"World Honored One, also due to the effortless wonderful strength of this Vajra Samadhi of Becoming Permeated with Hearing and Cultivating Hearing, I have a kind empathy for all beings in the six paths throughout the ten directions and the three periods of time. Based on my physical and mental accomplishments, I can cause beings who encounter bodies of mine to receive the meritorious virtues of fourteen kinds of fearlessness.

First: because I do not contemplate sounds themselves, but rather the contemplator, I can enable beings throughout the ten directions who are suffering and in distress to attain liberation by ccontemplating their sounds ofreciting my name.

Second: since I am able to turn my knowledge and views inward, I can keep beings who are caught in a raging fire from being burned.

Third: since I am able to turn my contemplation and listening inward, I can keep beings who are floundering in deep water from being drowned.

Fourth, since my false thinking is cut off and my mind is without thoughts of killing or harming, I can keep beings who enter the territory of ghosts from being harmed.

Fifth: since I am permeated with hearing and have realized what hearing is, so that the six sense-organs have dissolved and returned to become identical with hearing, I can keep beings from being wounded, by causing the knives to break into pieces. I can cause swords to have no more effect than if they were to slice into water, or if one were to blow upon light.

Sixth: since my hearing has become permeating and my essential energy bright, light pervades the Dharma Realm so that absolutely no darkness remains. Then I can keep beings safe from yakshas, rakshasas, kumbhandas, pishachas, and putanas by causing the ghosts to be unable to see them even if they come close to them.

Seventh: since the nature of sound has completely melted away and through contemplation my hearing has returned to itself, leaving involvement with false and defiling sense-objects, I can free beings from the locks of cangues and fetters.

Eighth: when sound is gone and the hearing is perfected, an all-pervasive power of compassion arises, and I keep beings who are travelling a dangerous road from being robbed by robbers.

Ninth: when hearing permeates, a separation from defiling objects occurs so that forms no longer act as thieves. Then I can enable with lust to leave greed and desire far behind.

Tenth: when sound is so pure that there is no defiling object, the sense-organ and the external state are perfectly fused, and nothing is matched to anything else. Then I can enable beings who are full of rage and hate to stop being hateful.

Eleventh: when the defiling objects have gone, a light spirals, and the Dharma Realm and the body and mind are like crystal, transparent and unobstructed. Then I can enableall dark and dull-witted beings whose natures are obstructed—all atyantikas—to forever be free from stupidity and darkness.

Twelfth: when form dissipates and returns to the hearing, then unmoving within the unmoving Bodhimanda I can travel among beings without disturbing anything in their worlds. I can go through the ten directions making offerings to as many Budhas, Tathagatas, as there are fine motes of dust. Beside each Budha I become a Dharma Prince, and I can enable childless beings throughout the Dharma Realm who wish to have sons to be blessed with meritorious, virtuous, and wise sons.

Thirteenth: with perfect penetration of the six sense-organs, the light and what is illumined are not two. Encompassing the ten directions, a great perfect mirror stands in the Empty Treasury of the Tathagata. I inherit the secret Dharma-doors of as many Tathagatas as there are fine motes of dust throughout the ten directions, receiving them without loss. I can enable childless beings throughout the Dharma Realm who seek daughters to be blessed with lovely daughters who are upright, virtuous, and compliant and whom everyone cherishes and respects.

Fourteenth: In this three-thousand-great-thousand world system with its billions of suns and moons, as many Dharma princes as there are grains of sands in sixty-two Ganges Rivers appear in the world, cultivate the Dharma, and act as models in order to teach and transform beings. They comply with beings by means of expedients and wisdom, in different ways for each.

"However, because I have obtained the perfect penetration of the sense-organ and have discovered the wonder of the ear-entrance, after which my body and mind subtly and miraculously included all of the Dharma Realm, I can enable beings who uphold my name to obtain as much merit and virtue as would be obtained by a person who upheld the names of all those Dharma princes as many as the grains of sand in sixty-two Ganges Rivers. World Honored One, the merit of my one name is the same as those many other names, because from my cultivation I have obtained true and perfect penetration. These are called the fourteen powers of bestowing fearlessness; with them I bless living beings.

"Moreover, World Honored One, because I obtained perfect penetration and cultivated the unsurpassed path to certification, I also became endowed with four inconceivable and effortless wonderful virtues.

"First: due to my attaining the miraculous wonder of hearing the mind, the essence of mind was liberated from the organ and states of hearing. Therefore, there was no distinction among seeing, hearing, sensation, knowing, and so forth. The enlightenment became a single, perfect fusion, pure and precious enlightenment. For that reason, I am able to manifest many wonderful appearances and can proclaim boundless secret spiritual mantras. Among those, I may appear with one head, three heads, five heads, seven heads, nine heads, eleven heads, and so forth, including a hundred and eight heads, a thousand heads, ten thousand heads, or eighty-four thousand vajra heads; two arms, four arms, six arms, eight arms, ten arms, twelve arms, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen arms, or twenty arms, twenty-four arms, and so forth until there may be a hundred and eight arms, a thousand arms, ten thousand arms, or eighty-four thousand mudra arms; two eyes, three eyes, four eyes, nine eyes, and so forth including a hundred and eight eyes, a thousand eyes, ten thousand eyes, or eighty-four thousand pure and precious eyes, sometimes compassionate, sometimes awesome, sometimes in samadhi, sometimes displaying wisdom to rescue and protect living beings so that they may attain great self-mastery.

"Second: Due to my hearing and consideration having escaped the six defiling objects, just as a sound passes over a wall, they could no longer be hindered. For that reason I have the wonderful ability to manifest shape after shape and to recite mantra upon mantra. These shapes and these mantras dispel the fears of living beings. Therefore, throughout the ten directions, in as many lands as there are fine motes of dust, I am known as one who bestows fearlessness.

"Third: due to my cultivation of fundamental, wonderful, perfect penetration and purification of the sense-organ, anywhere I go in any world I can inspire beings to offer up their lives and valuables to seek my sympathy.

"Fourth: Due to my obtaining the Budhas’ mind and being certified as having attained the ultimate end, I can make offerings of rare treasures to the Tathagatas of the ten directions and to beings in the six paths throughout the Dharma Realm. If beings seek a spouse, they can obtain a spouse. If they seek children, they can have children. Seeking samadhi, they obtain samadhi; seeking long life, they obtain long life, and so forth to the extent that if they seek the great Nirvana, they obtain great Nirvana."

"The Budha asks about perfect penetration. From the gateway of the ear, I obtained a perfect and illumining samadhi that allowed me to respond at ease to beings’ minds. By entering the flow back to the nature and obtaining samadhi, I accomplished Bodhi. That is the foremost means.

"World Honored One, that Budha, the Tathagata, praised me as having obtained well the Dharma-door of perfect penetration. In the great assembly he bestowed a prediction upon me and the name Contemplator of the World’s Sounds. Due to my contemplation and listening being perfectly clear throughout the ten directions, the name Contemplator of the World’s Sounds pervades all the realms of the ten directions."

Then the World Honored One upon his Lion’s Throne emitted simultaneously from his five extremities a radiant light which shone far throughout the ten directions to anoint the crowns of as many Tathagatas and Dharma Prince Bodhisattvas as there are motes of dust. All those Tathagatas also emitted from their five extremities radiant lights which were as numerous as motes of dust and which came from the various directions to anoint the crown of the Budha as well as the crowns of all the great Bodhisattvas and Arhats in the assembly. Groves, trees, pools, and ponds all proclaimed the sound of Dharma. The lights blended and criss-crossed like a jeweled silken net. Everyone in the great assembly experienced this unprecedented event and attained the Vajra Samadhi. Then the heavens rained down hundreds of precious lotus flowers of variegated combinations of blue, yellow, red, and white. All the space in the ten directions turned the colors of the seven gems. This Saha world, the great earth itself along with the mountains and rivers disappeared totally, and all that could be seen were lands as numerous as motes of dust coming together as one realm. Pure praises in song and chant were spontaneously heard everywhere in celebration.

Then the Tathagata said to Dharma Prince Manjushri, "You should now contemplate these twenty-five great Bodhisattvvas and Arhats who are beyond study. Each has explained the initial expedient in his accomplishment of the Way. All say they have cultivated to true and actual perfect penetration. Their cultivation is equal without distinctions of superior and inferior or earlier and later. I now wish to cause Ananda to become enlightened, and so I ask which of these twenty-five practices is appropriate to his faculties, and which will be, after my extinction, the easiest expedient door for beings of this realm to enter in order to accomplish the Bodhisattva vehicle and seek the unsurpassed Way."

Dharma Prince, Manjushri, receiving the Budha’s compassionate instruction, arose from his seat, bowed at the Budha’s feet, and, basing himself on the Budha’s awesome spirit, spoke verses to the Budha.

The sea of enlightenment in its nature is perfect and clear.
Complete, distinct Bodhi is its miraculous source.
But when basic brightness shone so that objects appeared,
With objects’ existence, the nature’s brilliance faded.
Confusion about falseness brings about emptiness.
Relying on emptiness, worlds coming into being.
Thoughts settle, forming countries.
Consciousness becomes beings.
The emptiness created within great enlightenment,
Is like a single bubble in all the sea.
Beings subject to outflows and lands like fine dust motes,
All emerge out of empty space.
Just as the bubble bursts, so too, space never existed.
How much the less the three states of being!
Returning to the source, the nature is not two.
Many are the entrances through expedients;
The sagely nature permeates them all.
Whether compliant or adverse, all situations are expedient.
Those who initially resolve to enter samadhi,
Progress slow or fast according to the method selected.
Forms are defiled objects created from thought.
They cannot be discerned by the essence of mind.
How can something not clearly discernible
Be used to gain perfect penetration?
In sounds, language is intermingled.
But the meaning in a word, a name, a phrase,
In such that no single one can included them all.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Awareness of smells comes through contact with them.
Apart from them, one does not know that they exist.
Since sensation of them is not constant,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Flavors are not to us fundamental by nature.
They only exist when there is something to taste.
Since this sensation is not perpetual,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Touch becomes clear only when something is touched.
Without an object there can be no contact.
Since contact and separation fluctuate,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Dharmas are know as internal defiling dust.
Reckoned as defiling dust, they are certainly sense objects.
Involvement of subject and object cannot be pervasive;
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Although seeing itself is lucid and penetrating,
Clearly discerning in front, it cannot discern behind.
Ever reaching only half the four directions,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
The nose’s breath penetrates in and out.
But in the rests between there is no air.
These interruptions render it inconsistent.
How can that be used perfect penetration?
The tongue is not an organ without a function;
Flavors form the source of its sensation.
When flavors cease, it knows nothing at all.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
It is the same for the body as for objects of touch.
Neither can be regarded as a perfect awareness.
With defined and limited invisible divisions,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Mental knowledge is a mass of deliberating.
What it perceives is never profound insight.
Unable to get beyond reflection and thought,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
The seeing-consciousness combines three aspects.
Probe its origin: it has no appearance.
Since its very substance is variable,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
The essence of hearing penetrates the ten directions,
For those who have already developed great causes,
Those of initial resolve cannot enter this way.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Reflecting on the nose is a provisional method.
It only serves to gather in and settle the mind.
Once settled, the mind is simply still.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Those of former accomplishment enlightened by
Speaking Dharma through the medium of language,
But since words and phrases are not free of outflows,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Refraining from transgressions only controls the body.
For one lacking a body, there is nothing to restrain.
Since its source is not all-pervasive,
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
Spiritual penetrations are based on past causes.
What connection have they with distinguishing dharmas?
Conditioned thought is not apart from things.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of earth,
But it is firm and solid, not penetrable.
Whatever is conditioned is not the sagely nature.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of water,
But such mental reflection is not the true and real.
This state of suchness is not an enlightened view.
How can that be used to reach perfect penetration?
One may contemplate the nature of fire,
But admitting dislike is not true renunciation.
This expedient cannot be one for beginners

Subir