Superphysics
The Questions
3 minutes • 561 words
Buddha was in the Karaṇḍa Bamboo Garden of the city of Rājagṛha, together with many great Bodhisattvas, bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, and upāsikās, as well as gods, dragons, asuras, yakṣas, garuḍas, kiṁnaras, and mahoragas. All were seated in the huge assembly.
At that time, Bhadrapāla Bodhisattva[1] rose from his seat, arranged his attire, and fell on his knees.
He joined his palms and asked the Buddha"
I would like to ask some questions
Very good! Ask any questions as you wish. I will answer them to you.”
What dharmas should Bodhisattvas do in order to:
- develop wisdom, like the immense ocean accepting myriad streams?
- acquire broad knowledge and understand what they have heard without doubts?
- know their past lives and whence they have come to reborn?
- live a long life?
- be endowed with even, comely features?
- acquire excellent talents, to be outstanding in the multitudes?
- acquire the merit and wisdom required for Buddhahood, achieve immeasurable awesome power, and adorn their magnificent Buddha Lands?
What should they do in order to:
- subjugate hostile māras and achieve command so that their vows will never fail?
- enter the Door of Total Retention?
- acquire the transcendental powers to travel to Buddha Lands everywhere?
- acquire the bold valor of a lion, with nothing to fear, unmovable by māras?
- realize their holy Buddha nature and to accept and uphold the Dharma in the sūtras with understanding, not forgetting anything?
- achieve self-fulfillment, free from sycophancy and flattery and unattached to the Three Realms of Existence?
What should they do in order to:
- be free from hindrances and to acquire the overall wisdom-knowledge, never deviating from the Buddha’s intention?
- win people’s trust?
- acquire the 8 tones [of a Buddha] and sound 10,000 koṭi tones, the sublime appearance [of a Buddha], the power of all-hearing, the bodhi-eye to see into the future, the Ten Powers and true wisdom?
- see, in a single thought, Buddhas from worlds in the 10 directions all standing before them?
- know that the four appearances of every dharma have no reality?
- see in this world innumerable Buddha Lands in the ten directions and to know the good and evil life-journeys of the people, gods, dragons, spirits, and wriggly insects in those lands?
Very good! Your questions are so comprehensive that they are beyond measure. You can ask these questions because you have acquired merit in your past lives under past Buddhas; because you have made offerings to Buddhas, delighted in the Dharma in the sūtras, observed your precepts, and lived in purity; because you have always begged for food, not accepting meal invitations, convened assemblies of Bodhisattvas, taught people to stop doing evil, and seen the equality of all; and because you have always had great lovingkindness and great compassion. Your merit is beyond measure.
There is a samādhi called Buddhas from Worlds in the Ten Directions All Standing before One. If you can do this dharma, you will have the answers to all your questions.
I pray that You will pronounce it. What the Buddha will now pronounce is all-encompassing. It will give peace to [sentient beings in worlds in] the ten directions and provide great illumination to Bodhisattvas.
There is a samādhi called Concentrated Mind. Bodhisattvas should constantly guard, learn, and uphold it, never to follow other ways. Of all virtuous ways, this is the foremost one.
