華嚴經 品三十九 入法界品 · 喜目觀察眾生夜神（寄發光地）Avataṃsaka Sūtra · Entering the Dharma Realm · The Night Goddess Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings (Assigned to the Luminous Ground)

What This Section Is Asking

Sudhana has asked many good friends, “how does a bodhisattva learn the bodhisattva practices?” — but this night goddess is not asked in that way. Sudhana first looks, and only when he has finished looking does he ask; and what he asks is not how the Dharma gate is cultivated, but two other sentences — “you raised the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi: how long has it been until now? And having gained this liberation, how long has that been?” How long since you raised the mind? How long since you gained the Dharma?

One question about time is answered with ninety-one verses. This passage of the sūtra is five thousand eight hundred graphs and more, of which these ninety-one verses are one thousand eight hundred graphs and more, about thirty-one per cent. What the answer contains is: a certain kalpa, a certain land, a certain ten buddhas, all of whom I made offerings to — and then one clause, “and yet I had not gained the eye of wisdom.” Not gained. Then another kalpa, another ten buddhas, another clause, “and still, within the dharmas, I reckoned as existing what does not exist.” Still not gained. Eight of the ten kalpas close in this way; the closing clauses of the eighth and of the tenth tell only of the offerings and do not tell of anything not yet gained.

So the subject of this section is not spiritual power; it is time. A misreading must be set aside: that to ask ‘how long’ is curiosity. The manner of the answer shows that it is not — the night goddess answers ‘how long’ with ‘what I passed through.’ Brought down to the ground: when you ask a person how long he has practiced, what you should really be listening for is what, time after time in those years, he did not gain.

Who This One Is: The Night Goddess Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings

By this point Sudhana has come to the thirty-third good friend. This one is a night goddess, named Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings; the scripture text also has “Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings, the goddess who presides over the night,” the two forms both appearing, and there is no need to make them even.

As to the sense of the name, the ancient worthies each have their saying. Fazang glosses this name, saying, “Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings: within she realizes the deep principle, and without she manifests eyes of kindness with which to look upon sentient beings, and therefore this title is set up” — what is realized within is the deep principle, what is manifested without is eyes of kindness, and therefore she is so named. Fazang also transmits a name from a Sanskrit witness of another translation, saying, “the witness from India names her Joyful Eyes Whose Light Shines Upon and Touches Sentient Beings.” Li Tongxuan, glossing this name, says instead, “that she is titled Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings makes clear the forbearance in dharmas and the practice of kindness,” turning ‘joyful eyes’ back to forbearance. Zhiyan does not gloss the name graph by graph, but only judges her position.

Chengguan outlines this unit, saying, “third, the night goddess Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings, assigned to the Luminous Ground. The text is furnished with six passages.” — ‘assigned to the Luminous Ground’ is Chengguan’s outline carried on from the ancient worthies, and the scripture text itself has no name of a ground. The Yanyi chao glosses the reason for this ‘assigning,’ saying, “that is, because she accomplishes the excellent concentrations and the comprehensive holding of the great Dharma, and is able to send forth the boundless light of wondrous wisdom”: concentration is accomplished, comprehensive holding holds, the light of wisdom can be sent forth — and therefore she is matched to the third ground.

A misreading must be set aside: that a ‘night goddess’ is a lower class of spirit and is therefore matched to a lower station. What this unit is matched to is the third of the ten grounds, which within the sequence Sudhana walks belongs to the grounds themselves. Brought down to the ground: shape is manifested according to capacity, and station is to be looked for in the dharma one has gained.

The Eight Clauses Called to Mind Before the Road

The opening of this section is not walking but calling to mind. Sudhana “honored the teaching the good friend had given, did as the good friend had said,” and then within his mind eight clauses of calling to mind arose, the first saying that a good friend is hard to see and hard to meet, and the seven below it each beginning with “seeing a good friend” — it causes the mind not to be scattered, it breaks the mountain of hindrances, it enters the sea of great compassion, it gains the light of wisdom, it cultivates the way of all-knowledge, it beholds the seas of buddhas of the ten directions, it sees the buddhas turning the wheel of the Dharma and holds it in memory without forgetting.

Chengguan judges this passage to be “first, the seeking in accord with the teaching, within which there are two: first, in accord with the teaching of the friend before him, he calls to mind the benefit the friend brings about” — first he goes in accord with the teaching of the good friend before him, and calls to mind the benefit a good friend can give a person. That is to say, these eight clauses are not lyric feeling; they count off, one by one, ‘what a good friend can do.’

A misreading must be set aside: that calling a good friend to mind is gratitude. If it were gratitude, one clause would have been enough; here eight items are counted, and each item tells of what change will take place in himself. Brought down to the ground: after leaving a teacher, what one thinks along the road — whether ‘what a fine person he was’ or ‘which kind of scatteredness I now have less of’ — are two different things.

The Ten Clauses of Bestowing and the Ten Clauses of What Is Brought About: Two Ranks That Match

After the calling to mind, the scripture text next brings out two ranks of ten parallel clauses each. The former rank is the night goddess bestowing her power upon Sudhana, clause after clause in the form “causing him to know that drawing near to a good friend, one can furnish oneself with the equipment that aids the way”; the latter rank is Sudhana going on to give rise to a thought, clause after clause in the form “by drawing near to a good friend, one can valiantly and diligently cultivate the way of all-knowledge.”

Chengguan points out that these two ranks are to be read against each other, saying, “in sequence these ten clauses answer to the ten clauses before” — the first ten clauses are what the bestowing causes him to know, and the latter ten are the benefit the bestowing brings about, answering to each other in order. The “four” that closes his clause is the number of the outline item that follows: he has already listed a first, a second, and a third in this passage, and the fourth is the truly displaying of the going on to the next friend from “at that time Sudhana” onward — it does not mean four clauses out of the ten before. Fazang, reading the sixty-fascicle witness, makes out three layers — “the first ten clauses are, by his own power, pondering and praising the virtue of the friend; the next ten clauses are Joyful Eyes bestowing her power so that excellent thoughts arise in turn” — and the third is “it makes clear that through the excellent thoughts before, the dharma of growth is gained,” which cites the sixty-fascicle passage “at that time Sudhana straightway understood”; the ten clauses of bestowing and the ten clauses of straightway giving rise to the thought in the eighty-fascicle witness answer to the second and the third of those layers. The bone of the two houses’ divisions differs, and it is recorded without adjudication.

What is worth noting is the difference of tone between the two ranks. The former rank is “causing him to know” — only causing him to know; the latter rank is “by drawing near” — the words are already his own. What lies between them is only one bestowing of power.

A misreading must be set aside: that bestowing power means giving strength. What the bestowing gives here is “knowing”: knowing what drawing near to a good friend can gain. Brought down to the ground: the deepest place at which a person is helped is often not that he has one measure more of strength, but that he suddenly sees clearly a thing that was in front of him all along.

Seeing, Paying Respect, and Inquiring: Only Seeing, No Asking

When Sudhana arrives there, the scripture text writes only his seeing — he sees the night goddess “within the assembly and place of the Way of the Tathāgata, seated upon a lion throne in a treasury of lotus flowers, entered into the liberation of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy,” and then at once the clouds come forth from her pores. It does not write that he bowed, nor that he asked.

Upon this Chengguan sets down one word: “it only makes brief mention of the seeing, and the paying of respect and the request are already contained in it” — the respect and the request are left out of the text, and yet the respect and the request are already contained within the “seeing.” Fazang, reading the sixty-fascicle witness, says the same, that “within the third passage, the paying of respect and the making of the request are omitted.”

Then does the dharma the night goddess displays count as an “answer”? Chengguan says it does, judging this passage to be “displaying her own Dharma realm: that is, she displays the marks beforehand, which in sense amounts to answering the question” — she displays the marks first, hanging in the air, and in doctrine this amounts to answering the question that has not yet been spoken.

A misreading must be set aside: that where there is no asking, a passage has been dropped. Brought down to the ground: some answers arrive before their questions; and the question only comes into being for the one who can catch the answer.

The Three Terms of the Dharma Gate’s Name: Great Mighty Power · Universal Joy · Banner

The Dharma gate this one has entered is named “the liberation of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy.” Chengguan does not run one sense through the whole of it, but glosses it term by term, saying, “there is nothing she does not gather in and subdue, and this is great mighty power. She answers everywhere to the capacities of the multitude, and therefore it is called universal joy. She demolishes and subdues, and stands high and manifest, and for this reason it is named a banner.” — there is nothing she cannot gather in and subdue, and so it is called great mighty power; she answers everywhere to the capacity of sentient beings, and so it is called universal joy; she subdues everything and stands high and alone, and so it is called a banner.

Li Tongxuan, glossing this name, turns it back to forbearance, saying, “that Sudhana gained the liberation of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy makes clear that he came out of the three realms with the hindrances exhausted, that forbearance in dharmas was accomplished and full, that greed, anger, wrath, and hatred, being delusions, could no longer arise, and that forbearance in dharmas being present, there is great mighty power”; and he says further, “the liberation of the Banner of Universal Joy makes clear that he is able to demolish the afflictions of self and of others, and is not tipped or stirred among the objective realms.”

The name of the Dharma gate is not even across the witnesses: the sixty-fascicle witness has “the Dharma gate of the Banner of Universal Light and Joy,” the forty-fascicle witness has “the stainless liberation gate of the Banner of Great Swiftness and Universal Joy,” and Zhiyan, citing it in turn, has yet another form, “the Dharma gate of the Banner of Stainless Joy.” The four forms stand together, and it is recorded without adjudication.

A misreading must be set aside: that “universal joy” means making people happy. The universal joy Chengguan glosses is “answering everywhere to the capacities of the multitude” — answering everywhere to every kind of capacity. Brought down to the ground: what truly makes a person glad is not that something pleasant was said, but that something was said that hit the mark.

The Clouds of Bodies from the Pores: One Body Unmoving, and the Expounding Fills the Dharma Realm

From here the main body of the scripture text begins: upon the night goddess’s body, “from each and every pore, there came forth measureless kinds of clouds of transformation bodies,” and each passage of clouds of bodies expounds one kind of dharma. Chengguan judges this to be the first part of the working, saying, “within the first: that is, because the clouds of bodies from the pores have no exhausting” — the cloud is used as the simile, taken for its having no end.

One thing must be seen clearly: what expounds the Dharma is not the night goddess’s mouth but her pores. From first to last she does not open her mouth — only later, when Sudhana has asked, does she answer in verse. Throughout this great passage, what the compiler writes is the working that manifests of itself from her body in concentration.

A misreading must be set aside: that this is a display of spiritual powers. The closing clauses of the ten passages of clouds of bodies read, in some places, “in such ways as these, by skillful means, she brought sentient beings to ripeness,” in some, “causing all sentient beings to gain ripeness,” in some, “all of them she caused to rejoice and to accomplish all-knowledge,” in some, “causing them to arrive at all-knowledge,” and in some, “and thereby made benefit for them” — the wording is not even, but the point where they land is alike the benefiting of others. Brought down to the ground: to test whether a state is real, look at whether it has a place where it lands; and only what lands somewhere other than upon oneself is the working spoken of here.

The Ten Passages of Clouds of Bodies Are the Ten Perfections: Two Graphs as the Mark of Division

The clouds of bodies are ten passages in all. The first passage reads “there came forth measureless clouds of transformation bodies,” and each of the nine that follow begins with “again there came forth.” Chengguan points out that this is precisely the apportioning of the ten perfections, saying, “in sequence they are the ten perfections, each having ‘again there came forth’ as its mark of distinction. The deep purport within them is to be pondered according to the principle” — in sequence they are the ten perfections; the first passage begins with “there came forth measureless clouds of transformation bodies,” and each of the nine perfections that follow has an “again there came forth” for its boundary.

So there is a ready-made measuring rod for reading these ten passages: the first passage expounding “the dāna-pāramitā that the bodhisattvas practice” is giving; the second expounding “the keeping of pure discipline without lack or transgression” is discipline; the third expounding “the ability to bear all the manifold sufferings” is forbearance; the fourth, eleven clauses of “valiant vigor,” is vigor; the fifth, from shame and conscience and the practice of purity down to “entering the joys of the meditations and the samādhis,” is meditation; the sixth, “dried up the sea of doubt of all sentient beings,” “demolished the mountain of wrong views of all sentient beings,” “broke the darkness of delusion of all sentient beings,” is wisdom; the seventh, expounding differently according to capacity, is skillful means; the eighth, eleven clauses of “in thought after thought manifesting,” is vows; the ninth, thirteen clauses closed by “power,” is power; the tenth, ten clauses closed by “knowledge,” is knowledge.

This rod divides the passages, but it does not tell what each perfection teaches; each of the ten passages has its own place where it lands, and they must be looked at one by one.

The passage on giving tells of three matters: what is given up — “toward all things she had no fond clinging” — cutting off fondness comes first, not reckoning the amount; whom it is given to — “toward all sentient beings she gave universally; her mind was even, without contempt” — giving carried out with contempt does not become a perfection; and how far it reaches — “inward and outward alike she gave, and what was hard to give up she could give up,” the outward being goods and the inward being body and life. Let one of the three be missing, and giving is only the handing over of things.

The passage on discipline fastens discipline to three contemplations: “she expounded that all objective realms are impure, expounded that all dharmas are impermanent, expounded that all conditioned things are suffering and without savor” — impure, impermanent, suffering. Only after the three contemplations does it tell what discipline is for: “causing the worlds to cast off inversion, to dwell in the realms of the buddhas and keep the discipline of the Tathāgata.” The discipline here is therefore not merely the not doing of evil; it first breaks inversion, for where inversion is not broken, the discipline that is kept is only another kind of grasping. The closing clause takes perfume for its simile — “the perfume of discipline suffused everywhere, causing all sentient beings to gain ripeness” — discipline reaches others not by being told but by suffusing.

The passage on vigor has eleven clauses, each beginning with “valiant vigor,” and what they are directed toward gathers into three classes: toward oneself, subduing the foe that is Māra, “putting an end to all the troubles of the evil destinies,” “demolishing the mountain of unknowing”; toward the Dharma, making offerings to all the buddhas “without giving rise to weariness,” “upholding the Dharma wheels of all the buddhas”; toward beings, “delivering all sentient beings and bringing them out of the sea of birth and death,” “teaching, converting, and ripening all sentient beings,” “adorning and purifying all the buddha-lands.” And the root of the eleven stands in the third — “valiant vigor in raising the mind of awakening, unstirred and unretreating”: vigor not fastened to the mind of awakening is only the exertion of force.

The passage on meditation does not begin with entering concentration; it first tells of what must be taken apart beforehand: “she expounded shame and conscience, causing sentient beings to store and guard their faculties” is the guarding of the faculties; “she expounded that the realm of desire is the domain of Māra, causing fear to arise” is knowing the domain for what it is; “she manifested no delight in the desires and joys of the world, but abode in the joy of the Dharma” is the exchanging of one joy for another. These three accomplished, only then “according to their sequence she entered the meditations and the joys of the samādhis,” and thereafter “put an end to all the afflictions there were,” and at last reached “the free and playful manifesting by spiritual power of all the bodhisattvas’ seas of samādhi.” From guarding the faculties to playing freely is one complete sequence, not a list of other names for meditation.

The passage on wisdom sets three similes against three sicknesses: “she dried up the sea of doubt of all sentient beings” against doubt; “she displayed the vajra of wisdom and demolished the mountain of wrong views of all sentient beings” against wrong views; “she raised the sun-disc of wisdom and broke the darkness of delusion of all sentient beings” against delusion. Doubt is water, and so it is dried up; wrong view is a mountain, and so it is demolished; delusion is darkness, and so it is broken — the three sicknesses have different shapes, and what cures them takes different shapes too.

The five classes of the passage on skillful means are just so many instances of the four graphs “according to what suits them”: to expound the spiritual powers and the power of merit of the world is for one who still seeks merit; to expound that “the three realms are all to be feared” is for one who is fond of the three realms; to “praise the way of all-knowledge, causing him to pass beyond the stage of the two vehicles” is for one who has come out of the three realms and yet stopped at the lesser; to expound “abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa” is for one who already knows the two extremes; to expound “dwelling in the palaces of the gods and even in the place of the Way” is for one able to raise the great mind. What is expounded in the five classes differs, and what each is made to do differs as well — skillful means is a perfection by what it causes, not by what it says.

The passage on vows has eleven clauses all reading “in thought after thought manifesting,” beginning with “all the practices and vows of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra,” running through pure vows filling the Dharma realm, adorning the seas of worlds, making offerings to the seas of tathāgatas, entering the seas of Dharma gates, entering the seas of worlds, cultivating the way of all-knowledge purely through kalpas to the end of the future, entering the powers of the Tathāgata, entering the seas of skillful means of the three times, and going to all lands to manifest spiritual transformations, and returning at the end to “manifesting all the practices and vows of the bodhisattvas, causing all sentient beings to abide in all-knowledge.” After the eleven there is one closing clause — “what she did in this way never rested”: vows are a perfection not by how great they are when raised, but by their not breaking off in thought after thought.

The passage on power has thirteen clauses, to be seen in three classes: the powers that hold oneself are the five, “the power without shore,” “the power that cannot be destroyed,” “the power without exhausting,” “the power that does not retreat,” “the power without interruption”; the powers that leave defilement are the four, “the power of no staining by the dharmas of birth and death,” “the power able to break all the hosts of Māra,” “the power that leaves behind all the filth of affliction,” “the power able to break the mountain of all karmic hindrance”; the powers that benefit beings are the four, “the power of abiding through all kalpas cultivating the practice of great compassion without weariness,” “the power of shaking all the buddha-lands so that all sentient beings rejoice,” “the power able to break all the outsiders,” “the power of turning the wheel of the Dharma everywhere in the world.” Power is not one power; it is non-retreat manifested in different places.

The passage on knowledge has ten clauses, and what they enter has a sequence: the first four enter sentient beings — the seas of their realms, of their minds, of their faculties, of their practices; the next two run through time and sound — “the knowledge that delivers all sentient beings without ever missing the time,” “the knowledge that brings forth the sounds of all the Dharma realm”; the last four run through the realms and the buddhas — pervading the seas of the Dharma realm in thought after thought, knowing the decay of the seas of worlds, knowing the differences of their formation, abiding, and adornment, and “the knowledge that in thought after thought freely draws near to and makes offerings to all the tathāgatas and receives their Dharma wheels.” It sets out from sentient beings and stops at the tathāgatas, with time and the realms lying between: knowledge is a perfection because it can walk the whole of that road.

A misreading must be set aside: that the ten perfections are ten separate matters, one done and then the next. The ten passages here in the scripture text are of one same time and one same body: the general heading reads “upon her body, from each and every pore, there came forth measureless kinds of clouds of transformation bodies,” and all ten passages are opened out beneath that one clause — each and every pore is furnished with all ten perfections, and it is not that one pore brings forth one perfection and another pore another. Brought down to the ground: the sequence of the ten perfections is told for the sake of those who learn, not to set a work roster for those who practice.

The Passage on Forbearance: Evil Deeds Belong to the Body, Evil Words to the Mouth

The third passage of clouds of bodies expounds forbearance, and what the scripture text lists is the four matters “cut apart, beaten, reviled, insulted,” and then it says “her mind is at ease and unmoved, neither stirred nor scattered.” Chengguan, in the later part of this section where the ten perfections are treated, points out a distinction, saying, “now within the first, forbearance: evil deeds belong to the body, and evil words belong to the mouth” — what is laid upon the body is evil deeds, what is laid upon the ear is evil words, and the two belong to body and to mouth respectively.

There is a further layer of teaching in this passage, not easily seen: forbearance is not only the bearing of suffering, but also the bearing of the fact that “the mind of awakening has no exhausting.” The scripture text says, “because the mind has no exhausting knowledge too has no exhausting, so that the afflictions of all sentient beings are everywhere cut off” — what forbearance takes as its object is not only the one who does harm, but also that vow which stretches so far that its end cannot be seen.

A misreading must be set aside: that forbearance is holding down what is hard to bear. What the scripture text goes on to say in this passage is “toward every practice she is neither cast down nor lifted up, toward sentient beings she gives rise to no conceit of self” — not cast down and not lifted up are a pair. Brought down to the ground: to press oneself low in order to take it is being cast down, not forbearance.

The Six Clauses of the Passage on Meditation: Chengguan Gives a Rod for Reading the Last Five Perfections

The fifth passage of clouds of bodies expounds meditation. Later, where she tells of her own original practice with sound, the scripture text’s section on the dhyāna-pāramitā lists six items: all the equipment, all the cultivating, all the accomplishing, all the purity, all the samādhis and spiritual powers it gave rise to, all the gates of the seas of samādhi it entered. Upon this Chengguan sets up a way of reading, saying, “within meditation there are six clauses: first the name and substance, second the supporting conditions, third the making and cultivating, fourth the gaining, fifth the curing of hindrances, sixth the giving rise to working. Though the clauses of the five perfections below are more or few, they may be understood upon this pattern” — name and substance, supporting conditions, making and cultivating, gaining, curing of hindrances, giving rise to working: six layers, and though the clauses of the five perfections below are more or fewer, they may be seen upon this pattern.

The use of this one judging word is great: the long lists of the five perfections that follow — wisdom, skillful means, vows, power, knowledge — which look like a heaping up of synonyms, are in truth different slots upon one and the same six-layered frame. Chengguan adds one clause each upon wisdom and skillful means, saying, “within wisdom, the sun is taken with regard to breaking darkness, the cloud with regard to setting forth the Dharma, and the treasury displays what it contains” — the three similes of sun, cloud, and treasury are each taken for something; and saying, “within skillful means, nature runs through both matter and principle, and purport of principle means purport of intention.”

A misreading must be set aside: that these long strings in the scripture text are rhetorical spreading out. Brought down to the ground: a long list one cannot read through is usually a list one lacks a rod for; and the rod is what the ancient worthies left behind, not what one thinks up oneself.

The Body That Sets Forth Her Original Practice: What Is Manifested Is a Body in “Likeness”

The ten perfections expounded, the scripture text turns to the second great passage: “again, within each and every one of her pores there came forth measureless kinds of clouds of bodies of sentient beings.” What comes forth in this passage is a mark in likeness to the ones to be converted — in the likeness of Akaniṣṭha, in the likeness of Brahmā, in the likeness of the gandharva kings, in the likeness of the dragons, in the likeness of the yakṣas, the thirteenth class in the likeness of “the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and the hosts of the buddhas,” all the way down to the likeness of the earth spirits, the water spirits, the fire spirits, and the wind spirits, fourteen classes in all. “Likeness” tells of the form in which she manifests, and does not say that what is manifested is limited to the classes of ordinary beings — the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddhas, and the hosts of the buddhas are within the fourteen classes as well.

Chengguan judges this passage to be “second, the coming forth of the body that sets forth her original practice, within which there are four: first, the coming forth of the body that is able to expound” — this is the “body that is able to expound,” and below it come the sounds manifested, the dharma expounded, and the benefit of the expounding, four parts in all.

The two graphs for “likeness” must be marked. The scripture text does not say ‘there came forth clouds of bodies of the gods’; what it says is “there came forth clouds of bodies in the likeness of the gods of Akaniṣṭha.” What is manifested is not that class of sentient beings itself, but a shape in likeness to them.

A misreading must be set aside: that manifesting a body of the same class is in order to make people feel close. What the scripture text manifests immediately afterward is twenty-one kinds of sound, and what it expounds is her own original practice — to manifest a body in likeness is in order that people may take in a very long account of the past. Brought down to the ground: to have someone listen to the road you have walked, you must first stand where he is standing.

The Twenty-One Kinds of Sound: From the Wind-Wheel to the King of Maṇi Jewels

The body that is able to expound having come forth, next is “before all those sentient beings she manifested every kind of sound.” The scripture text lists twenty-one: the wind-wheel, the water-wheel, flames of fire, the tide of the sea, the earth quaking, great mountains striking one against another, the citadels of the gods shaking, maṇi jewels striking one against another — these are the sounds of nature and of the vessel world; the kings of the gods, the dragon kings, the yakṣa kings, the gandharva kings, the asura kings, the garuḍa kings, the kiṃnara kings, the mahoraga kings, the kings of humankind, the Brahmā kings — these are the sounds of sentient beings; the goddesses singing, the music of the gods, the king of maṇi jewels — these are the sounds of music.

The three classes are set out mingled together, with no distinction of high and low. Among the sounds manifested there are the tide of the sea and the quaking of the earth as well as the singing of goddesses — the sound that expounds the Dharma need not first be a sound of solemn adornment.

Brought down to the ground: whether a sentence can become Dharma does not lie in whether it sounds like Dharma.

Telling Her Original Practice with Sound: An Autobiography Written in the Ten Perfections

The sounds having been manifested, what do they expound? The scripture text says, “with such kinds of sound as these she expounded the merit and virtue that the night goddess Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings had gathered together since she first raised the mind” — what is expounded is herself. And the bone of this autobiography is still the ten perfections: practicing the dāna-pāramitā is “what was hard to give up she could give up”; practicing the śīla-pāramitā is “casting away the position of a king, palaces, and kin, and going forth from home to learn the way”; practicing the kṣānti-pāramitā is bearing the sufferings of the world and the evil deeds and evil words of sentient beings; practicing vigor is “giving rise to the practice of all-knowledge and accomplishing all the buddha-dharmas”; and the five perfections after it no longer narrate but stand as columns of items — meditation lists six, its equipment · its cultivating · its accomplishing · its purity · the samādhis and spiritual powers it gives rise to · the gates of the seas of samādhi it enters; wisdom lists its equipment and its purity together with four similes, “the great sun of wisdom, the great cloud of wisdom, the great treasury of wisdom, the great gate of wisdom”; skillful means lists six, its equipment · its practice · its nature · its purport of principle · its purity · the matters that answer to it; vows list four, “its nature, its accomplishing, its cultivating, the matters that answer to it”; power lists five, its equipment · its causes and conditions · its purport of principle · its expounding · the matters that answer to it. Fazang, reading this place in the sixty-fascicle witness, says, “within skillful means, vows, and power there are five clauses each: first the setting forth of the substance of the practice, second the body that practices, third what is practiced, fourth the practice leaving hindrances behind, fifth the original cause of the practice” — the five clauses are one fixed frame. Knowledge lists the most: first its own items (equipment · nature · accomplishing · purity · place · growth · deep entering · light · displaying · purport of principle · matters that answer to it · discernment · the marks of its practice · the dharmas that answer to it), then turning into a list of what is known (the dharmas it gathers, dharmas, deeds, lands, kalpas, ages, the appearing of buddhas, buddhas, bodhisattvas), then turning into a list of the bodhisattva (the bodhisattva’s mind · station · equipment · setting forth · dedication · great vows · Dharma wheel · discernment of dharmas · sea of dharmas · sea of Dharma gates · whirling stream of dharmas · purport of the principle of dharmas), and closing with “all such objective realms as answer to the jñāna-pāramitā were wholly displayed, and sentient beings were ripened.” The items grow from few to many, which shows precisely that the last of the ten perfections is the hardest to expound in full. Each of these items points to something: the requisites are what the practice of the perfection relies upon, the substance is what the perfection itself is, the cultivation and the practice are how it is practiced, the causes and conditions are what lets it arise, the principle and purport are the principle it rests upon, the purity is the practice carried to spotlessness, and the corresponding matters are what answers to the perfection; only when all these faces are laid open under one perfection is that perfection fully practiced. The first four perfections close with a deed — giving, leaving home, forbearing, accomplishing the Buddha-dharmas; the latter six each close with “were wholly displayed,” and the perfection of knowledge adds “ripening sentient beings” at the end — for whom they are displayed is what makes this passage teaching material rather than a recital of her own.

Note this: the one who tells this autobiography is not the night goddess’s mouth, but the sound manifested by the clouds of bodies that came forth from her pores. She herself is still in concentration.

A misreading must be set aside: that to tell of one’s own practice is self-praise. The autobiography here is teaching material told for sentient beings — the ten perfections are not abstract headings; someone really walked this way. Brought down to the ground: the most convincing set of lecture notes on the ten perfections is a curriculum vitae.

The Sequence of Succession, and the Four Bodhisattva Practices

After the autobiography, the scripture text expounds one further layer, the “sequence of succession”: the sequence of succession of merit and virtue, of roots of goodness, of the perfections, of “dying here and being born there and of her names,” and then drawing near to good friends, serving the buddhas, upholding the true Dharma, and cultivating the bodhisattva practices, after which three matters are each opened out: what is seen after entering samādhi is “by the power of samādhi she universally saw the buddhas, universally saw the lands, universally knew the kalpas, entered deep into the Dharma realm, contemplated sentient beings, entered the sea of the Dharma realm, and knew sentient beings dying here and being born there” — samādhi does not stop at stillness; it is a whole expanse seen within stillness. Each of the five spiritual powers has its own object of knowing — “she gained the pure divine ear and heard all sounds,” “gained the pure divine eye and saw all forms,” “gained the knowledge of others’ minds and knew the minds of sentient beings,” “gained the knowledge of former abodes and knew the affairs of the former limit,” “gained the free knowledge of the base of miracles, without anything to lean on and without making, and traveled freely throughout the lands of the ten directions” — ear knows sound, eye knows form, the knowledge of others’ minds knows minds, the knowledge of former abodes knows the former limit, while the base of miracles goes freely wherever it will through the lands of the ten directions — the first four powers each have their object of knowing, the fifth is a going, and the five powers are not one and the same accomplishment. And after gaining liberation there is still a list that follows — “she entered the sea of the bodhisattva liberation, gained the bodhisattva’s mastery, gained the bodhisattva’s valor, gained the bodhisattva’s stride, abode in the bodhisattva’s thought, and entered the bodhisattva way” — liberation gained, one must still enter its sea, must still be able to walk, to abide, to go in. The whole is gathered up at the end by “the sequence of succession of all the merit and virtue of all these.”

Chengguan judges this passage to be “within the extending by class afterward to the remaining practices, the four bodhisattva practices are furnished; ponder it.” The Yanyi chao brings out the ground for it, saying, “because the Yogācārabhūmi has four bodhisattva practices, of which the first, the practice of the perfections, has already been treated at length above, the three below are therefore listed,” and matches them clause by clause: “first, the practice of the dharmas that are limbs of awakening: because the merit and virtue gathered together since first raising the mind all aids awakening, it is a limb of awakening. Second, from ‘entering the samādhis’ onward is the practice of samādhi. Third, from ‘gaining the pure divine ear’ onward is the practice of the spiritual powers. From ‘gaining the bodhisattva liberation’ onward is the practice of ripening sentient beings.” — the ten perfections before are the practice of the perfections, and this passage adds in order the practice of the limbs of awakening, the practice of samādhi, the practice of the spiritual powers, and the practice of ripening sentient beings.

The four graphs “sequence of succession” are the eye of this passage. What is expounded is not how much merit and virtue she has, but the order in which one piece of merit and virtue follows another.

A misreading must be set aside: that the fruits of practice are a heap of things set side by side. The scripture text uses “sequence of succession” six times running, and what it expounds is precisely that they have a before and an after. Brought down to the ground: what is truly to be relied upon in a person is that thread in which the before and after can be seen, not the heap of things.

The Benefit of Her Expounding: While She Is Expounding, It Is Already Happening

The close of this great passage is “while she expounded in this way, in thought after thought” — while she is expounding, the ten directions are already adorning and purifying unspeakably unspeakable many buddha-lands, delivering sentient beings of the evil destinies, causing sentient beings to be born among gods and humans, to come out of the sea of birth and death, to abide in the station of the two vehicles, and to abide in the station of the Tathāgata.

Chengguan’s judgment upon this passage is that it “displays the benefit of her expounding.” What must be seen clearly are the two graphs “while she expounded”: the benefit is not after the expounding is finished, but in the moment of the expounding.

Brought down to the ground: the power of the Dharma is not in the moment after it is understood, but in the moment where the expounding and the hearing meet.

Sudhana’s Realizing Entry: Ten Occurrences of “Because”

Having seen this far, Sudhana “having seen and heard all the rare things manifested above, contemplated them in thought after thought, pondered and understood them, and entered deep and abided in them,” and thereupon “he then gained the bodhisattva’s inconceivable liberation of the power of mastery of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy.” Chengguan judges this to be “second, beholding her working and gaining benefit, that is, realizing entry into the Dharma realm.”

Then the scripture text itself asks one clause, “why is this so,” and answers with ten clauses, each closed by “because.” The first clause is “because he had cultivated together with the night goddess Joyful Eyes in times gone by,” and below it come the bestowing of the Tathāgata’s spiritual power, the protecting and aiding of inconceivable roots of goodness, the gaining of the faculties of a bodhisattva, the being born within the family of the Tathāgata, the being gathered in by the power of good friends, the being guarded and borne in mind by the tathāgatas, the having been taught and converted by the Tathāgata Vairocana, that portion of his roots of goodness having ripened, and his being able to cultivate the practices of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra.

Of the ten clauses, only one speaks of this present time; the other nine all speak of what came before this time. This answers precisely to the subject of this passage — what was asked was ‘how long,’ and what is answered is ‘how long’ as well.

A misreading must be set aside: that realizing entry is the affair of that one moment. Brought down to the ground: whatever can be gained within a single moment began a very long time ago.

The Ten Verses of Praise: A Judgment in Four Parts

Having gained the Dharma, Sudhana praises the night goddess in ten verses. Chengguan divides these ten verses into four, saying, “the ten verses divide into four: the first one verse is the cause of the manifesting and expounding; the next one is the intent of the manifesting and expounding; the next six are the substance and marks of the manifesting and expounding, all of them the working that is one with stillness; the last two gather up in general that the manifesting and expounding are unobstructed.”

Reading by this judgment: the first verse, “through measureless and numberless kalpas she has learned the buddhas’ most profound Dharma,” is the cause of the manifesting and expounding — that she can manifest so is because she learned for so long; the second verse, “knowing that sentient beings are sunk in confusion and bound about by deluded thoughts,” is the intent of the manifesting and expounding — why she must manifest; the middle six verses, from “the Dharma body is constantly still” to “having gained the buddhas’ power of skillful means,” are the substance and marks of the manifesting and expounding, and they say one and the same thing — still, and yet able to work; and the last two verses gather up its unobstructedness.

The sentence pattern of the middle six verses is worth looking at: for the most part the first half tells of stillness and the latter half of working. “The Dharma body is constantly still, pure and without a second mark” is stillness, and “for the sake of teaching and converting sentient beings, she displays every kind of shape” is working; “clinging neither to inward dharmas nor to outward, having already crossed the sea of birth and death” is stillness, and “yet she manifests every kind of body and dwells within the realms of existence” is working; “with a single mind she abides within samādhi, and for measureless kalpas is unstirred” is stillness, and “from her pores there come forth clouds of transformation bodies that make offerings to the buddhas of the ten directions” is working.

The “stillness” of the middle six verses is not of one kind; each verse points to its own: the stillness of the third verse is the original stillness of the Dharma body — “the Dharma body is constantly still, pure and without a second mark”; the stillness of the fourth is having no clinging among the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields — “among the aggregates, elements, and sense-fields she has never had any clinging,” and yet she still “displays practice and a form body and tames the whole multitude,” which is not abiding even in the body she manifests; the stillness of the fifth is clinging neither to inward nor outward dharmas, having already crossed the sea of birth and death; the stillness of the sixth is being far from every discrimination and unmoved by frivolous talk — “far removed from every discrimination, unmoved by frivolous talk” — and what she proclaims there is “the dharma of the ten powers,” which shows plainly that leaving frivolous talk behind is not leaving the Dharma unexpounded; the stillness of the seventh is abiding with a single mind in samādhi, unstirred for measureless kalpas, while the pores still send forth clouds of transformation to make offerings to the buddhas; and the eighth turns from stillness to the shorelessness of the working — “having gained the buddhas’ power of skillful means, in thought after thought without shore.” The last two verses gather up its unobstructedness, and the ninth brings out one sense besides: “knowing the seas of existence, adorned by every kind of deed, she expounds for them the unobstructed Dharma” — the seas of the three kinds of existence are what sentient beings have adorned with their deeds, and therefore what must be expounded is the “unobstructed Dharma”: what deeds have knotted together is untied by what is unobstructed.

A misreading must be set aside: that verses of praise are courtesies. These ten verses are Sudhana restating what he has just seen — the praise is his report upon his reading. Brought down to the ground: only one who can tell clearly what he has seen has really seen it.

Two Questions, Two Layers of Answer

What Sudhana asks is two sentences: how long since the mind was raised, how long since the Dharma was gained. Chengguan judges this to be “first two questions are raised; afterward two answers are furnished,” and the form of the two answers is itself twofold — first the answer in verse, afterward the bringing together of past and present.

The verse answer is ninety-one verses in all. Chengguan says, “within the former there are ninety-one verses in all, divided into two: the first seventy-nine verses answer how long ago the mind was raised, and the latter twelve verses answer when the Dharma was gained” — the first seventy-nine verses answer the first question, and the latter twelve answer the second.

One question of ‘how long,’ answered with seventy-nine verses; and within these seventy-nine verses years and months are almost never reckoned in figures — the one place where they are is “for twenty thousand years I made offerings to that tathāgata,” and the rest is only ‘a certain kalpa, a certain land, a certain ten buddhas, a certain dharma I had not yet gained.’

Brought down to the ground: the length of time can be measured only by the things one has passed through.

The Thirty-One Verses of the First Kalpa: One Dream, One Raising of the Mind

The first seventy-nine verses divide into ten repetitions, that is, ten kalpas. The first kalpa carries the greatest weight, taking up thirty-one verses. Chengguan divides these thirty-one verses into six, saying, “the first, the kalpa Still Sound, is precisely the time when the mind was raised, and has thirty-one verses, divided into six: first, one verse of general heading; second, eight verses displaying her former life; third, ten verses making clear the occasion of raising the mind; fourth, one verse truly displaying the raising of the mind; fifth, six verses making clear the virtues after the raising; sixth, five verses on meeting with further buddhas in turn.”

The eight verses of her former life tell of what that world was like: the land named Maṇi Light, the kalpa named Still Sound, the royal city named Fragrant Banner Jewel, the wheel-turning king with the thirty-two marks born by transformation from a lotus flower, a thousand sons, a koṭi of assisting ministers, ten koṭis of consorts and attendants — and “I at that time was a jewel maiden, furnished with the sound of a pure brahmā voice”: in that life the night goddess was one of the wheel-turning king’s consorts and attendants.

The ten verses on the occasion of raising the mind tell of that one night: the light of the sun had gone, the music had stopped, everyone in the palace was asleep; and at that moment the buddha Sea of Virtue appeared in the world, sending forth light and shaking the earth, and “within each and every pore there came forth a sea of transformation bodies of the Buddha.” And the jewel maiden saw it within a dream — “I at that time within a dream saw the Buddha’s every kind of spiritual transformation.” It was ten thousand goddesses who preside over the night who woke her from within empty space: “worthy and wise one, you should rise! The Buddha has appeared within your land; within a sea of kalpas he is hard to meet with, and those who see him gain purity.”

The one verse truly displaying the raising of the mind comes just after the waking: “having seen him, joy arose within my mind, and I gave rise to a thought such as this: ‘may I gain, as the Buddha has, a vast and great spiritual power.’”

A misreading must be set aside: that the mind must be raised upon some solemn occasion. The occasion here is the middle of the night, within a dream, being woken by someone. Brought down to the ground: the sentence that wakes you often comes earlier than any resolve of your own.

“A Night Goddess Awakened Me”: The Closed Circle of Cause and Effect in This Section

Among the six verses on the virtues after the raising, one verse is the key to this passage: “a night goddess awakened me and caused me to gain benefit; I vowed to take on such a body and to awaken those who are heedless.” — In those days a night goddess woke me, and therefore I vowed to take on such a body too, and to go and wake those who are heedless.

This one verse explains why she is a night goddess. Being a night goddess is not an arrangement of karmic recompense; it is the shape of a vow: in those days she was woken from sleep and dream by a night goddess, and so she vowed to be a night goddess life after life and wake others.

A misreading must be set aside: that a good friend’s station is a rank she cultivated her way into. Brought down to the ground: what a person becomes in the end is often exactly the kind of person he most needed in those days.

The “Not Yet Gained” of the Ten Kalpas: Making Sequence Out of Negation

From the end of the first kalpa onward, the ten kalpas are for the most part closed in one same manner: the names of ten buddhas are listed, and then one clause telling of what she herself had not yet gained. In the first kalpa it is “and yet I had not gained the eye of wisdom that enters the sea of liberation”; in the second, “and still, within the dharmas, I reckoned as existing what does not exist”; in the third, “I was not able to understand the dharmas clearly and enter the sea of the buddhas”; in the fourth, “and yet I had not gained the deep knowledge that enters the sea of the dharmas”; in the fifth, “and yet I was still not able to awaken deeply to the pure Dharma that is like empty space”; in the sixth, “and yet I was still not able to be pure and leave behind the ways of every hindrance”; in the seventh, “and yet, as to the gates I had entered, I was not able to accomplish forbearance”; in the ninth, “and I had not yet gained the pure forbearance that enters deep into the sea of the dharmas.” The closing clause of the eighth kalpa reads “these ten were the foremost, and my offerings left none of them out,” and does not tell of anything not yet gained; the closing clause of the tenth kalpa reads “such buddhas as these I made offerings to, all of them,” and likewise does not tell of anything not yet gained.

Chengguan fastens what was not gained in each kalpa to a station: the first kalpa, “that she had not gained the eye of wisdom is because she had not gained the light of right wisdom of the ten understandings”; the third kalpa, “third, within the kalpa Brahmā Light, that she was not able to understand the dharmas clearly is because she had not understood the true dharmas of practice of the ten practices”; the fourth kalpa, “fourth, the kalpa Moon of Merit: because she had not gained the deep knowledge of skillful dedication that goes forward into the sea of the buddhas’ knowledge”; the fifth kalpa, “fifth, the kalpa Still Wisdom: because she had not gained the pure dharma of suchness that is the twofold emptiness upon the grounds”; the sixth kalpa, “sixth, the kalpa Good Appearing: because she had not purified the hindrances upon the path of cultivation”; the seventh kalpa, “seventh, the kalpa Gathered Firm King: she had not gained the deep and accordant forbearance of conditioned arising of the sixth ground”; the eighth kalpa, “eighth, the kalpa Wondrous Excellent Lord: that she cultivated the most excellent way is because the wisdom of the sixth ground is the excellent way”; the ninth kalpa, “ninth, the kalpa Thousand Merits: because she had not gained the pure forbearance of non-arising of the eighth ground”; the tenth kalpa, “tenth, the kalpa Adornment Without Clinging, four and a half verses: that it tells only of the offerings is because what follows makes clear the gaining of the Dharma” — the tenth kalpa does not tell of anything not gained, because just below, the gaining of the Dharma is about to be told.

The Yanyi chao adds one clause upon the second kalpa, “in the former kalpa she had not gained the own portion of the ten abodes; in this kalpa she had not gained the excellent advance of the ten abodes”; upon the seventh kalpa, “because upon the sixth ground one gains the highest grade of accordant forbearance”; and upon the eighth kalpa, “there is no concluding word of gaining; it ought to say that she had not gained the seventh ground.”

A misreading must be set aside: that the ten kalpas are ten failures. The sequence of the scripture text is one of advance — what is not gained is deeper each time than the last. Brought down to the ground: the most exact question for judging how far one has come is not ‘what have I mastered,’ but ‘which layer am I stuck at now.’

The Ten Kalpas Matched to the Ten Grounds: Chengguan’s Two Readings and the Chao’s One Addition

As to the relation of these ten kalpas to the ten grounds, Chengguan gives two readings, and does not settle upon one. The first reading sets the sequence upon what was “not yet gained,” and he says, “further, the former ones in sequence all tell of what was not yet gained, so that each later one has already gained each earlier one” — what each kalpa tells of as not gained shows precisely that the layer before it has been gained. The second reading matches kalpa to ground one by one, and he says, “it may also be that in the first kalpa she had already gained the first ground and had not gained the second, and so on until in the ninth she had not gained the tenth ground, and only within the tenth kalpa did she gain fullness. The names of the kalpas too accord with the sense of the grounds; ponder it as the text stands.”

The Yanyi chao opens out the ‘names of the kalpas according with the sense of the grounds’ of this second reading one by one, saying, “because the first kalpa is named Still Sound, she had already gained the first ground; the second, the kalpa Excellence of the Gods, where god means purity, accords also with Stainless. The third, Brahmā Light, accords with Luminous. The fourth, Moon of Merit, accords with Flaming Wisdom, because the moon has a light that sends forth flames of brightness. The fifth, Still Wisdom, accords with the increase of meditation. The sixth, Good Appearing, accords with Manifest. The seventh, Gathered Firm King: because effort is full, she has already gained a skillful means that cannot be destroyed.” — the very names of the kalpas accord with the sense of the grounds: Excellence of the Gods accords with Stainless, Brahmā Light with Luminous, Moon of Merit with Flaming Wisdom, Still Wisdom with the increase of meditation of Hard to Conquer, Good Appearing with Manifest, Gathered Firm King with the indestructible skillful means of Far-Reaching. The Chao carries the matching of the last three kalpas on in the same passage: “the eighth, the kalpa Excellent and Wondrous, accords with the Unmoving, because it is without effort. The ninth, Thousand Merits, is the station of a master of the Dharma. The tenth, Adornment Without Clinging: wisdom is without clinging, and the two adornments are full.” — the eighth, Excellent and Wondrous, accords with the Unmoving Ground, taken for its being without effort; the ninth, Thousand Merits, accords with the Ground of Good Wisdom, taken for the station of a master of the Dharma; the tenth, Adornment Without Clinging, accords with the Ground of the Dharma Cloud, taken for wisdom without clinging and the fullness of the two adornments of merit and of knowledge. Only here are the names of the ten kalpas matched one by one to the ten grounds; the Shu first says “the names of the kalpas too accord with the sense of the grounds” and matches all ten, and the Chao takes this up and unfolds it kalpa by kalpa — the first seven and the last three stand in one and the same passage, not each book matching its own half.

What must be made clear is this: this whole matching is Chengguan’s outline carried on from the ancient worthies, and is not set forth by the scripture text itself. The scripture text gives only the names of the kalpas, the names of the buddhas, and what was not gained; it gives no names of grounds.

Brought down to the ground: the outline of the ancient worthies is a rod for reading the scripture; and one who uses the rod must remember that the rod is not the scripture.

The Twelve Verses on When the Dharma Was Gained: The Three Grounds Without Effort

The latter twelve verses answer the second question. Chengguan divides them into a first four and a latter eight, saying, “the first four verses are the gaining of the three grounds that are without effort: that is, the great vow that has nothing to lean upon of the eighth ground, the comprehensive holding of the samādhi of cessation of the ninth ground, and the accomplishing of the powers of the Tathāgata of the tenth ground.”

Read against the scripture text: “at that time the Buddha expounded for me the wondrous Dharma gate that has nothing to lean upon” is the great vow that has nothing to lean upon of the eighth ground; “I gained the pure eye, the comprehensive holding of the samādhi of cessation” is the comprehensive holding of the samādhi of cessation of the ninth ground; “making the mind of awakening grow and accomplishing the powers of the Tathāgata” is the accomplishing of the powers of the Tathāgata of the tenth ground. The three clauses are set out within four verses.

The place where the Dharma was gained is the presence of the buddha Banner of Merit, and the station in which it was gained is “I was then a god of the Moon Face.” From jewel maiden to god of the Moon Face, ten kalpas lie between.

A misreading must be set aside: that gaining the Dharma is an end point. Here, after the four verses of gaining the three grounds without effort, there are eight verses still. Brought down to the ground: the Dharma gained, the story has only reached its second half.

Bringing to Completion the Station of Samantabhadra’s Practice: From Seeing the Suffering of Beings Back to the Raising of the Mind

Upon the latter eight verses Chengguan says, “the latter eight bring to completion the station of Samantabhadra’s practice, and within them there are three: the first four and a half verses cite and raise the beginning of the great mind; the next two and a half verses make clear the end of the accomplishing of virtue; the last one verse gathers up the fullness in general — cause and fruit are round and merged, and beginning and end run through each other, and therefore she enters the way of Samantabhadra.”

The four and a half verses citing and raising the beginning of the great mind tell of why she raised the mind in the first place: “I saw sentient beings inverted, clinging to the permanent, the joyful, the self, and the pure,” “they walk and rest within the dense forest of wrong views, going to and fro within the sea of covetous desire,” “within all the destinies they take on bodies according to their deeds,” and then “for the sake of those sentient beings I raised the unsurpassed mind.” This is a turning back to restate once more the ground of her raising the mind.

The two and a half verses on the end of the accomplishing of virtue are “the clouds of vows all cover over everything, entering everywhere into every way” and “swiftly entering the grounds, entering the seas of skillful means of the three times.” The last verse gathers it up: “son of the Buddha, I at that time gained entry into the way of Samantabhadra, knowing the ten Dharma realms and all the gates of their differences.”

What is worth seeing is the direction of these eight verses: they do not walk upward to the fruit, but walk back to the cause, and from the cause bring the way of Samantabhadra to completion. Chengguan calls this “cause and fruit are round and merged, and beginning and end run through each other” — the first and the last run through each other.

Brought down to the ground: the mark that a road has been walked to its end is not that one is farther from the starting point, but that looking back one sees the starting point still there.

Bringing Together Past and Present: That Wheel-Turning King Is Mañjuśrī, That Night Goddess Is Samantabhadra

After the verse answer comes the second layer of answer, which Chengguan judges as “second, the concluding bringing together.” The night goddess says to Sudhana: “son of good family! What do you think — that wheel-turning sage king of those days, named Lord of the Ten Directions, the one who was able to carry on and make flourish the family of the buddhas, was he another? He is Mañjuśrī the youth!” And she says further: “and the night goddess who awakened me at that time was nothing other than an emanation of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra!”

These two sentences join the past of the ninety-one verses back to what is before his eyes. Mañjuśrī is the head of this assembly, the one who sent Sudhana south; Samantabhadra is the end of this assembly, the last one Sudhana will ask of. And upon that night measureless kalpas ago, the one was the king of that land, and the other the night goddess who woke the jewel maiden.

The night goddess goes on to say of herself that “from then until now, through as many kalpas as the dust motes of a buddha-land, I have not fallen into the evil destinies, but have constantly been born among humans and among the gods, and in every place have constantly seen the buddhas,” until “at last, in the presence of the buddha Wondrous Lamp Banner of Merit, I gained this bodhisattva liberation of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy.”

A misreading must be set aside: that the bringing together of past and present is a coincidental way of closing. Brought down to the ground: the people Sudhana meets along this road had known one another for a very long time before ever he met them.

Humbling Herself and Pointing to the Superior: I Have Gained Only This One

Her account of the past finished, what the night goddess joins to it is the passage most of the friends seen in this assembly have: “son of good family! I have gained only this liberation gate of the Banner of Great Mighty Power and Universal Joy.” Upon this Chengguan says only, “fourth, the humbling of herself and the pointing to the superior, which may all be understood as it stands.”

The content of the pointing to the superior is again a long list of “in thought after thought” — going everywhere to the presence of the tathāgatas, entering the seas of great vows, bringing forth all practices, within each practice bringing forth bodies as many as the dust motes of the lands, each body entering all the gates of the Dharma realm. The list is not finished there; its latter half turns from “body” to “seeing”: having entered the gates of the Dharma realm, “within each gate of the Dharma realm, within all the buddha-lands, they expound every wondrous practice according to the minds of sentient beings” — entering is not for the sake of arriving but for the sake of expounding; and after expounding it turns to seeing, “within each and every dust mote of all the lands they wholly see the shoreless seas of tathāgatas” — to see shoreless buddhas within a single mote is the very principle of the clouds coming forth from the pores before. And after seeing the buddhas there are four further layers of what is seen: “they wholly see the spiritual powers of the buddhas pervading the Dharma realm” is seeing the working of the buddhas; “they wholly see the bodhisattva practices cultivated in kalpas gone by” is seeing the cause of the buddhas; “they uphold and guard all the Dharma wheels there” is receiving the dharma of the buddhas; “they wholly see the seas of spiritual transformations of all the tathāgatas of the three times” is seeing the whole of the three times. And only then is it closed by “but how could I know or tell of their merit and virtue and their practice?” — the finer the telling, the smaller the one gate she has gained appears.

One thing must be seen clearly: she has just finished telling of measureless kalpas of practice in ninety-one verses, and after that there is one further layer, the bringing together of past and present — the wheel-turning king of that life is Mañjuśrī, and the night goddess who woke her was an emanation of Samantabhadra — and only when past and present have been brought together does she say “I have gained only this.” The longer the passage before, the heavier the clause after.

Brought down to the ground: the more clearly a person can tell of the road he has walked, the better he can tell how far he has come and no farther.

Pointing Out the Next Friend: Alike Within This Assembly

At the end she points out the next friend, saying, “son of good family! Within this assembly there is a night goddess named Wondrous Virtue Who Saves All Beings.” Upon this Chengguan points out one sense, saying, “fifth, the pointing out of the friend who comes next. They are alike within the station of realization, and therefore it says ‘within this assembly’” — there is no need to travel south, because they are alike within one assembly and alike within the station of realization; and he says that what is raised below this is “the practice of vigor being raised.”

For most of the friends before, it was ‘from here travel south, there is a certain country and a certain city’; here it changes to “within this assembly.” The place has not changed, but the person has.

Brought down to the ground: walking on far enough, the road is no longer a changing of places, but a changing of the eyes with which one sees the same place.

Lineage

For the text of this section, three streams open downward from it.

The first is the thread of the matching of assigned position. As to the judgment of position for this section, Chengguan makes it “assigned to the Luminous Ground,” Zhiyan makes it “the third, the god of the night named Joyful Eyes, is a bodhisattva of the third ground, who enters the Dharma gate of the Banner of Stainless Joy,” Fazang calls it “within the third, the friend of the ground of brightness” without using the name of a ground, and Li Tongxuan, taking “the third ground is the cultivating of forbearance in reliance upon the principle of awakening, because forbearance is the head of practice,” assigns it to the third ground — all four houses point to the third ground, while the terms and the sense they rely upon differ. This whole matching comes from the ancient worthies, and is not set forth by the scripture text itself. Recorded without adjudication.

Chengguan’s Explicit Judgment

Chengguan, in the general discussion of the five aspects within this chapter’s outline passage, has already stated the ground of his choosing: he first raises the two paths of glossing as the text runs and of matching the positions of the grounds, and then says, “both have their reason: namely, since each and every position is furnished with many Dharma gates, how could it be that an ordinary mind may not learn and seek the dharma of the good friends? — and therefore not to match them has its reason. Yet within there being no sequence of positions the sequence of positions is not obstructed, and to display the positions is the constant rule; so to match them, too, is no fault. The crosswise and the upright are unobstructed; for the present, following the ancient worthies, they are matched as five aspects” — both paths have their reason, and so he takes the matching of the ancient worthies without discarding the other path.

The second is the thread of the ten perfections and the four bodhisattva practices. That the ten passages of clouds of bodies are matched to the ten perfections is Chengguan’s outline; and the Yanyi chao further cites the four bodhisattva practices of the Yogācārabhūmi to judge the “extending by class to the remaining practices” of this section’s last passage, adding the practice of the dharmas that are limbs of awakening, the practice of samādhi, the practice of the spiritual powers, and the practice of ripening sentient beings after the practice of the perfections. This is reading the long lists of the scripture text by a framework of practice from a treatise, and the fastening is made plain.

The third is the thread of the divergent interpretations of the commentators, each with its own track, recorded without adjudication.

Chengguan makes six passages (seeking in accord with the teaching · seeing, paying respect, and inquiring · displaying her own Dharma realm · humbling herself and pointing to the superior · pointing out the next friend · the taking of leave, treated in passing); and the first passage is in truth divided into two, the four being opened only beneath the latter of them; the one part that is the working is likewise in three (the displaying of the working that has no shore · beholding the working and gaining benefit · rejoicing at the benefit and praising), and only beneath the first of the three are the body that expounds cultivation in general and the body that sets forth her original practice divided.

Fazang, upon the sixty-fascicle witness, opens it into five great passages — raising the dharma and exhorting to cultivate it · entering in accord with the teaching · seeing, paying respect, and making the request · displaying her own Dharma realm · the looking up and pointing to the superior — and under displaying her own Dharma realm opens further her bearing · the working · the bringing out of the cause · the concluding of the name, his gloss ending only at “the third ground is finished.” Several of his readings between differ from the other houses: of the last four perfections he says, “within skillful means, vows, and power there are five clauses each: first the setting forth of the substance of the practice, second the body that practices, third what is practiced, fourth the practice leaving hindrances behind, fifth the original cause of the practice”; he judges the number of the sounds as “separately distinguishing twenty-four kinds of sound”; he judges the verse answer as “within the former there are eighty-nine and a half verses, divided into two” — first seventy-seven and a half verses answering the time of raising the mind, then twelve answering how long ago the Dharma was gained; he judges the benefit of the expounding as “the benefits of six stages in gradual succession,” and Sudhana’s ten verses as five pairs — the working manifested from the surpassing cause, transformations from the Dharma body, benefit without attachment, marvels from concentration, and the manifesting of the body to expound the Dharma; and he matches the power of mindfulness of the dhāraṇīs to the ninth ground — “the first, the power of mindfulness of the dhāraṇīs and the rest, makes clear that upon the ninth ground the four unobstructed understandings are gained and the comprehensive holding is accomplished” — and the bright and pure eye, the samādhi and the dhāraṇī, to the tenth — “second, that I gained the bright and pure eye, the samādhi and the dhāraṇī, makes clear the gaining of the Dharma gate of the tenth ground.” The numbers of sounds and of verses he raises are the numbers of the sixty-fascicle witness and differ from the twenty-one sounds and ninety-one verses of the eighty-fascicle witness; each follows its own witness.

Zhiyan makes three passages, and his true entering is in truth divided into two branches (her own portion · the looking up and pointing to the superior), the four belonging beneath her own portion and not opened directly beneath the true entering. Of the clouds of bodies of the ten perfections he says, “within the first, the clouds of bodies of the ten perfections, each and every one has four senses: first what it rests upon, second the body, third the work it does, fourth the benefit” — what it rests upon, the body, the work it does, the benefit: four senses running through them all, which may well be read against the closing clauses of the passages before; of the passage on knowledge he says “within knowledge there are thirty clauses” and lists their names one by one; and of the verse answer he says, “second, the god of the night answers in eighty-nine and a half verses; third, the concluding bringing together of past and present,” and further, “within the answer, the first twenty-five answer how long ago the mind was raised” — these numbers too are the numbers of the sixty-fascicle witness.

Li Tongxuan takes signifying dharmas rather than outline names for his principal way, and yet his passage of glossing the sense as the text runs has an outline of its own: beneath “within the first, the true entering upon the Dharma gate of the station in question” it is “divided into five gates: first, calling to mind the teaching of the good friend and pondering it so as to advance,” and from the seeing of the night goddess’s throne onward “the long outline makes twelve passages”; the one part on making offerings opens into eleven passages, “the first ten passages have ten names of buddhas each, and the last passage has one name of a buddha,” and “all of them are matched to the eleven grounds, advancing according to station, one ground matched to ten names of buddhas.” Upon this he sets up one reading of his own — “because this first ground is the first ground within the third ground, and so on until the tenth ground is the tenth ground within the third ground”: the ten grounds matched to the ten kalpas are the ten grounds within the third ground, and not a second walking of the ten grounds apart from the station in question. He sets up principal and companion upon this friend’s forbearance as well, saying, “the good friend of the third, the Luminous Ground, has the kṣānti-pāramitā as principal and the remaining nine as companions”; and upon the scripture’s clause about the equipment of the dhyāna-pāramitā he glosses the equipment as “giving, discipline, forbearance, vigor, the four contemplations of mindfulness, the thirty-seven limbs of the way and the rest are the equipment of the house of meditation” — the equipment of meditation is not a sitting mat but the four perfections before it and the limbs of the way. At the end he sets up a separate item, “within the second, the gate of pointing to virtue and advancing upward,” answering to Chengguan’s humbling herself and pointing to the superior.

As to the glossing of the name, Fazang makes it the realizing of the deep principle within and the manifesting of eyes of kindness without, and transmits the name of the witness from India; Li Tongxuan makes it the making clear of forbearance in dharmas and the practice of kindness, and in the passage of glossing as the text runs says, “that there is a night goddess named Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings is the kindness within forbearance, and it is named joyful eyes,” “not forsaking sentient beings is named beholding,” and glosses the three graphs for god and spirit of the night — “this third, the Luminous Ground, cultivates the eight meditations, and being able to be one with those meditations without being stained by the nature of meditation, and one with the realm of desire without being stained by the nature of desire, it is named the Luminous Ground and named god of the night,” “her knowledge answers to the true, and so she is titled a spirit”; Zhiyan does not gloss the name graph by graph; and Chengguan glosses it beforehand in the general heading upon the ten friends, saying, “beholding and universal joy — this is named joyful eyes,” having first said, “the virtue of this liberation is furnished with everything and its converting leaves nothing out, and so it is named great mighty power,” “her body and her delusions are alike pure, and there is none who is not glad to see her, and therefore it says universal joy,” “compassion is the mark of her virtue, which is the sense of the banner” — each of the four members of the gate’s name receives its gloss: virtue furnished and converting complete is great mighty power, body and delusions alike pure is universal joy, compassion as the mark of virtue is the banner, beholding and universal joy is joyful eyes; and where the section proper opens he glosses the friend’s name once more, “because she bears with the evil and looks upon beings, it says joyful eyes; because she sends forth the light of hearing and retaining, it says beholding” — that she can bear the evil and still consent to look upon beings is why the eyes are joyful; that the light of hearing and retaining goes forth is why beholding is beholding. In separate chapters Li Tongxuan fastens this friend both to forbearance and to the substance of discipline: “the third, the Luminous Ground, has the kṣānti-pāramitā for its substance, and the spirit is named Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings, because through forbearance there is nothing that does not gladden her,” “that she is not far from the place of the Way makes clear that forbearance has the unmade Dharma body for its substance”; while another chapter says, “within the ten grounds it is cultivating great compassion that is the substance of discipline, and this is the night god and spirit Joyful Eyes Beholding Beings” — the one taking forbearance for the substance and the other the discipline that is great compassion, both from one hand, each following what its own chapter is about. As to the name of the Dharma gate, the eighty-fascicle, the sixty-fascicle, and the forty-fascicle witnesses, together with the form Zhiyan cites, stand as four forms together. All these divergent interpretations are settled sayings of the ancient worthies.

Beyond this section itself, the table of the sequence of the good friends in Zhiyan’s Kongmu zhang lists the name of this section, which belongs to the recording of sequence and not to the glossing of sense; and a search of the five texts — the Cheng weishi lun, the She dasheng lun, the Yogācārabhūmi, the Jieshenmi jing, and the Shidi jing lun — and of the treatises of the Huayan house finds no name of this friend in any of them. This section is not 〈The Ten Grounds〉, and therefore no separate Yogācāra fastening is set up.

In the text of one section, the first half is looking and the latter half is listening. What is looked at is the working of one body unmoving that reaches throughout the Dharma realm; what is listened to is the ninety-one verses, kalpa after kalpa of what was not yet gained. Put together, the two say only one sentence — a working like that came about like this.