華嚴經 品二十六 十地品 · 第十地 法雲地Avataṃsaka Sūtra · The Ten Grounds · The Tenth Ground, Dharma Cloud

A Ground That Begins from the Praise of Others

Among the ten grounds, this one alone begins from the praise of others. The first nine grounds having been expounded, the hosts of the gods of the Pure Abodes, the bodhisattvas beyond conceiving, the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment with his hosts of gods, and the measureless goddesses — four kinds of great assembly together — make offerings in the sky: scattering incense, scattering robes, striking up music. Why just here? Because the ninth ground has exhausted “mastery in expounding the Dharma”, and what is now to be expounded is the utmost of the ten grounds, where both the expounder and the Dharma expounded have come to the edge of language; and so the sūtra first uses a great offering to hold the scene open. One misreading must be guarded against: this is not ceremonial extravagance. The reason the gods “leapt up in gladness of mind in empty space” is given by the sūtra itself — “having heard of the many surpassing practices within that ground”. The cause of the gladness is that they had understood the nine grounds before; it is not that they had seen a display. Brought down to the person reading: to come to the tenth ground and see first a gladness is itself a reminder — what is about to be expounded is worth setting your mind straight for once before you read it.

The Verses of the Goddesses: The Body Sits at Ease in One Place and Appears Everywhere

The praise of the goddesses runs to nine verses, and what they speak of is in truth only one thing: how the body of the Buddha and the wisdom of the Buddha can be at once one and all. The sūtra says, “the body of the Buddha sits at ease within a single land, and yet within all the worlds his body appears”; the light sent out from a single pore is such that, though a land be ground to dust-motes and the dust-motes still be counted, the number of this light cannot be measured; and what sentient beings see is each unlike the other — some see the turning of the wheel of the Dharma, some see the journeying through buddha-fields, some see the abiding in stillness unmoving, some see the dwelling in Tuṣita, the entering of the womb, the coming forth from the womb, the leaving of the household, the accomplishing of the path, the expounding of the Dharma, nirvāṇa. Here the easiest misreading is to make of it ‘the Buddha has many bodies divided off from him’. The sūtra blocks that itself with the simile of the conjuror: the conjuror understands the art of conjuring and makes many things in the midst of a crowd — what is made is many, and the conjuror only one. Then, going a step deeper, the sūtra gives the reason why: “the Buddha abides within the deep and true nature of dharmas, still and quenched and without marks, the same as empty space; and yet within the first and true meaning he displays all manner of things that are done.” The substance is without marks, the function is of every kind, and yet “having marks and being without marks are not different at all”. And so the exhortation to practice in the last verse can be set down: to gain the wisdom of a Tathāgata one must first “part from every false discrimination”, penetrating being and non-being alike into equality. That this verse stands at the head of the tenth ground is no accident: all the bodily transformations of the bodhisattva expounded below are to be read by this one sentence, or else they become a parade of marvels.

Why Vimukticandra Asks about ‘Entering the Tenth Ground from the Ninth’

The goddesses having finished their praise, the great assembly “were still in body and mind and at ease together, gazing up at the Tathāgata and abiding in silence”; and only when the bodhisattva Vimukticandra saw that the assemblies had all become still did he make his request to Vajragarbha. There is something exact in this sequence: Chengguan judges the sixteen verses of praise and request of this ground to be thirteen of praise and three of request, and points out that within the request “the first one gathers up the silent request of thought, and the latter two are the spoken request of the foremost one” — first the request of thought made in the silence of the whole assembly, and only then the voice of the one at the head. The misreading is to take Vimukticandra for a curious questioner. What he asks is “all the merits and the many aspects of practice by which one enters the tenth ground from the ninth, and the matters of spiritual penetration and transformation as well” — three things: how one comes in, what virtue and practice there are once one is in, and those transformations. These three questions exactly frame the skeleton of the whole long prose passage that follows. Brought down to the reader: if the reading below begins to feel dense, count these three questions over again, and you will know where in it you are.

Here the First Nine Grounds All Become Skillful Means

In his first passage Vajragarbha does not speak of the tenth ground; he first counts over the nine before it: from the first ground to the ninth, having observed and awakened to things with measureless wisdom, being good at pondering and cultivating, good at fully completing the pure and white dharmas, gathering boundless dharmas that aid the path, increasing great merit and wisdom, practicing great compassion broadly, knowing the differences among worlds, entering the thicket of the realm of sentient beings, entering the place where a Tathāgata walks, according with the still and quenched practice of a Tathāgata, constantly observing the powers, fearlessnesses, and exclusive dharmas of a Tathāgata — and only then does he say, “this is called: gaining the station of consecration of all modes and of the wisdom of omniscience”. Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun gives this passage a name, “the part of the skillful means that make the ground full”, and judges the wisdom of good selection within it to have seven aspects; Chengguan carries this on, saying that this part “gathers what was cultivated on the first nine grounds into a whole and makes of it the skillful means, because it fills this ground”. The misreading to be guarded against is to suppose that the tenth ground sets up a separate hearth of its own. Just the opposite: everything cultivated on the first nine grounds is here taken up whole into the skillful means of one thing — entering the station of consecration. Here is where it comes down to the ground: at the end of practice one does not change to another road; it is that every step already walked arrives at once.

The Fullness of the Samādhis: Why One Must Enter Concentration before Receiving the Station

Having gained the station of consecration, one is not at once consecrated; the sūtra first lists ten samādhis: parting from defilement, entering the differences of the Dharma realm, adorning the seat of the way, the flower-radiance of all modes, the treasury of the sea, the seal of the sea, the vastness of the realm of empty space, observing the own-nature of all dharmas, knowing the mental conduct of all sentient beings, all buddhas appearing before him — and samādhis such as these, a million asaṃkhyeya of them, all appear before him, and “whether he is entering them or rising from them, he has them at his command”. Vasubandhu explains this as “the part of the fullness of the samādhis”, and says that the samādhi of parting from defilement parts from the defilement of the afflictions, and that the nine samādhis under it part from eight kinds of defilement; Chengguan carries the treatise on and explains, saying that the general name of parting from defilement is given because this is the ground where obstruction is exhausted, and so it takes this name in particular. The misreading is to take the samādhis for the ornament of the consecration. The sequence of the sūtra is hard: the last samādhi is named “receiving the surpassing station of omniscience” — the station comes out of the concentration. Brought down to the ground: what is called a ‘station’ is not a title but a certain steadiness of mind that arrives first, so that the station has something to be set upon.

The Great Jeweled Lotus: The Seat Is Both Fruit and Exposition

The samādhi appearing before him, a great jeweled lotus flower is suddenly born. The sūtra describes it in the finest detail: its measure equal to a million three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems, adorned with many wondrous jewels set among one another, surpassing the realms of all the world, born from roots of goodness that transcend the world, “accomplished by the many practices that know the conjuring-like nature of dharmas”, constantly sending out light that illumines the Dharma realm everywhere, not something the places of the gods can possess; beryl and maṇi for its stalk, the king of sandalwood for its calyx, carnelian for its filaments, Jambū-river gold for its petals, covered over with a net of jewels, and having as its retinue lotus flowers as many as the dust-motes of ten three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems. Vasubandhu explains this seat as having ten aspects — the aspect of its birth, of its measure, of its excellence, of the ground, of its cause, of its accomplishment, of the first meaning, of its merit, of its substance, and of the completeness of its adornments — matching each aspect to the text of the sūtra. The most important sentence here is “it arises from roots of goodness that transcend the world, and is accomplished by the many practices that know the conjuring-like nature of dharmas”: the seat is not a reward dropped from the sky, but has grown out of the bodhisattva’s own undefiled roots of goodness and his contemplation of the conjuring-like. The misreading is precisely to read it as display. Brought down to the ground: what sort of seat a person can take is the shape grown by his own earlier practice.

The Sending Out of Light: Before Consecration, the Suffering of Beings Is Extinguished Once Over

He takes his seat upon the flower, and light and the sounds of speech fill the Dharma realm of the ten directions, all the worlds quake, the evil destinies are put to rest, the lands are adorned and pure, and sentient beings gain ease and joy. Then comes the most moving passage: the bodhisattva sends out light from the several parts of his body — from beneath his two feet illumining the great hells, from the wheel-marks of his two knees illumining the destinies of animals, from within the wheel of the navel illumining the realms of King Yama, from his left and right flanks illumining the human destinies, from within his two hands illumining the palaces of the gods and the asuras, from above his two shoulders illumining the śrāvakas, from his neck and back illumining the pratyekabuddhas, from his face illumining the bodhisattvas from the first arising of the mind to the ninth ground, from between his two brows illumining the consecrated bodhisattvas and making the palaces of Māra not appear, and from above the crown of his head sending out rays as many as the dust-motes of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system to illumine everywhere the seats of the way of the buddhas of the ten directions, circling ten times to the right and becoming a net of “blazing light” that makes offerings to the buddhas. Notice the direction: the light is sent out from below upward, the hells first and the buddhas after. The misreading is to read it as a performance of spiritual power. The sūtra gives its own measure: this one offering, set against all the offerings of the other bodhisattvas from the first arising of the mind to the ninth ground, is such that theirs “do not amount to one part in a hundred”. Brought down to the ground: when a person has reached the highest place, his first motion is to turn back and light up the lowest.

Consecration: The Station Is Not Won by Oneself

The light having made its offerings to the buddhas, it circles the seats of the way of the ten directions ten times and enters in beneath the feet of the tathāgatas; and the buddhas and bodhisattvas thereby know that “within such and such a world, such and such a bodhisattva-mahāsattva is able to carry out vast practice such as this and has arrived at the station of consecration”. The bodhisattvas of the ten directions up to the ninth ground come and encircle him, and each gains ten thousand samādhis; the already consecrated bodhisattvas of the ten directions send out from the diamond-adorned mark of virtue upon their breasts the light “able to destroy the enemy Māra”, which comes and enters the breast of this bodhisattva and makes his wisdom and power increase a hundred thousandfold. And only then comes the matter itself: all the buddhas of the ten directions send out from between their brows the light of “increasing omniscience and spiritual penetration”, and after illumining the Dharma realm everywhere it enters in through the crown of the head of this great bodhisattva. Vasubandhu judges this part to be “the part of gaining the station”, and sets up six items within it — what sort of seat, what measure of body, what retinue, what marks, whence he comes forth, and what station he gains. The misreading is to take “receiving the station” for a title the bodhisattva has cultivated for himself. The direction of the motions in the sūtra is quite clear: the light beneath the feet is sent out by him; the light upon the crown of his head is entered in by the buddhas. Brought down to the ground: in practice there is a stretch one walks oneself, and the last step is conferred.

The Simile of the Wheel-Turning King’s Consecration and the Four Words ‘Fallen within the Number of the Buddhas’

The sūtra thereupon uses the single most important simile of the whole chapter: the prince of a wheel-turning sage king, his mother the chief queen and his bodily marks complete; the king has him sit upon a seat of the white elephant treasure and of wondrous gold, raises the curtained net, sets up banners and pennants, burns incense and scatters flowers, has music played, takes the water of the four great seas and puts it in a golden vase, and with his own hand consecrates the crown of the prince’s head — and at this it is named receiving the station of the king, “falling within the number of the consecrated kṣatriya kings”, whereupon he can carry out fully the way of the ten good deeds and gains too the name of wheel-turning sage king. When the sūtra joins the simile to its sense it says: because the buddhas consecrate the crown of his head with the water of wisdom he is named as receiving consecration, and because he is complete in the ten kinds of power of a Tathāgata he “falls within the number of the buddhas”. These four words are to be read exactly: it is “falls within the number of the buddhas”, not “is a buddha”. The prince, having received consecration, is already listed within the number of kings, but the wheel-turning king is still there. Chengguan judges this ground to be “without anything above it when set against what went before, and lesser when set against a buddha” — unsurpassed with respect to the first nine grounds, and still the lesser with respect to a buddha. The misreading lies just here: read the tenth ground as buddhahood, and the whole long passage that follows, “then what of the power of spiritual penetration of a buddha”, falls empty. Brought down to the ground: the modesty of the last stretch of practice is not politeness but fact — one has entered the number, one has not taken the seat.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (1): Knowing as It Really Is Every ‘Aggregation’

After the consecration the sūtra begins to lay out the measure of what is known upon this ground, which Vasubandhu names “the part of entering the great exhaustion”, and which Chengguan explains as “the practice of the fullness of the ground: looked at against the grounds before, their practice is already exhausted, and now the ground is full besides, so that it is the utmost of exhaustion”. The first item is knowing the “aggregations”: the aggregation of the desire realm, of the form realm, of the formless realm, of the worlds, of the Dharma realm, of the conditioned realm, of the unconditioned realm, of the realm of sentient beings, of the realm of consciousness, of the realm of empty space, of the realm of nirvāṇa; and further, knowing the aggregation of the many views and the conduct of the afflictions, of the forming and breaking down of worlds, of the practice of the śrāvakas, of the practice of the pratyekabuddhas, of the practice of the bodhisattvas, of the powers, fearlessnesses, form-body and dharma-body of a Tathāgata, of all modes and the wisdom of omniscience, of the display of gaining awakening and turning the wheel of the Dharma, and of the wisdom that enters into the discriminating and deciding of all dharmas. “Aggregation” means being gathered together, being brought into standing. The misreading is to take it for a list of knowledge. The sūtra draws it shut with great speed at the end: “to state the essential point: it is that with omniscience he knows every aggregation.” It is not a matter of memorizing item by item; it is one wisdom that can see how every thing whatever is gathered into being. Brought down to the ground: to know aggregation is to know causes and conditions — to know how each single thing has come to be; and this one piece of knowledge, carried to its utmost, is the wisdom of a buddha.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (2): Transformation, Sustaining, Subtle Wisdom, and the Secret Places

Then come three sets. The first is knowing “transformation”: the transformation of the deeds of sentient beings, of the afflictions, of the views, of the worlds, of the Dharma realm, of the śrāvakas, of the pratyekabuddhas, of the bodhisattvas, of the tathāgatas, of all that is discriminated and undiscriminated — whatever is brought forth by transformation, he knows it for a transformation. The second is knowing “sustaining”: the sustaining of the Buddha, of the Dharma, of the Saṅgha, of deeds, of the afflictions, of time, of vows, of offerings, of practice, of kalpas, of wisdom — whatever is able to sustain and hold up a stretch of existence, he knows why it is able to sustain. The third is entering the subtle wisdoms and the secret places of a Tathāgata: the ten subtle wisdoms of cultivation, the ending of life, taking birth, leaving the household, displaying spiritual penetrations, accomplishing perfect awakening, turning the wheel of the Dharma, abiding in the life-span, parinirvāṇa, and the teaching’s abiding; and the ten secrets of body, speech, mind, deliberating upon the time when a thing is to be said and when not, conferring a prediction upon a bodhisattva, gathering in sentient beings, the various vehicles, the differences in the faculties and conduct of all sentient beings, what is done by deeds, and the practice of gaining awakening. The misreading is to read “secret” as concealment. The usage of the sūtra is this: that a buddha acts so and sentient beings cannot see why is what is named secret; and the bodhisattva of the tenth ground “knows all such things as these as they really are”, so that the secret is not the unsayable but the hard to fathom. Brought down to the ground: what is called the unfathomable intent of a buddha becomes, at this ground, a text that can be read.

Entering the Great Exhaustion (3): Kalpa Enters Kalpa, Wisdom Enters Place

Further down come two harder sets. The first is the wisdom of entering kalpas: one kalpa entering asaṃkhyeya kalpas, asaṃkhyeya kalpas entering one kalpa, numbered kalpas entering numberless kalpas, a single thought entering a kalpa, a kalpa entering a single thought, a kalpa entering a non-kalpa, kalpas with a buddha entering kalpas without a buddha, past and future kalpas entering the present kalpa, long kalpas entering short kalpas, short kalpas entering long kalpas. The second is the wisdom of entering places: the wisdom of entering the path of a hair, of entering a dust-mote, of entering the perfect awakening of the body that is a land, of the bodies of sentient beings, of the minds of sentient beings, of the conduct of sentient beings, of the perfect awakening that accords with every place, of entering the display of conduct that pervades, of conduct that goes with the grain, of conduct that goes against the grain, and even the wisdom of entering the display of the wisdom of the śrāvakas, the wisdom of the pratyekabuddhas, the practice of the bodhisattvas, and the practice of the tathāgatas. The misreading is to read “a single thought entering a kalpa” as an illusion of time. What the sūtra sets down is “entering” — not that long and short exchange places, but that he can come and go within them at will. The closing sentence says it plainly: “all the wisdom that all the buddhas have is vast and measureless, and the bodhisattva of this ground is able to enter into all of it.” Brought down to the ground: at this ground time and space are no longer walls but doors.

The Ten Gates of Liberation: One Gate Opens and the Rest Open with It

After the part of the great exhaustion the sūtra lists ten liberations: the liberation beyond conceiving, without obstruction, of pure observation, of universal illumination, of the Tathāgata-womb, of according with the unobstructed wheel, of penetrating the three times, of the treasury of the Dharma realm, of the wheel of light, and of the realm in which nothing is left over; “with these ten at their head there are measureless hundreds of thousands of asaṃkhyeya gates of liberation, all of them gained within this tenth ground”, and even measureless gates of samādhi, of dhāraṇī, and of spiritual penetration are “all of them accomplished”. The misreading to be guarded against is to take the ten liberations for ten abilities. The construction of the sūtra is “with these ten at their head” — ten is instance, not the whole of a list. Brought down to the ground: to cultivate to a certain point is not to have learned ten more things, but for everything learned one by one before to open through at once, so that the countless doors that follow open together.

The Explanation of the Name (1): The Name Dharma Cloud Lies First in ‘Being Able to Receive’

Only here does the sūtra formally explain the name of the ground, and the first sense of the explanation is unexpected — it is not being able to rain but being able to bear. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground “penetrates wisdom such as this, accords with measureless awakening, and accomplishes the power of skillful recollection”, and that all the great Dharma-radiance, great Dharma-illumination, and great Dharma-rain of the measureless buddhas of the ten directions he is “able in a single thought to settle, to receive, to gather, and to hold”. Then comes the simile of the dragon king Sāgara: of the great rain the dragon king pours down, apart from the great sea alone all other places cannot settle, receive, gather, or hold it; and so it is with the great Dharma-rain of the secret treasury of a Tathāgata — apart from the bodhisattva of the tenth ground alone, other sentient beings, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and even the bodhisattvas up to the ninth ground cannot settle, receive, gather, or hold it. And turning it about to the sea: the rain of one dragon king it can receive, and the rain of two, of three, of measureless dragon kings poured down at once it can receive as well — “why is this? because it is a vessel measureless and vast.” The misreading is to read Dharma Cloud as the bodhisattva expounding the Dharma. What the sūtra sets up first is the measure of the vessel. Brought down to the ground: whether one can catch a great Dharma when it comes does not depend on whether one wants it, but on how large a vessel one is.

The Explanation of the Name (2): How Much Dharma Is Received in a Single Thought

Vimukticandra then presses a very good question: in a single thought, at how many tathāgatas can the bodhisattva of this ground settle, receive, gather, and hold the great Dharma-rain? Vajragarbha answers: it is not something counting can know, and I shall speak a simile for you — suppose in each of the ten directions there were worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten unspeakable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-fields, and each and every sentient being within them had gained the dhāraṇī of hearing and retaining, and were all attendants of a buddha, and foremost in learning among the śrāvakas, like the monk Great Victory in the presence of the Buddha upon the Diamond Lotus; and that moreover the Dharma received by one being would not be received again by the rest. Vimukticandra answers for himself: “that number is exceedingly great, measureless and boundless.” Only then does Vajragarbha draw in the net: what this bodhisattva settles, receives, gathers, and holds in the presence of a single buddha in a single thought — the great Dharma-radiance, great Dharma-illumination, great Dharma-rain, and the Dharma-treasury of the three times — is such that the Dharma heard and retained by all those many beings, set against it, “does not amount to one part in a hundred”; and it is not one buddha only, but the buddhas as many as the dust-motes of the ten directions and beyond them measureless and boundless, in the presence of each and every one of whom he is able to settle, receive, gather, and hold. The misreading is to take this passage for hyperbole. It is a measuring: first the imaginable amount is heaped to its utmost, and then it is said that this does not come to one part in a hundred. Brought down to the ground: as to the measure of the Dharma of a buddha, the human imagination is always the side that underestimates.

The Explanation of the Name (3): Only after Being Able to Receive Does One Speak of Being Able to Rain

Only in the last two turns of the explanation of the name does the raining come round. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground, by the power of his own vows, “raises up the cloud of great compassion, rolls the thunder of the great Dharma, takes spiritual penetration, clear knowing, and fearlessness for his lightning, and merit and wisdom for his dense banks of cloud”, displays bodies of every kind, going to and fro, and in a single thought pervades lands as many as the dust-motes of the ten directions, expounding the great Dharma and crushing the enemy Māra; and further, according with what the minds of sentient beings delight in, he “pours down the rain of sweet dew and extinguishes all the dust and flame of the many delusions”; and further, within one world he displays the deeds of a buddha from the descent from Tuṣita to nirvāṇa, and within two, three, and even dust-mote-many lands it is so as well. And so four times the sūtra says, “and this is why this ground is named: Dharma Cloud.” Chengguan divides the part of the explanation of the name into three turns: first, being able to receive the great Dharma cloud-rain of a Tathāgata; second, from “by the power of his own vows” onward, making clear the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion; third, from “in a single thought” onward, making clear the pouring of rain that gives birth to goodness — and the first two occurrences of “and this is why this ground is named: Dharma Cloud” both belong to the first turn. This structure must be seen clearly: being able to receive comes first, and the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion and gives birth to goodness comes after, and only the two together make up the one word ‘cloud’. Li Tongxuan, in explaining the name of this ground, takes precisely the side of the raining — saying that this bodhisattva has ascended to the station of a Dharma-king, his wisdom full and his practice complete, and with the cloud of great kindness and compassion pours down the rain of Dharma everywhere upon the sea of birth and death, watering the mind-fields of all sentient beings and making the sprout of awakening arise. Chengguan for his part gathers the explanations of the several houses and brings them all back to three senses: holding virtue with wisdom, cutting off obstructions throughout, and realizing the dharma-body throughout. Brought down to the ground: only when one can catch it can there be talk of giving it out — and this is the sequence for everyone who transmits the Dharma.

The Power of Spiritual Penetration (1): Setting a World within a Single Dust-Mote

After the explanation of the name comes the part of the power of spiritual penetration. The sūtra says that the bodhisattva of this ground is “clear and penetrating in wisdom and has mastery of spiritual penetration”, and following upon his thought can make all manner of turns: a narrow world into a vast one and a vast into a narrow, a defiled world into a pure and a pure into a defiled, and worlds abiding in disorder, in due sequence, upside down, and upright, all of them able to be made into one another; he can set within a single dust-mote a world together with Sumeru and all its mountains and rivers, and yet “the appearance of the dust-mote remains as it was and the world is not diminished”; and even set within a single dust-mote two, three, and unspeakably many worlds, and yet “the substance and appearance of that dust-mote remain as they were, while the worlds within it are all plainly made to appear”. He can display within a single world the adornments of two worlds and even of unspeakably many; he can set the sentient beings of unspeakably many worlds within one world and the beings of one world within unspeakably many, and yet “does not disturb or harm the sentient beings at all”; he can display within a single pore all the adornments of the realms of the buddhas. The misreading is to take it for a trick of shrinking and enlarging. After each of these turnings the sūtra keeps appending an ‘and yet’ — “and yet the substance and appearance of that dust-mote remain as they were”, “and yet does not disturb or harm the sentient beings at all”, “and yet does not let sentient beings have any thought of fright” — what changes is the relation, not the thing itself. Brought down to the ground: what the Avataṃsaka speaks of as one being all comes to rest, in the text of the sūtra, upon just these words ‘and yet’.

The Power of Spiritual Penetration (2): The Heads and Tongues within a Single Body

Within the same passage there is something stranger still: in a single thought he displays bodies as many as the dust-motes of unspeakably many worlds, and each body displays hands as many as those dust-motes, and each hand holds flower-caskets, incense-boxes, garlands and canopies, and banners and pennants as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, pervading the ten directions and making offerings to the buddhas; and each body displays heads as many as those dust-motes again, and each head sends forth tongues as many as those dust-motes again, which in thought after thought pervade the ten directions and praise the merits of the buddhas. He makes his body appear pervading the three times, and within that body there are measureless buddhas and the adornments of buddha-lands, and there is nothing of the forming and breaking down of worlds that is not made to appear; from a single pore of his own body he blows forth all the winds and yet does not vex sentient beings; he takes boundless worlds for one great sea, and within the sea a great lotus flower appears, and within it he displays the great tree of awakening and even the accomplishing of the knowledge of all modes; with his mouth he blows out breath and can quake measureless worlds of the ten directions and yet not let sentient beings be frightened; he displays the disasters of wind, of fire, and of water; upon his own body he displays the body of a buddha, upon the body of a buddha his own body, upon the body of a buddha his own land, upon his own land the body of a buddha. The misreading is to read it as a catalogue of transformations. It is in truth demonstrating one thing: that these pairs of relations — body and land, self and buddha — can already exchange their places. Brought down to the ground: what is called mastery is that even the hardest of divisions, ‘which is me and which is the buddha’, can be loosened.

The Doubt of the Assembly: Then What of the Buddha

Hearing this far, the bodhisattvas in the assembly together with the gods, dragons, and the eight kinds of being, the four world-guarding kings, Śakra, Brahmā, the gods of the Pure Abodes, and the sons of the gods of Maheśvara and the rest, all at once gave rise to one thought: “if the wisdom and power of spiritual penetration of a bodhisattva can be such as this, then what of the Buddha?” This question is put exceedingly well and is also exceedingly dangerous — well, because it is a solid doubt; dangerous, because if it is not cut off, all that was said before becomes a usurping of the Buddha by a bodhisattva. Vimukticandra at once asks Vajragarbha on the assembly’s behalf that he “display a little of the adornments of the spiritual power of a bodhisattva”. Vajragarbha thereupon enters “the samādhi of the substance-nature of all buddha-lands”: when he enters it, the bodhisattvas and the whole great assembly all see their own bodies within the body of Vajragarbha, and within it see all the adornments of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system, which a koṭi of kalpas could not tell to the end; and they see too a tree of awakening the girth of whose trunk is a hundred thousand three-thousandfold great-thousand world-systems and whose height is a million of them, and beneath the tree upon a lion seat a buddha named King of the Penetration of Omniscience. The display over, he causes the assemblies each to be in their own place again, and the great assembly, gaining what they had never had, abides in silence, gazing up. The misreading is to take this for an answer to that doubt. It is in truth only an enlarging of the doubt — if within the body of a bodhisattva there is already a buddha, then what of the Buddha? Brought down to the ground: the true answer is still to come, and the sūtra first lets the question be asked all the way to the bottom.

The Name of the Samādhi and Its Realm: A Bodhisattva of the Ninth Ground Cannot Know It

Vimukticandra asks the name of this samādhi, and Vajragarbha answers, “the substance-nature of all buddha-lands”; he asks again what its realm is, and the answer is that if a bodhisattva cultivates this samādhi, then following upon what he thinks in his mind he can make appear within his body buddha-fields as many as the dust-motes of worlds as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, and beyond that number measureless and boundless. Then the sūtra gives a sentence of very great weight: a bodhisattva abiding on the Dharma-Cloud Ground gains measureless hundreds of thousands of great samādhis such as these, and therefore his body and the deeds of his body, his speech and the deeds of his speech, his mind and the deeds of his mind, “cannot be fathomed”; he has mastery of spiritual penetration and plays within all the gates of liberation; and as for what is done by his transformations, by his spiritual power, and by his light, “to state it briefly, even to the raising of a foot and the setting down of a foot”, all such things as he does “are not known even by a bodhisattva who is a prince of the Dharma-king abiding on the Excellent-Wisdom Ground”. The misreading is to see the ninth ground and the tenth as differing in amount. What the sūtra raises is the smallest of motions — the raising and setting down of a foot — and even this the ninth ground cannot fathom. Brought down to the ground: between ground and ground it is not a matter of cultivating a little more, but of a change into a dimension one cannot see.

One Clod of Earth: Between Wisdom and Wisdom There Can Be No Measuring

Vimukticandra thereupon puts the doubt of the assembly formally: “if the realm of spiritual penetration of a bodhisattva is such as this, then what of the power of spiritual penetration of a buddha?” Vajragarbha’s answer is the sharpest passage in the whole chapter. First a simile put as a counter-question: as if someone were to take one clod of earth from the four continents and then ask, “is the earth of the great ground of the boundless worlds the greater, or is this clod the greater” — your question is of just this kind; the wisdom of a Tathāgata is boundless and without equal, how could it be brought and measured against that of a bodhisattva? Then a step back: as with taking a little earth from the four continents, the rest being measureless, so with the wisdom of spiritual penetration of this Dharma-Cloud Ground, even measureless kalpas could speak of but a small part of it — how much more the ground of a Tathāgata. And last a matter cited as proof: suppose in each of the ten directions there were buddha-lands as many as the dust-motes of the boundless worlds, and each land filled with bodhisattvas of this tenth ground, as thick as a grove of sugarcane, bamboo, reeds, rice, and hemp; the wisdom born of the practice those bodhisattvas cultivated through hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas, set against the realm of wisdom of a single Tathāgata, “does not amount to one part in a hundred, and even the utterly minute part of an upaniṣad could not reach it”. The misreading is to read this as a belittling of the bodhisattva. What it belittles is the act of measuring itself. Brought down to the ground: at a certain level, difference can no longer be spoken of in multiples, and one can only say that it is beyond comparing.

No Different from the Three Kinds of Deed of a Tathāgata, and Still Serving and Making Offerings

The doubt cut off, the sūtra turns back to settle the place of this bodhisattva, and speaks with great measure: he “abides within wisdom such as this and is no different from a Tathāgata in the deeds of body, of speech, and of mind” — the three kinds of deed are already no different from a Tathāgata’s; and yet he “does not cast away the power of the bodhisattva samādhis”, but for numberless kalpas serves and makes offerings to all the buddhas, in each kalpa making offerings with implements of every kind; sustained by the spiritual power of all the buddhas, the light of his wisdom becomes more surpassing still, and every difficult question within the Dharma realm he is good at resolving, so that “for hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas there is none who can make him yield”. The misreading is to seize upon the one sentence ‘no different from a Tathāgata in the three kinds of deed’ and say that this ground is buddhahood. The sūtra immediately presses it down with two similes: a goldsmith makes adornments of the finest true gold and sets great maṇi jewels among them, and the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment wears them upon himself, so that the adornments of the other gods and humans cannot compare — and just so stands the bodhisattva of this ground with respect to those of the first ground up to the ninth; the light of Maheśvara, king of the gods, makes the bodies and minds of sentient beings cool and clear, and no other light can compare — and just so the light of wisdom of this ground can bring sentient beings even to enter the wisdom of omniscience, which the light of wisdom of the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and even the bodhisattvas of the ninth ground cannot do. What both similes compare is ‘surpassing those below’, not ‘being equal to the fruit of buddhahood’. Brought down to the ground: the highest modesty is to be still making offerings.

The Preeminence of the Perfection of Knowledge: The Ten Perfections Matched to the Last of the Ten Grounds

After the two similes the sūtra says that the buddhas, the world-honored ones, expound for him further the wisdom of the three times, the wisdom of the differences of the Dharma realm, the wisdom that pervades all the worlds, the wisdom that illumines all the worlds, and the wisdom that thinks upon all sentient beings with loving-kindness, and to state the essential point expound for him even the gaining of the wisdom of omniscience; and it judges to which of the ten perfections this ground belongs: “among the ten perfections, the perfection of knowledge is the most preeminent; and it is not that the other perfections are not cultivated.” From the preeminence of the perfection of giving on the first ground all the way to the preeminence of the perfection of knowledge here, the matching of the ten perfections to the ten grounds is at this point complete. The misreading is to confound the “perfection of knowledge” with the prajñā among the six perfections: prajñā is the wisdom that illumines and sees emptiness of nature, while the perfection of knowledge is subsequently attained discrimination, the wisdom that has mastery amid the differences of all dharmas — which is why this ground can “resolve well every difficult question within the Dharma realm”. Li Tongxuan, explaining the gate of practice of this ground, says just this: “what is cultivated on this ground has the perfection of knowledge for its lord and the other nine for its companions.” Brought down to the ground: what becomes preeminent at the last is neither the power of concentration nor spiritual penetration, but the ability to say a thing clearly — because there is Dharma to be expounded.

The Fruit of Pliancy: For the Most Part He Becomes Maheśvara, King of the Gods

By the common pattern of the ten grounds, the practice of the ground having been expounded, the fruit of the station is expounded. The bodhisattva of this ground “for the most part becomes Maheśvara, king of the gods, having mastery with respect to the Dharma”, able to confer upon sentient beings, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and all bodhisattvas the practice of the perfections, and there is none who can make him yield with any difficult question within the Dharma realm; giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and working alongside — all deeds such as these that he does “are not apart from mindfulness of the Buddha, and even not apart from mindfulness of being complete in all modes and in the wisdom of omniscience”; and he vows further to be, among all sentient beings, the head and the foremost, and even the support of the wisdom of omniscience; and if he applies diligence and vigor, in a single thought he gains samādhis as many as the dust-motes of ten unspeakable hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of buddha-fields, and even displays bodhisattvas as many as those dust-motes as his retinue; and if he displays with mastery by the power of surpassing vows, he goes beyond that number, in cultivation, adornment, faithful understanding, what is done, body, speech, light, faculties, transformations, sounds, and the places of his practice, so that hundreds of thousands of koṭis of nayutas of kalpas could not count and know them. The misreading is to be startled at his ‘becoming a king of the gods’. From the king of Jambudvīpa on the first ground to Maheśvara, king of the gods, on this one, the royal station rises all the way; and yet the fixed sentence on every ground is the same — not apart from mindfulness of the Buddha. Brought down to the ground: the higher the seat, the more closely the thread that ties one to the Buddha must be watched.

Lake Anavatapta: From the Mind of Awakening to the Sea of Omniscience

The aspects of practice of the ten grounds appearing in due sequence, one is then able to proceed into the wisdom of omniscience. The sūtra draws this together with a clean simile: as the four great rivers flow out from Lake Anavatapta and their waters reach throughout Jambudvīpa, neither drying up but increasing the more, and flow on until they enter the sea and make it full; so it is too with the bodhisattva — “out from the mind of awakening flows the water of roots of goodness and of great vows, and with the four means of gathering he fills sentient beings, without ever coming to an end but increasing the more, and flows on until he enters the sea of omniscience and makes it full.” The matching of this simile must be set straight: the lake is the mind of awakening, the four rivers are the four means of gathering, the Jambudvīpa the waters reach is sentient beings, and the sea they enter is omniscience. The misreading is to take the entering of the sea for the end of practice. What the sūtra says is “makes it full” — the water enters the sea, and the sea is thereby made full. Brought down to the ground: benefiting others is not an expenditure of one’s practice but its wellspring; the water flows out all the way, and what fills the sea of wisdom at the last is that same water.

The Ten Mountain Kings: Standing within One and the Same Sea, Gaining Their Names by Difference

The part of the images of the grounds at the end of the chapter is outlined by Chengguan as the four similes of lake, mountain, sea, and jewel gathering up the ten grounds; the Lake Anavatapta of the preceding section is the first, and this section is the second, the ten mountain kings. The sūtra says that the ten grounds of a bodhisattva “have their differences by reason of the wisdom of a buddha, as by reason of the great earth there are the ten mountain kings”: the snow mountain gathers the many medicinal herbs, and the first ground gathers the scriptures, arts, writings and hymns, and spells of the world; the fragrance mountain gathers all fragrances, and the second ground gathers the practice of the precepts and deportment; the Vaidharī mountain is made purely of jewels, and the third ground gathers the meditative concentrations, spiritual penetrations, liberations, samādhis, and samāpattis; the divine sages’ mountain has the sages of the five penetrations dwelling in it, and the fourth ground gathers the surpassing wisdom within all paths; the Yugandhara mountain has the yakṣas and great spirits dwelling in it, and the fifth ground gathers the spiritual penetrations that are masterful and as one wishes; the horse-ear mountain has all fruits, and the sixth ground gathers the principle of dependent origination and the fruits realized by the śrāvakas; the Nimindhara mountain has the mighty dragon spirits dwelling in it, and the seventh ground gathers skillful means and wisdom and the fruits realized by the pratyekabuddhas; the Cakravāḍa mountain has the hosts of those who have mastery dwelling in it, and the eighth ground gathers the practice of a bodhisattva’s mastery and the differences among the worlds; the Ketu mountain has the asura kings of great majestic virtue dwelling in it, and the ninth ground gathers the wisdom and practice concerning the arising and ceasing of the world; the Sumeru mountain has the gods of great majestic virtue dwelling in it, and the tenth ground gathers the powers, fearlessnesses, exclusive dharmas, and all the deeds of a buddha. And then comes the weightiest sentence in the whole chapter: “these ten jeweled mountain kings stand within one and the same great sea, and yet gain their names each according to its difference; so it is too with the ten grounds of a bodhisattva: they stand within one and the same omniscience, and yet gain their names each according to its difference.” The misreading is to read the ten grounds as ten steps of a stair with the wisdom of a buddha above the stair. Chengguan, joining this simile to its sense, puts it through to the bottom: as when the sea is formed it does not lose its ten aspects, and apart from the ten aspects there is no sea, so apart from the ten grounds there is no wisdom of a buddha — and therefore the ten grounds are themselves the sea of wisdom. Brought down to the ground: the ordering of stages and complete interfusion are not two things — the ten grounds are not outside the wisdom of a buddha, just as the ten mountains are not outside the sea.

The Ten Aspects of the Great Sea: The Name Grows from the Aspects and Cannot Be Shifted or Taken Away

The third simile takes the ten aspects of the great sea: growing deeper by degrees, not holding a corpse, the other waters that flow in losing their former names, being everywhere of one taste, having measureless precious jewels, none being able to reach its bottom, being vast and measureless, being where the great of body dwell, its tides not passing their bounds, receiving the great rains everywhere without overflowing — and by these ten aspects it gains the name of great sea, and it “cannot be shifted or taken away”. Matched to the ten grounds: the Joyful Ground gives birth to great vows and enters deeper by degrees, the Stainless Ground does not hold the corpse of any breaking of the precepts, the Luminous Ground casts away the false names of the world, the Flaming-Wisdom Ground is of one taste with the merits of a buddha, the Hard-to-Conquer Ground gives birth to the many precious jewels of skillful means and spiritual penetration, the Manifest Ground observes the deep principle of arising by conditions, the Far-Reaching Ground observes well with vast awakened understanding, the Immovable Ground displays vast adornments, the Excellent-Wisdom Ground gains deep liberation and moves within the world knowing as it really is and not passing the bounds, and the Dharma-Cloud Ground can receive the great Dharma-radiance rain of all the buddha-tathāgatas and never have enough of it. The misreading is to read “cannot be shifted or taken away” as ‘cannot be changed’. Chengguan explains it in two senses: first, that as fruit its name of the depth and breadth of a sea cannot be taken from it; second, that as cause the fitness of its practice cannot be taken from it — for if the aspect of the cause were taken away, the fruit too would not stand. Brought down to the ground: a name that has grown out of actual aspects can neither be seized away nor handed over — so it is with the names of the ten grounds, and so it is with the standing of a person who practices.

The Ten Natures of the Maṇi Jewel: From Coming Out of the Sea to Raining Jewels at the King’s Wish

The fourth simile is the great maṇi jewel with ten natures that surpass the many jewels: coming out from the great sea, being worked by a skilled craftsman, round and complete without flaw, pure and parted from defilement, clear and translucent within and without, skillfully bored through, strung upon a thread of jewels, set upon a high banner of beryl, sending out all manner of light everywhere, and able to rain the many jeweled things following upon the mind of the king so as to fill the wishes of sentient beings. Matched to the ten things by which a bodhisattva surpasses the many sages: raising up the mind of omniscience, keeping the precepts and the ascetic practices with right conduct clear and pure, meditative concentrations and samādhis round and complete without flaw, conduct on the path clear and white and parted from defilement, skillful means and spiritual penetration clear and translucent within and without, the wisdom of dependent origination skillfully able to bore through, being strung upon a thread of skillful means and wisdom, being set upon the high banner of mastery, observing the conduct of sentient beings and sending out the light of hearing and retaining, and receiving the consecration of the wisdom of a buddha, falling within the number of the buddhas, and doing the deeds of a buddha widely for sentient beings. The misreading is to read the simile of the jewel as being only about ‘adornment’. Chengguan points out that what the simile takes is the “coming out” — it is chosen out from the sea and so is taken up, just as on the first ground one observes with the wisdom that knows as it really is and so comes out of the sea of the afflictions; and the last item, “raining jewels following upon the mind of the king”, is a not-begrudging, a raining of jewels at will without stint. Brought down to the ground: the end-point of the ten grounds is not that the jewel is fine to look at, but that this jewel now hangs high enough, sends out light, and is willing to rain its treasure upon others.

The Benefit of the Grounds: To Hear This Dharma-Gate Is a Merit Equal to All That Omniscience Gathers

The four similes of lake, mountain, sea, and jewel having been fully spoken, the sūtra comes back to the person listening: “as for this chapter, the Dharma-gate of the practice of a bodhisattva that gathers the merits of all modes and of omniscience: if sentient beings do not plant roots of goodness, it cannot be heard by them.” Vimukticandra asks how much merit is gained from hearing this Dharma-gate, and Vajragarbha answers: as with the merit gathered by omniscience, so it is with the merit of hearing this Dharma-gate. Why? Because there is none who, without hearing this Dharma-gate of merit, is able to have faith and understanding, to receive and keep it, and to read and recite it — how much less to be vigorous and cultivate as it is expounded; and therefore one must gain the hearing of this Dharma-gate that gathers the merits of omniscience before one can have faith and understanding, receive, keep, and cultivate it, and thereafter arrive at the ground of omniscience. The misreading is to read “hearing” as having heard it with the ears. Chengguan explains that hearing here has two senses: first, hearing in the ordinary drifting way, which is for the sake of a distant benefit; second, the true hearing that does not grasp at the mark of hearing and in which beginning and end are fully interfused — and it is of the latter that it is said that “having heard, one is equal to a buddha”. Brought down to the ground: this passage is the chapter speaking to its reader — what you are reading at this moment is that very Dharma-gate which “cannot be heard by one who has not planted roots of goodness”.

The Quaking of the Earth and the Witness from Other Quarters: The Words and the Meaning Neither Added to nor Taken From

The exposition being finished, by the spiritual power of the Buddha and because the Dharma is so of itself, in each of the ten directions worlds as many as the dust-motes of ten koṭis of buddha-fields quake with the six kinds of quaking in eighteen aspects: moving, moving throughout, moving throughout alike; rising, rising throughout, rising throughout alike; surging, surging throughout, surging throughout alike; shaking, shaking throughout, shaking throughout alike; roaring, roaring throughout, roaring throughout alike; striking, striking throughout, striking throughout alike; heavenly flowers, garlands, and robes rain down with the adornments of the jewels of the gods, banners, pennants, and silken canopies; the music of the heavens is played and with one voice praises the merits of the ground of omniscience; and as this Dharma is expounded in the palace of the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment in this world, so it is in all the worlds of the ten directions. And bodhisattvas as many as the dust-motes of ten koṭis of buddha-fields come from beyond the worlds of the ten directions, saying, “Excellent, excellent, Vajragarbha! Well have you expounded this Dharma”, and telling of themselves: we are all alike named Vajragarbha; the worlds in which we dwell, though each differing, are all named Diamond Virtue, and the names of our buddhas are all Diamond Banner; in our own worlds we all expound this Dharma borne by the majestic spiritual power of a Tathāgata, and the assemblies are all alike, and “the words and the meaning of the sentences have nothing added and nothing taken away from what is expounded here”. Li Tongxuan explains this passage saying: their calling him excellent makes clear that the Dharma expounded tallies and does not differ; their being of the same name makes clear that the wisdom of the treasury of the Dharma is the same. The misreading is to read it as an auspicious portent. It is a proof: one and the same Dharma, expounded in measureless worlds by those of the same name, with the words and sentences neither added to nor taken from. Brought down to the ground: the true Dharma is nobody’s original invention; wherever it is expounded it is just that.

The Verses in Repetition (1): Walking the Ten Grounds Once More

Vajragarbha observes the assemblies of the ten directions, and wishing to praise the raising of the mind of the wisdom of omniscience, to display the realms of a bodhisattva, to purify the power of a bodhisattva’s practice, to expound the path that gathers in the knowledge of all modes, to destroy the defilements of all the world, to bestow omniscience, to display the adornments of wisdom beyond conceiving, to show forth all the merits of the bodhisattvas, and to cause the meaning of the grounds to be opened out more fully still — borne by the spiritual power of the Buddha, he speaks in verse. Chengguan, taking the eighty-fascicle text, judges these verses to be forty-two and divides them into three: the first verse is general praise and exhortation to listen, the last verse is the concluding statement that it cannot be exhausted, and the middle is the proper repetition divided into eight. The first verse, “his mind is still and quenched and constantly well tamed, level and unobstructed like empty space, parted from the many defilements and abiding upon the path”, is the general praise. Then thirteen verses repeat the part of the skillful means that make the ground full: the first three are the general repetition of the merit of good selection cultivated alike upon the first nine grounds — cultivating good things through hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas, making offerings to measureless buddhas, diligently keeping the precepts with gentleness and forbearance, shame, merit, and wisdom complete, setting the will upon the wisdom of a buddha and cultivating a vast understanding, making offerings to the buddhas of the three times, knowing all dharmas to be level and equal — all of them brought back to “for the benefit of sentient beings he raises up the great mind”; and then one verse to each ground: the first, “forever parted from the many evils and constantly bearing gladness”; the second, “precepts and much learning are complete in him and his mindfulness is upon sentient beings”; the third, “he observes the fire of the three poisons in the world”; the Flaming-Wisdom Ground, “all within the three kinds of existence is impermanent, like an arrow shot into the body, its pain fierce and burning”; the Hard-to-Conquer Ground, “recollection and wisdom being complete in him he gains the wisdom of the path”; the Manifest Ground, “with wisdom and skillful means he observes well”; the seventh, “he does not grasp at a self and parts from being and non-being; the nature of dharmas is from the first still and quenched and yet turns along with conditions”; the Immovable Ground, “though he has realized the still and quenched he is diligent in cultivation still”; the Excellent-Wisdom Ground, “the buddhas urge him to rise up out of the still and quenched”; and it closes into the tenth ground with “with subtle and wondrous wisdom he observes sentient beings, observing the thickets of their mental conduct, deeds, and delusions” and “cultivating in due sequence he is complete in the many good things, and up to the ninth ground he gathers merit and wisdom, and constantly seeking the highest dharma of the buddhas he thereupon gains the water of a buddha’s wisdom to consecrate the crown of his head”. The misreading is to take the verses in repetition for an abridged retelling. What the verses do here is to press the nine grounds into a single line, so that the place of the tenth ground can be seen. Brought down to the ground: reading this far and looking back, the nine grounds before are a road, and this set of verses is the map of that road.

The Verses in Repetition (2): Verses on the Samādhis, the Station, and the Great Exhaustion

Then one verse repeats the part of the samādhis: “he gains numberless samādhis and is good too at knowing their workings; the last samādhi is named receiving the station, and he abides in a vast realm and is constantly unmoving.” Five and a half verses repeat the part of gaining the station: the great jeweled lotus flower suddenly appears and the measure of his body is fitted to it, and the sons of the Buddha encircle him and observe together; he sends out hundreds of thousands of koṭis of great rays of light that extinguish the suffering of beings, and again from above the crown of his head sends out light that enters everywhere the Dharma gatherings of the buddhas of the ten directions, abides in the sky and becomes a net of light, and having made offerings to the buddhas enters in through their feet; the buddhas all know that “this son of the Buddha has now ascended to the station of consecration”; the bodhisattvas of the ten directions come and observe, the great being receiving consecration spreads out his light, and from between the brows of the buddhas light comes forth and enters in through the crown of his head; the worlds of the ten directions all quake and the suffering of the hells is extinguished, and “at this time the buddhas confer upon him the station, as a wheel-turning king does upon his first son”; and it closes by properly settling the name of the ground with “if one is granted consecration by the buddhas, this is called ascending to the Dharma-Cloud Ground”. Then three and a half verses repeat the part of the great exhaustion: the three realms of desire, form, and the formless, the Dharma realm, the worlds, the realm of sentient beings, the numbered, the numberless, and empty space, “all such things as these he penetrates entirely”; the great and majestic power of all the workings of transformation, the subtle wisdom of the sustaining of the buddhas, the secrets, the numbers of the kalpas, the paths of a hair and the rest, “all of it he is able to observe as it really is”; taking birth, forsaking the household, accomplishing the right path, turning the wondrous wheel of the Dharma, entering nirvāṇa, and even the dharma of still and quenched liberation, “together with what has not yet been expounded — all of it he is able to know”. The misreading is to feel that the verses are vaguer than the long prose. The verses in fact compress the four sets of what is known in the prose into three and a half verses, and the last line, “together with what has not yet been expounded — all of it he is able to know”, is an added stroke that the prose does not have. Brought down to the ground: what is known does not stop at what is expounded — this is the sentence the verses supply to the prose.

The Verses in Repetition (3): Verses on the Explanation of the Name and on Spiritual Penetration, with the Fruit of the Station

Three verses repeat the part of the explanation of the name: “the bodhisattva abiding on this Dharma-Cloud Ground is complete in the power of recollection and holds the dharma of the buddhas; as the great sea receives the rain of the dragon king, so it is too with this ground’s receiving of the Dharma” — the receiving first; “the measureless sentient beings of the ten directions all gain the hearing and retaining and keep the dharma of the buddhas; the Dharma that he hears in the presence of a single buddha surpasses that number of theirs and is without limit” — the measure of the receiving; “by the majestic spiritual power of his wisdom and vows of former times, in a single thought he pervades the lands of the ten directions and pours down the rain of sweet dew that extinguishes the afflictions — and this is why the Buddha says that this ground is named Dharma Cloud” — the being able to rain. Matching Chengguan’s three turns to these: the first two verses both repeat the first turn of being able to receive (one on being able to receive, one on the measure of receiving), and the third verse, “pours down the rain of sweet dew that extinguishes the afflictions”, repeats the second turn of the pouring of rain that extinguishes delusion; the third turn, the pouring of rain that gives birth to goodness, has no verse. Two verses repeat the part of the power of spiritual penetration, with and without anything above it: “his spiritual penetrations displayed fill the ten directions, going beyond the realms of humans, gods, and the world”, so that “the wisdom and thinking of the world must surely be confounded”; and “the merit of the wisdom in a single raising of his foot is not known even by a bodhisattva of the ninth ground — how much less by all sentient beings, and by the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas”. Four and a half verses repeat the fruit of the station: making offerings throughout the lands of the ten directions; the buddhas expounding for him again the unobstructed wisdom of the Dharma realm of the three times; the light of wisdom of this ground being like the light of the king of the Heaven of Free Enjoyment removing the darkness of the world; “abiding upon this ground he for the most part becomes king of the three realms and is well able to expound the dharma of the three vehicles”; and closing with “this ground I have now stated briefly; if one wished to state it at length it could not be exhausted”. The misreading is to take the verses for an abridgement of the prose and skip them. Here the divisions of the verses and of the prose tally exactly, and can be used precisely to check whether one has read anything past. Brought down to the ground: the verses are the table of contents the sūtra has supplied for itself.

The Verses in Repetition (4): The Verses on the Three Similes of Mountain, Sea, and Jewel, and the Conclusion That It Cannot Be Exhausted

The last seven and a half verses repeat the part of the images of the grounds. Three and a half on the simile of the mountains: “the grounds such as these within the wisdom of a buddha stand lofty as the ten mountain kings”, and then the arts and learning of the first ground like the snow mountain gathering the many herbs, the precepts and learning of the second like the fragrance mountain, the third like the Vaidharī putting forth wondrous flowers, the jewels of the path of the Flaming-Wisdom Ground like the sages’ mountain, the spiritual penetrations of the fifth like the Yugandhara, the sixth like the horse-ear complete with fruits, the great wisdom of the seventh like the Nimindhara, the mastery of the eighth like the encircling ring, the ninth like the Ketu gathering the unobstructed, the tenth like Sumeru complete with the many virtues. Two verses on the simile of the sea: the first ground has vows for its head, the second the precepts, the third merit, the fourth singleness, the fifth subtlety, the sixth depth, the seventh vast wisdom, the eighth adornment, the ninth the pondering of subtle and wondrous meaning going beyond every path of the world, and “the tenth the receiving and keeping of the dharma of the buddhas — a sea of practice such as this is never dried up”. Two verses on the simile of the jewel: the ten practices go beyond the world, with the raising of the mind first, the precepts second, meditative concentration third, purity of conduct fourth, accomplishment fifth, arising by conditions sixth, the boring through seventh, “the eighth being set upon the diamond banner, the ninth the observing of the thickets of sentient beings, the tenth consecration following upon the mind of the king — jewels of merit such as these grow pure by degrees”. And the last verse is the conclusion that it cannot be exhausted: “though the lands of the ten directions be ground to dust-motes, their number may still be known in a single thought; though empty space be measured with the tip of a hair, its measure may still be known — but the dharma of this ground, though told for koṭis of kalpas, cannot be exhausted.” The misreading is to suppose that the verses have repeated all four similes of the part of the images; in fact only the three of mountain, sea, and jewel are repeated. Chengguan has already recorded it: the simile of Lake Anavatapta and the part of the benefit of the grounds are, for brevity of text, not repeated in verse. Brought down to the ground: the last verse states two impossible things as possible — that the ground to dust may be counted and empty space measured — only to set off the third, which is truly impossible: that the dharma of this ground cannot be told to the end.

Reading in the Mirror of Consciousness-Only: The Great Cloud of Dharma-Wisdom Holding the Water of the Many Virtues

The explanation of the name of this ground within the consciousness-only lineage is exceedingly well ordered, and it and this chapter are the inside and outside of one another. Vasubandhu composed the Shidi jing lun explaining this chapter passage by passage, and judged this ground into eight parts, from which the very bones of the outline of this ground come. The Cheng weishi lun, explaining the name of the tenth ground, says: the Dharma-Cloud Ground is so called because the great cloud of Dharma-wisdom holds the water of the many virtues, screens the coarse and heavy that is like empty space, and fills up the dharma-body. The She dacheng lun sets the question, “why is the tenth ground named Dharma Cloud”, and answers that it is because one gains the wisdom that takes all dharmas as its object at once and holds within itself all the gates of dhāraṇī and gates of samādhi, and because, like a great cloud able to cover the vast obstruction that is like empty space, it is also able to fill up the dharma-body — and these three senses are just those that Chengguan and Fazang alike carry on: holding water, covering space, and filling up the dharma-body. The Yuqie shidi lun names this ground the abode of the bodhisattva of the highest and full accomplishment, and says that this bodhisattva “is himself like a great cloud that has not yet manifested the perfect awakening of unsurpassed awakening”, and that were he to manifest that awakening he could rain for measureless sentient beings the incomparable and subtle rain of Dharma, quell the dust of the afflictions, and cause the crops of their roots of goodness to grow and ripen. This may be read against the text of this chapter: the sūtra speaks of being able to receive by the rain of the dragon king Sāgara, and the consciousness-only treatises speak of being able to hold by “holding the water of the many virtues”; the sūtra speaks of being able to rain by the cloud of great compassion pouring the rain of sweet dew, and the Yuqie says that the great cloud has not yet manifested perfect awakening and that only upon manifesting it can it rain greatly. Only when the two mirrors shine together is the name Dharma Cloud complete: holding and not yet raining is this ground; raining and moistening everywhere is the ground of a buddha — which is why the sūtra says “falls within the number of the buddhas” and does not say ‘has become a buddha’. The She dacheng lun further sets up for each of the ten grounds one kind of obstruction of ignorance to be countered, and the tenth ground answers to “the sense of the support of mastery over deeds, and the sense of the support of mastery in the gates of dhāraṇī and the gates of samādhi” — which corresponds sentence for sentence with what this chapter expounds of the mastery of spiritual penetration and of the measureless gates of dhāraṇī and of samādhi all being accomplished on this ground.

Lineage

This ground is the gathering up of the whole chapter of the ten grounds, and therefore what it carries forward is also the widest. On the side of the Huayan house: the joint explanation of the ten mountain kings “standing within one and the same great sea and gaining their names by difference” together with the ten aspects of the great sea becomes the most direct scriptural ground for the ordering of stages not obstructing complete interfusion — Chengguan’s one sentence, “apart from the ten grounds there is no wisdom of a buddha, and therefore the ten grounds are themselves the sea of wisdom”, comes out of just this text; and within the part of the power of spiritual penetration, the setting of a world within a single dust-mote while the appearance of the dust-mote remains as it was, the displaying within a single pore of all the realms of the buddhas, and the making of one’s own body appear upon the body of a buddha and of the body of a buddha upon one’s own, are the root of the later senses of the ten mysterious gates — the mastery of the broad and the narrow, the mutual containing of one and many, and the full clarity of host and companion. In the section explaining the name of the ground, three tracks of the ancient worthies run side by side: Chengguan gathers nine explanations and brings them all back to the three senses of holding virtue with wisdom, cutting off obstructions throughout, and realizing the dharma-body throughout, and judges the obstruction departed from to be “the obstruction of not yet having gained mastery among dharmas”; Fazang, following the She dacheng lun and the consciousness-only treatises, sets up three senses, and cites further Paramārtha’s explanation of the three suchnesses in the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, upon which same explanation Chengguan expressly judges that “it seems not to be the intent of the sūtra” — the two masters taking and rejecting in contrary ways, and each judgment is recorded. Li Tongxuan brings out another track, explaining the name by the cloud of great kindness and compassion pouring down the rain of Dharma, and matching to this ground the woman of the Śākya clan Gopā whom Sudhana visits, taking the sense of her name as “the ground of guarding”, and making clear that on this ground the power of vows and the wisdom and compassion are already full and that he constantly guards the mind-ground of sentient beings. In the outlining of the verses in repetition the three houses also differ: Chengguan, taking the eighty-fascicle text, judges forty-two verses divided into eight; Fazang, taking the sixty-fascicle text, judges ninety verses divided into nine; Li Tongxuan judges eighty-three lines of verse as a general praise of the ten grounds — the base numbers themselves differing, the outlines cannot be matched to one another, and they are recorded together without adjudication. On the side of the consciousness-only axis: Vasubandhu’s Shidi jing lun is the passage-by-passage explanation of this ground; the Cheng weishi lun on the names of the ten grounds, the She dacheng lun on the ten grounds countering ten obstructions, and the Yuqie shidi lun on the abode of the bodhisattva of the highest and full accomplishment all take their stand upon the text of this ground. The text of one ground carries above it the practice of the nine grounds from the first onward, and opens below upon the meeting with the fruit of buddhahood; and therefore the sūtra sets its own limit with the four words “falls within the number of the buddhas”.