Day 11 continues Chapter 7, The Parable of the Magic City

Today’s reading is all about the light that illumines all the worlds of the 10 directions when Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence attained Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. The Brahman-heavenly-kings of each direction gather up their flower trays and their palaces and head off into the light to find out if a god of great virtue or a Buddha has appeared somewhere in the universe.

Great Brahman-heavenly-king Sikhin representing the five hundred billion worlds of the zenith explains it this way:

How good it is to see a Buddha,
To see the Honorable Saint who saves the world!
He saves all living beings
From the prison of the triple world.

The All-Knower, the Most Honorable One of Gods and Men,
Opens the gate of the teachings as sweet as nectar,
And saves all living beings
Out of his compassion towards them.

There has been no Buddha
For the past innumerable kalpas.
Before you appeared,
The worlds of the ten quarters were dark.

The living beings in the three evil regions
And asuras are increasing.
The living beings in heaven are decreasing.
Many fall into the evil regions after their death.

They do not hear the Dharma from a Buddha.
Because they did evils,
Their appearances are getting worse;
And their power and wisdom, decreasing.
Because they did sinful karmas,
They lose pleasures and the memory of pleasures.
They are attached to wrong views.
They do not know how to do good.
They are not taught by a Buddha;
Therefore, they fall into the evil regions.

Now you have appeared for the first time after a long time,
And become the eyes of the world.
You have appeared in this world
Out of your compassion towards all living beings,
And finally attained perfect enlightenment.
We are very glad.
All the others also rejoice at seeing you,
Whom they have never seen before.

Our palaces are beautifully adorned
With your light.
We offer them to you.
Receive them out of your compassion towards us!

May the merits we have accumulated by this offering
Be distributed among all living beings,
And may we and all other living beings
Attain the enlightenment of the Buddha!

Also note that everyone arriving at the world of Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence Tathagata also saw that the sixteen princes were begging the Buddha to turn the wheel of the Dharma. We’ll come back to them tomorrow.