“Because, O Subhuti, I remember the past five hundred births, when I was the Rishi-Kshantivadin (preacher of endurance).”—The Vagrakkhedika. Max Müller.
[13] “Let (the Bodhisattva) be concentrated in mind, attentive, ever firm as the peak of Mount Sumeru, and in such a state (of mind) look upon all laws (and things) as having the nature of space (as being void), permanently equal to space, without essence, immovable, without substantiality. These, indeed, are the Laws, all and for ever.”—Saddharma-Pundarika. H. Kern.
[14] “Because what is believed is not believed (not to be depended on).”—The Vagrakkhedika. Max Müller.
[15] “Hence Buddha declares that the mind of a Bodhisatwa ought not to rely on any formal act of charity. Subhuti, the Bodhisatwa ought to distribute his almsgiving for the purpose of benefiting the whole mass of sentient creatures, and yet Tathagata declares that as all dependencies are after all no real subjects of dependence, so also he says that all sentient creatures are not in reality what they are called.”—Kin-Kong-King. Beal.
[16] Literally, “Every form of phenomena is really not phenomena; every form of sentient life is in reality not sentient life.”
[17] The Buddhist term, Fah (Law).
[18] “The omniscience of Buddha is not the knowledge of all things, but the power of knowing whatever he wishes to know. In opposition to other teachers, who deduce their doctrines from certain previously assumed principles, and who may err either in the data, or in the deductions from them. Buddha affirms of himself that the complete field of truth is before him, that the eye of wisdom to perceive it was obtained by him when he became a Buddha; and whatever he desires to know he perceives perfectly, and at one glance, without any reasoning process.”—(Rev. D. J. Gogerly, in the Ceylon Friend. Quoted by R. Spence Hardy, in Eastern Monachism).
[Chapter 15]
The Lord Buddha addressed Subhuti, saying: “If a good disciple, whether man or woman, in the morning, at noonday, and at eventide, sacrificed lives innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, and thus without intermission throughout infinite ages; and if another disciple, hearing this Scripture proclaimed, steadfastly believed it, his felicity would be appreciably greater than the other. But how much greater must be the felicity of a disciple who transcribes the sacred text, observes its precepts, studies its Laws, and repeats the Scripture that others may be edified thereby?”