尔时,觉林菩萨承佛威力,遍观十方,而说颂言:譬如工画师,分布诸彩色,虚妄取异相,大种无差别。大种中无色,色中无大种,亦不离大种,而有色可得。心中无彩画,彩画中无心,然非离于心,有彩画可得。彼心恒不住,无量难思议,示现一切色,各各不相知。譬如工画师,不能知自心,而由心故画,诸法性如是。心如工画师,能画诸世间,五蕴悉从生,无法而不造。
逐句解释
譬如工画师,分布诸彩色,虚妄取异相,大种无差别
「工画师」(skilled painter,技艺精湛的画师)将各种颜色铺展在画布上,呈现出千差万别的形象——人物、山河、花鸟。然而颜料(「大种」,四大:地水火风)本身并无任何固定的「差别」——它们只是物质元素,颜色只在观者的感知中成为「不同的相」。「虚妄取异相」——这种差别是「虚妄」的,是心对中性素材的诠释,而非素材本身固有的区别。整个世界,就是这样被「心」这位画师画出来的。
Like a skilled painter who spreads out various colours — the appearances taken are illusory; the four elements have no difference in themselves.
The painter analogy is one of the most celebrated in all of Buddhist literature, and this passage — often called the "Verse of the Painter" — is one of the most quoted texts in East Asian Buddhism. The argument is subtle: the physical pigments (the four great elements — earth, water, fire, wind) have no inherent identity as "red" or "blue" or "the colour of a mountain." It is perception, recognition, and mental categorisation that divides undifferentiated material into distinct appearances. The sutra is not denying that colours exist; it is asking: what is the nature of the distinction between them? The answer: the distinction is constructed by mind.
心中无彩画,彩画中无心,然非离于心,有彩画可得
这四句话是华严哲学中「不一不异」(既非同一、也非分离)的精确表达。心中并不含有一幅预先存在的图画;图画中也并不住有一颗心。然而,离开心,任何图画都不可能被领受——「有彩画可得」依赖于心的参与。这不是「唯心论」(一切都只是心的虚构),而是「心物相依」:现象的显现,依赖心与物的相遇。世界不是心的单方面投射,但也不独立于心而存在。
Within the mind there is no painting; within the painting there is no mind. Yet apart from the mind, no painting can be apprehended.
This is a precise philosophical statement, not a poetic flourish. The sutra carefully avoids two reductive positions: (1) subjective idealism — the world is just a mental projection with nothing "out there"; (2) naive realism — the world exists fully formed, independently of any perceiving mind. The Avatamsaka holds a middle position: mind and phenomena are mutually dependent, neither reducible to the other. The painting cannot be found inside the mind as a stored image, and the mind cannot be found inside the painting as a hidden inhabitant — yet the painting only appears through the activity of a mind that meets it. This mutual dependence, without identity or separation, is central to Huayan philosophy.
彼心恒不住,无量难思议,示现一切色,各各不相知
「心恒不住」——心从不停留在任何一处,它是持续流动、无量无边、难以思议的。「示现一切色」——心展现出一切形色、一切现象。「各各不相知」——被展现的每一个现象,并不互相知晓对方。这句话揭示了一个深刻的悖论:同一颗心(或同一个意识流)显现了无数彼此互不相识的现象,就像一位画家一天画出无数人物,而画中人物彼此之间并不相识。这是华严「一心开二门」(一心展现无量门)的形象表达。
This mind never rests, immeasurable and inconceivable, it manifests all forms and appearances, each unaware of the others.
The mind described here is not the personal, individual mind of psychology — it is closer to what the Yogacara tradition calls alaya-vijnana (阿赖耶识, storehouse consciousness) or what Huayan philosophy calls the One Mind (一心). It is the generative ground that produces all phenomena. Its constant movement ("never rests") is not a defect but its very nature. And because it generates phenomena continuously, those phenomena — each appearing distinct and separate — have no direct contact with one another except through the common ground that produces them. This is the Avatamsaka's way of explaining both the diversity of experience and the underlying unity that makes communication, empathy, and enlightenment possible.
心如工画师,能画诸世间,五蕴悉从生,无法而不造
这四句是整段偈颂的总结,也是《华严经》被引用最多的文字之一。「心如工画师」——心就像一位技艺精湛的画师。「能画诸世间」——它能画出一切世间(三界六道、山河大地、人事万象)。「五蕴悉从生」——五蕴(色受想行识,即人类经验的全部构成元素)都从这颗心中生起。「无法而不造」——没有任何现象不是由心造作的。这不是说外在世界不存在,而是说:我们所经验到的世界,其结构、意义、苦乐,全都是心的参与共同造就的。
The mind is like a skilled painter, able to paint all the worlds. The five aggregates all arise from it; there is no dharma it does not create.
This verse — "心如工画师,能画诸世间" — became one of the most cited passages in Chinese Buddhism, quoted across Huayan, Chan (Zen), and Tiantai literature for over a thousand years. Its claim is radical but carefully bounded. The five aggregates (五蕴: form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness) are the Buddhist analysis of what a "person" is — and the verse says they all arise from mind. This does not mean the physical world is imaginary; it means that our structured, meaningful, suffering-or-joyful experience of the world is always already shaped by the mind that meets it. The same sunrise is experienced differently by a grieving person and a joyful one — not because the sun is different, but because the painter within is using different colours.
总结 · Summary
第二十品以觉林菩萨的「工画师偈」为核心,用一个极具诗意的比喻道出华严心性论的精髓:心如画师,能画三界一切世间;五蕴从心生,无法不由心造。偈颂既否定了「心即等于现象」(心中无彩画),也否定了「现象离心独立」(离心无彩画),建立了「心物相依、不一不异」的中道立场——这是华严哲学最重要的贡献之一。
Chapter 20 delivers one of the Avatamsaka's most celebrated philosophical passages through the mouth of Bodhisattva觉林 (Jue Lin / Awakening Forest). The "Painter Verse" uses the analogy of a skilled artist to articulate the relationship between mind and world: mind generates all phenomena without being identical to them, and phenomena cannot appear without mind yet are not simply mind's projection. This middle position — dependent co-arising of mind and world, neither idealism nor realism — became foundational for East Asian Buddhist philosophy. The verse's final line, "there is no dharma the mind does not create," is not a metaphysical claim about ultimate reality but a practical pointing: if you want to understand why your world is the way it is, look at the painter within.