Chapter 13 The Immeasurable Lifespan And Assemblies

The Buddha told Ananda, "The Buddha of Immeasurable Lifespan has a long, lasting, immeasurable, ineffable lifespan. There are also uncountable Sound Hearer Assemblies there. These Sound Hearers are endowed with clear, penetrating spiritual powers. They are powerful and at great ease in all circumstances. They are able to uphold all the worlds in their palms. Among my disciples, the Great Maudgalyayana also possesses the greatest spiritual penetration. He is able to know the numbers of all the living beings in those seas of stars in the Three Thousand, Great Thousand World Systems in the duration of just one day and night. If all the living beings in the ten directions were to become the Conditioned Awakened Ones and each of them were to live millions of billions of years, and also possess the great spiritual penetrations just like the Great Maudgalyayana, to the end of their lifespan, if they were to fully use up their powerful wisdom and together try to count the number of Sound Hearers in the assemblies of The Buddha, they will only be able to count less than a fraction of the thousands of millions of Sound Hearers in the assemblies of The Buddha, they will only be able to count less than a fraction of the thousands of millions of Sound Hearers. Just like the great deep, spacious and limitless see, if a man were to take a fine strand of hair and differentiate it into a hundred portions, each will be as tiny as a just mote. And with such a just mote size of hair portion, he will dip a drop of water from the great sea, the water on such dust mote hair, if compared to the great sea, which would be more? Ananda, the number that is known by the great sages like the Great Maudgalyayana will just be like the water on the just mote of hair. The number that is unknown by them will be as much as the great sea. The lifespan of The Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, the Sound Hearers, the Heavenly Gods are uncountable, uncomparable, that none would be able to finish counting them.