Overall Teaching

King Mahāprabha’s kingdom appears either as clay or as adorned by jewels according to the faculties of beings. His samādhi adapts to all beings’ faculties.

Summary

1. Sudhana, contemplating that magical nature and the illusory nature of the world, proceeded to Suprabha^[1] looking for the King Mahāprabha.² He was anxious to see the inconceivable purity and achievements of bodhisattvas.^[2]

a. In Suprabha, he saw that it was made of the seven jewels, surrounded by ponds line with jewels, diamond walls, trees, all of which were made of the seven precious substances. The city has ten million streets, was an octagon ten-leagues wide, and was lined on each side by mansions housing millions of people. It was also covered by nets of jewels, and had countless luminous towers made of the seven precious substances and so forth.^[3]

b. King Mahāprabha’s house was four leagues wide on each side and made of the seven precious substances and surrounded by seven rows of palm trees and had various other adornments and surrounded by various rare birds, built by king Mahāprabha as a treasury of good law.

c. Sudhana was not drawn or attracted by any of the beautiful things in the city or the palace, but only asked about and was interested in spiritual benefactors.^[4] He eventually saw the king at a crossroads on a throne which was magnificently adorned. The king sat there sitting in lotus posture, looking as if he were made of gold and embodying the Dharma like Mount Sumeru. Before him were mounds of offerings for the king which were also suitable for beings to enjoy as they wished.

2. Sudhana, approaching, asked the king to explain to him the practice of a bodhisattva.

3. In reply, King Mahāprabha said:

a. I purify the practice of bodhisattvas called great benevolence which he has developed and learned under the guidance of countless buddhas, under which he guides and leads countless beings, teaching them how to overcome suffering, attain cessation, and purify their minds and generate faith and inspiration.

b. No one is intimidated or threatened by him, they can take whatever they need from the crossroads of the city which they otherwise would engage in wrongdoing to get.

c. All inhabitants of the city are bodhisattvas: each see clay walls, others see jewelled ones, all depending upon their conditions. Those with purer minds see it made of jewels, while others see it as made of clay.^[5]

d. Whenever inhabitants want to do something wrong, in order to help them, he enters a samādhi called ‘adapting to the faculties of the world’ whereby their hostilities cease, guided by great benevolence. He invited beings to see in a moment.

4. Entering that samādhi, the entire world shook and all the jewelled things in that kingdom gave of beautiful sounds and bowed towards the king. Then all the bodhisattvas and animals bowed to the king. The rivers flowed in his direction and countless celestial beings offered adornments in the sky towards him. The clouds rained celestial garlands, flowers, pennants, jewels, incense, and praise. Countless malevolent beings all became benevolent and bowed towards the king, became placid, and only experienced bliss. This happened in ten duodecillion worlds surrounding, guided by the king’s great benevolence.^[6]

5. Exiting the samādhi, the king said to Sudhana, despite knowing this liberation, how can he clarify the cultivation of great awakening samādhis, practices, benevolences, impartialities of bodhisattvas who are like water-purifying and wish-fulfilling jewels. Thus, Sudhana should go south to Sthirā where the female devotee Acalā lives, who can teach him.

6. Paying respect to the king,^[7] Sudhana left.

[1] Meaning “Beautiful Light to represent the subtle distinction of differentiation within effortless knowledge.” 2 His name means “Great Light to represent fundamental effortless independent knowledge.” He represents the eighth practice: difficult-to-attain.

[2] “One gains access to effortless, subtle function only when one has remedied the unfulfilled knowledge and compassion of the earlier stages and balanced them masterfully; thus in the story Sudhana wandered through the human world, eventually to make his way to the city of Beautiful Light.” (1590)

[3] “[According to the description] ten million streets could not [really] fit into a ten-league octagon; these are not worldly measurements, but representative of the great metropolis of fundamental knowledge, with streets representing the infinity of interactions of the ten pāramitās.” (1591)

[4] “Effortless knowledge and compassion are difficult to attain; even though Sudhana looked around, he still sought certainty through direction. So when he had reached the city he inquired further of the longtime inhabitants. “Because Sudhana had embodied a variety of practices of knowledge and compassion, he saw the ground, trees, buildings, terraces, and flower ponds of the city to be all adorned with jewels.” (1590)

[5] “In this way the king of knowledge showed everyone the laws of reality [according to their faculties].

“When one uses independent knowledge to enter into minds as many as beings and identify with them, there is no separate nature—the sentient and insentient are of one nature, and are transformed according to knowledge into agents of buddha-world.”

[6] Representing the entry into the “door of absorption in great kindness adapting to the world.”

[7] “The reason that the seventh and eighth practice are both represented by kings is to illustrate that while the power and function of compassion and knowledge differ according to the rank, there are not two paths. Therefore the seventh and eighth abodes are both represented at the seashore, and the seventh and eighth dedications are represented in the same assembly [in the next set of ten]. The appearance of the teachers as various persons in various walks of life symbolizes the differences in power and function.” (1591)