightening beings take pity on them,

  Rescue them and free them.

  Seeing form as like clustered foam,

  Sensations as like bubbles on water,

  Conceptions as like heat waves,

  Dispositions as like the pith of a plantain tree,

  And consciousness as like magic

  Manifesting various things,

  Thus knowing the clusters as such,

  The wise have no attachments.

  The mediums of sense are all empty and silent,

  Yet turn like the cogs of a machine;

  The elements are in essence unconnected,

  Yet fabricate the appearance of the world.

  Enlightening beings abide in real truth,

  The supreme truth of voidness;

  They teach widely in many ways,

  Yet their minds do not dwell on anything.

  There is no coming and no going,

  And also no remaining,

  Yet afflictive actions, the cause of suffering,

  Continue to flow and develop.

  That which is interdependently originated

  Is neither existent nor nonexistent, not real or false:

  Thus do enlightening beings enter the middle way

  And teach it without attachment.

  They are able in an instant

  To manifest the minds of past, present, and future,

  And all the various phenomena

  Of the realms of desire, form, and formlessness.