The Buddha teaches by means of sutras, verses,
Stories of his past deeds, and of past events,
Miraculous tales, explanatory tales,
Allegories, poems, and exegeses.
The Buddha teaches nirvana
To those with dull faculties,
Who are satisfied with lowly aspirations
And attached to birth and death,
Who have not practiced the profound path
In the presence of innumerable buddhas
And are confused by suffering.
Having devised this skillful means
I enable them to enter the wisdom of the buddhas.
But I have never said
That all of you would attain
The path of the buddhas.
I have never said this
Because the occasion never arose.
Now is precisely the right time for me
To teach definitively the Mahayana.
I apply these nine kinds of teachings
According to the capacities of sentient beings.
I teach these sutras
Because they are the basis for entering the Mahayana.
I teach the Mahayana sutras
To those heirs of the buddhas
Who are pure in mind, mild, and receptive,
Have keen faculties,
And who have practiced the profound path
Under immeasurable buddhas.
I predict that such people
Will attain the path of the buddhas
In their future lives,
Because they keep the buddhas in mind
With profound thoughts
And practice pure conduct.
Hearing that they shall attain buddhahood
They will be filled with great joy;
Because a buddha knows their intentions
He teaches the Mahayana.
Those śrāvakas or bodhisattvas,
Who have heard even a single verse
Of the Dharma that I have taught,
Will all become buddhas.
There can be no doubt about it.
In the buddha worlds of the ten directions
There is only the Dharma of the single vehicle.
Apart from the skillful means of the buddhas,
There is neither a second nor a third [vehicle].
A buddha merely uses provisional words
In order to lead sentient beings.
All the buddhas appear in the world
To teach the wisdom of the buddhas.
Only this one thing is real,
The other two are not true.
In the end,
A buddha does not save sentient beings
Through an inferior vehicle.
The buddhas themselves
Abide in the Mahayana;
The Dharma that they have attained,
Is adorned with meditation, wisdom, and power;
And through these they save the sentient beings.
I would be ungenerous
If I were to lead and inspire even a single person
Through an inferior vehicle,
Having attained the highest path,
The universal Dharma of the Mahayana.
This is simply not possible.
If anyone takes refuge in the Buddha,
The Tathāgata will not deceive him.
A Tathāgata has neither stinginess nor jealousy
And has detached himself
From the evils of the phenomenal world.
That is why the buddhas of the ten directions
Are the only ones who have no fear.
Having a body adorned with the marks of a buddha,
Emitting a ray of light that illuminates the worlds
And revered by immeasurable sentient beings,
I teach the signs of the true aspects Of the phenomenal world.
O Śāriputra! You should now know
That originally I made a vow
To make all sentient beings my equal
Without any difference.
Now I have already fulfilled this vow
That I made in the past.
I will lead and inspire all sentient beings
And cause them to enter the path of the buddhas.
If I met sentient beings
And taught them till the end the path of the buddhas,
Those with little understanding
Would be confused and perplexed
And would not accept the teaching.
I know that these sentient beings
Have never cultivated the roots of good merit.
They are attached to the desires of the five senses,
Disordered by delusion and passion,
And have fallen into the three troubled states of being
Because of these desires.
They are wandering through
The six transmigratory states,
Tormented by every kind of suffering.
They are continually being born as tiny embryos
In one world after another.
These people of few qualities and little merit
Are afflicted by various sufferings.
They enter into the jungle of sixty-two false views
Such as “This exists” or “This does not exist.”
They are so firmly and deeply attached to false teachings
That they cannot get rid of them.
They are arrogant, proud, deceitful, and dishonest.
They have heard neither the names
Nor the True Dharma of the buddhas
For thousands of myriads of koṭis of kalpas.
Such people are difficult to save.
That is why, O Śāriputra,
I devised the method of teaching
The way to extinguish all suffering through nirvana.
Even though I taught nirvana,
It is not the true extinction.
Every existing thing from the very beginning
Has always had the mark of quiescence.
The heirs of the buddhas who practice this path
Will thereafter become buddhas in the future.
With the power of skillful means
I have presented the teachings of the three vehicles.