Vaiḍūryaprabha, Prince of Dharma, Introduces His Own Experience of Practice and Enlightenment

Original text:无量声佛开示菩萨本觉妙明，观此世界及众生身，皆是妄缘风力所转。我于尔时，观界安立，观世动时，观身动止，观心动念，诸动无二，等无差别。我时觉了此群动性，来无所从，去无所至。十方微尘颠倒众生，同一虚妄。

如是乃至三千大千一世界内所有众生，如一器中貯百蚊蚋，啾啾乱鸣，于分寸中鼓发狂闹。逢佛未几，得无生忍。尔时心开，乃见东方不动佛国，为法王子，事十方佛。身心发光，洞彻无碍。佛问圆通，我以观察风力无依，悟菩提心，入三摩地。合十方佛传一妙心，斯为第一。

Explanation: Bodhisattvas at the tenth bhūmi and above are Dharma princes; before long they will accomplish the Buddha Way and inherit the Buddha's position. This passage explains the formation of the trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world system): it is formed from the seeds of the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—within the wondrously luminous intrinsic awakening (本觉妙明) mind of all sentient beings. In accordance with the deluded karmic conditions of all sentient beings, the great world system came into being. The material bodies of sentient beings are likewise formed when intrinsic awakening, in accordance with each sentient being's individual karmic conditions, outputs the seeds of the four great elements to form that being's individual material body.

The operation of the great world system is the function of the wind element within the intrinsic awakening of all sentient beings, while the movements and activities of sentient beings' material bodies, and their bodily, verbal, and mental actions, are the result of sentient beings' own deluded karmic conditions together with the function of the wind element within intrinsic awakening. The establishment of the great world system, the changes of past, present, and future—the three periods of time—the movements and activities of sentient beings' material bodies, and the thoughts arising from sentient beings' conscious minds: the dynamic nature of all these is not twofold; there is no difference among them.

Why is there no difference? Because in essence they are all the function of the wind element within sentient beings' intrinsic awakening. Why is there the function of the wind element? It is because sentient beings have deluded karmic conditions; once there is karma, when causes and conditions manifest, results must be produced—and the result is movement, ceaseless transmigration. And after this karma is created, it is stored within intrinsic awakening. The wind element is also one of the seed-functions within intrinsic awakening.

If sentient beings had no karma and conditions did not manifest, the four great elements within intrinsic awakening would not function, and there would be no establishment, founding, or formation of worlds, nor would sentient beings come to have material bodies. However, in order to accomplish the Buddha Way and broadly deliver sentient beings, bodhisattvas cannot extinguish all conditions either; they must still retain something to obtain a material body and cultivate the path. The sentient beings of the worlds in the ten directions, as numerous as dust motes, are all deluded, all produced by the same kind of deluded karmic conditions.

Sentient beings are chiefly deluded in that their cognition of their own bodies and of external things is incorrect, thereby giving rise to incorrect bodily, verbal, and mental actions; then karma comes to exist within intrinsic awakening, and upon encountering conditions, karmic retribution follows. Thus, all the sentient beings within the trichiliocosm are like a hundred mosquitoes kept in a single vessel, buzzing and chirping chaotically. The sentient beings of our Southern Jambudvīpa on this Earth are likewise like crickets kept in a box, chirping and clamoring. In truth, all are stirring up wild commotion within their own minds—making a great racket, in great disorder.

Because sentient beings refuse to let their minds rest, and because they generate incorrect attention and thinking toward the world and themselves, various views, opinions, awarenesses, feelings, judgments, thoughts, and notions arise within their minds. Since all of these are incorrect, and each has its own particular incorrectness, divergences and disputes arise, and this world becomes chaotic and complicated, full of strife and clamor. All these disputes, views, feelings, discriminations, and false perceptions are floating dust upon sentient beings' minds; they are images manifested upon the mind, and are not real.

Then how do these images arise? How are the marks of sense-objects produced from within the mind? Through his cultivation and realization, the Dharma Prince Vairocana (琉璃光, "Radiant Azure Light") came to know this principle, realized the wondrously luminous intrinsic awakening, and attained the patience with the non-arising of dharmas (anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti). Afterward, through deep cultivation, he became a bodhisattva of the tenth bhūmi at the stage of equivalence (等觉), able to penetrate body, mind, and world without obstruction. His method of perfect penetration was to contemplate the source of the wind element's force: it comes from nowhere and goes nowhere—it is all the tathāgatagarbha nature, the wondrously luminous nature of intrinsic awakening. He entered the samādhi of intrinsic awakening, in which both phenomena and principle accord with the pure wondrous mind transmitted by all the Buddhas of the ten directions, and do not contradict intrinsic awakening. If one contradicts it, that is mistaken enlightenment—enlightenment gone wrong.