from the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, Chapter 7
The perfection of insight is the mother
Of the bodhisattvas, my dear friend,
And mastery of stratagem [upaya] is the father;
From these two are the guides born.
Delight in the Dharma is their wife,
Love and compassion their daughters,
Their two sons are truthfulness [satya] and justice [dharma],
And pondering the meaning of emptiness is their home.
Likewise all the defilements are their students
Obedient to the every wish,
While the constitutive elements of awakening are their friends
With whom they awaken to supreme awakening.
And their constant companions
At all times are the six perfections,
The inhabitants of their harem the means of drawing others to oneself.
Their music the communal chanting of the teachings.
Mental retentiveness and the formulae which support it are their garden,
Decked with the blossoms of the constitutive elements of awakening,
Its fruits liberation [vimukti] and knowledge [jnana],
Its trees the great forest of the Dharma.
Its pools are the states of liberation,
Brimming with the waters of concentration
Their surface covered with the lotuses of the forms of purity.
In them the immaculate ones bathe.
Pulled by the supernormal faculties
Is their great vehicle, which cannot be surpassed,
Its driver is the aspiration to awakening,
The road it takes is the auspicious eightfold path of the noble ones.
The distinctive features of greatness are their jewelry,
Along with its eighty secondary marks.
They are clothed in a sense of shame and modesty,
Pure and virtuous in their ambitions [adhyasaya].
The True Dharma is their wealth,
Teaching the Dharma is their investment,
Huge profits come when it is put into practice
And when it is dedicated to awakening.
The four states of dhyana meditation are their bed,
And pure livelihood is their bedding;
What wakes them is insight
Which is always concentrated upon what they’ve learned.
The nectar of immortality is their food,
The elixir of liberation their drink;
The purity of their motivation is their bath,
Their moral conduct the fragrant oils and pastes they apply.
Because they strike down their enemies, the defilements,
They are indeed, invincible;
Rallying to the banner at the seat of awakening,
They triumph over Mara in his four forms.
Deliberately they display rebirth,
But are unborn and do not come to be;
They appear in all domains,
Rising like the shining sun.
Worshipping millions of buddhas,
Making every offering to those guides,
They still never become dependent
Either on themselves or on any buddha.
They purify the buddha-domains
In accordance with the way living beings function
But attaining the domain which is space,
They do not recognize any living being as such.
The bodhisattvas, fearless and confident,
Can display in a single instant
All the shapes that living beings take,
The sounds they make and the voices they speak with.
They understand what Maras do
And yet play along with them:
With consummate mastery of stratagem
They display every activity.
They grow old, become sick,
And make it look as thought they die,
At home as they are with the art of illusion,
For the purpose of bringing living beings to maturity.
They show the conflagration at the end of the eon,
In which this earth is incinerated;
They will make living beings who hold the idea of permanence
See how impermanent things are.
Invited to dinner by the thousands of millions
Of living beings in a kingdom,
They dine in the houses of all of them
And turn all towards awakening.
Whatever spells or sciences there are,
Or the practical arts in their many forms,
Becoming experts in them all,
They bring happiness to all living beings.
However many false religious teachers there are in this world,
They embark on the religious life with them all,
For they want to liberate living beings
Who adhere to all kinds of false views.
They become moons or suns,
Sakras, Brahmas or the Lords of Creation,
They become water, fire,
Earth and likewise the wind.
In the intermediate eons of plague
They become the supreme medicine,
And the living beings saved by them
Become happy and free of sickness.
In the intermediate eons of armed strife
They remain intent on love,
Urging many hundreds of millions
Of living beings to become free from malice.
And in the midst of great battles
Those bodhisattvas, as powerful as they are,
Refuse to take sides,
Preferring peace and concord.
Even to the hells, inconceivable in number,
That are found in the buddha-domains
They go of their own free will
To promote the welfare of living beings.
Manifesting all the ways
In which animals might behave,
They teach the Dharma everywhere;
That is why they are called the guides.
They display the enjoyment of the pleasures of the senses,
They display the deep meditation of those who meditate;
They leave Mara is confusion,
They do not leave any opening for him.
Like a lotus blooming in the middle of a fire,
Which one would declare to be an impossibility,
In the same way they display the impossible:
The pleasures of the senses with deep meditation.
They willingly become courtesans
In order to seduce men,
And once they have caught them with the hook of passion,
They establish them in the knowledge of a buddha.
They continually become village headmen as well,
Caravan-leaders, court chaplains,
Chief ministers and counselors too,
To promote the welfare of living beings.
For living beings who are poor
They become inexhaustible stores of treasure,
And with the gifts they give to them,
They lead them to conceive the aspiration to awakening.
Among living beings puffed up with pride
They become great dignitaries,
And lead them to seek supreme awakening
Once all their pride has been destroyed.
They always move to shield living beings
Who are in peril and gripped by fear;
And having given them the gift of safety and reassurance,
They make them ripe for awakening.
Having become sages living the celibate life
And masters of the five supernormal faculties,
They impel beings toward moral conduct,
Toward patient acceptance, gentleness, and self-control.
Spiritual masters though they are, when they see in this world
Living beings who need to be served,
They become their servants and slaves
And assume the role of students.
Whatever it might take to make
Living beings love the Dharma,
They appear to engage in all such activities,
Well-trained as they are in high stratagem.
Their training knows no limit,
Their range knows no limit,
They are endowed with limitless knowledge,
And they liberate limitless creatures.
Were all the buddhas to speak
For millions of aeons,
Or even hundreds of millions of aeons,
The full extent of their virtues would still be hard to describe.
What wise person would not wish for supreme awakening
After hearing about such things,
Unless he were one of those inferior beings
Who are bereft of insight.
Source: Vimalakirtinirdesa: The Teaching of Vimalakirti. Translated from the Sanskrit by Luis Gomez and Paul Harrison.