I. What This Concept Is About
The term "百城" (bǎichéng, "hundred cities") most frequently appears in the story of Sudhana's pilgrimage in the *Gandavyūha* (入法界品, "Entry into the Realm of Reality") of the *Avataṃsaka Sūtra* (華嚴經, Flower Ornament Sūtra). It is not a specific city, nor a geographical route, but rather a poetic designation used by Mahāyāna scriptures to describe the bodhisattva's practice of "broadly studying under many teachers and visiting spiritual friends far and wide."
The classical definition is succinct: "the places where the youth Sudhana visited various spiritual friends" (善知識, kalyāṇamitra). Behind this brief phrase lies the entire structure of the *Gandavyūha*: Mañjuśrī (文殊菩薩) awakens Sudhana in the forest of Sālagiri at the east of the city of Dhanyākara, inspiring him to arouse the mind of *anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi* (阿耨多羅三藐三菩提, supreme perfect enlightenment). Sudhana then journeys south, visiting fifty-three spiritual friends in succession—from the first, the monk Meghaśrī (德雲比丘), to the final one, Maitreya (彌勒菩薩), before turning back to Mañjuśrī and attaining realization. The entire geographical trajectory scatters into a series of "cities"—some great, some small, some flourishing, some remote—each one marking a turning point in a life.
Here, "百" (hundred) is a figurative number—an elegant Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit sense of "countless." It does not refer to one hundred specific cities but reminds the reader: on the path of practice, points of reference are innumerable. Every person we encounter in this life—and in life after life—who can help us loosen even a fraction of our attachment and awaken a little more, may be a "city." The bodhisattva path is not closed-door solitary cultivation; it is an unceasing movement toward the next city.
From this perspective, the position of "百城" within the entire path of liberation becomes clear: it represents the openness and initiative of the bodhisattva path. The Hīnayāna path of liberation emphasizes personal renunciation; the Mahāyāna path of buddhahood emphasizes endless benefitting of others—and the qualification for such benefitting does not arise from nowhere. It requires opening oneself before countless spiritual friends, letting go of self-grasping, and filling in one's blind spots. "百城" is the map of this self-refining process.
It is worth noting with particular care that the classical entry directly equates this concept with "the places where the youth Sudhana visited various spiritual friends." It does not reify "百城" as a standalone entity but binds it together with the images of visiting, spiritual friends, and a youth journeying south. This means: when we speak of "百城," what matters is not the "city" itself, but "the youth's step-by-step approach." Each "city" becomes a "place of spiritual friends" only because of the youth's humble, diligent, fearless mind seeking the Dharma—without such a mind, a place-name is just a place-name, and a journey is just a journey.
This is the core of "百城" as a concept: it is not a geographical term, but a monument to an attitude.
II. A Walkthrough in Everyday Life
Returning "百城" to contemporary life, we find it is far closer to us than we might imagine. The bodhisattva's journey through a hundred cities can be walked through in several types of scenarios we all experience daily.
Scenario One: The car radio or podcast on the commute. Sudhana's posture in journeying south was: "having heard that a spiritual friend dwells in such-and-such a city, he went there to pay respects." He did not say, "I'll go when I'm ready"—he heard a direction and set out. When a modern person opens a podcast on the commute, subscribes to a column, or follows an author's updates—this act of actively opening one's ears and absorbing content from an unfamiliar field is precisely the contemporary translation of "visiting" (參, cān). The difference lies in this: can the hosts and guests in a podcast actually play the role of "spiritual friends"? The "spiritual friends" of the scriptures point to those who cause you to break through a portion of ignorance and increase a portion of Dharma benefit—this is directed and disciplined, not aimless entertainment. If we merely treat the podcast as background noise, that commute is just a route; if, after listening, we are willing to note down one idea, adjust one behavior, or release one attachment, then it becomes a city.
Scenario Two: When scrolling through your phone and a foreign viewpoint pricks you. The core action in each of Sudhana's visits is "asking" (問)—not sightseeing, but consulting with the perplexity of the present moment. When a contemporary person happens upon an article, or a friend forwards a passage, or even when an unsparing rebuttal in the comments section strikes you—if at that moment you are willing to set down your defenses and think, "Why does this person see from this angle what I cannot see?"—then you have arrived at a "city" in your mind. But beware of a misreading: being pricked is not the same as a successful visit. A true visit means that after being pricked, you are willing to look back at yourself and correct yourself, rather than turning around to argue about who is right or wrong. The essence of "百城" lies in each visit being internalized as your own elevation, not used to prove the other person wrong.
Scenario Three: A word from a senior colleague during overtime exhaustion. Among the spiritual friends Sudhana visits, there are monks, elders, maidens, night deities, non-Buddhists, physicians, and ship captains—hundreds of identities, trades, and ages. This itself is an extremely important contemporary reminder: spiritual friends are not confined to any single identity. We tend to assume that a teacher must be someone impressive, with titles and platforms. But the *Gandavyūha* tells us that a night spirit, a cook, or a boatman may all become your spiritual friend. The contemporary office is especially like this—some unassuming colleague, at a moment when you are overwhelmed, says, "I went through this too; you might try looking at it this way"—and that single sentence may open up a new dimension of your understanding. Whether you can recognize such moments, and earnestly listen to such words, determines whether you enter that "city" or pass it by.
Scenario Four: That "I understand you" in intimate relationships. Deeper "cities" lie in intimate relationships. Among the spiritual friends Sudhana visits, there is a mother-like figure (and in certain interpretive traditions of the *Gandavyūha*, even a wife or lover can become a spiritual friend). In intimate relationships, the other person can sometimes expose what we cannot see faster than any teacher—not because they are wiser, but because they stand at the closest possible position to us. The question is: are we willing to listen with Sudhana's humility? Most escalation of intimate conflict happens because we assume we are the spiritual friend and the other person is there to learn—this inverts "百城" entirely. So the walkthrough of "百城" in intimate relationships is not about teaching us how to "teach" our partner, but about teaching us to remember, at the moment our partner speaks, that we too are the youth.
Scenario Five: Raising children / being raised by children. Sudhana was a youth when he aroused the mind for the path—but the spiritual friends he visited were not all older than him. Notably, several were maidens and youths, none his senior in age or standing. This points to a deep contemporary distortion: we assume that teachers must be "ahead" of us. In fact, children's un-hardened intuition often points us, the adults, toward a city. When a child asks, "Why do leaves fall?" or says, "Why are you angry?"—these questions are often their own "southward journey." If we can crouch down and listen seriously, we are entering a city. But if we dismiss it with a perfunctory "You'll understand when you grow up," we have shut the city gate from the outside.
The places where people most commonly misproject need to be pointed out here:
The first misreading is understanding "百城" as "checking in." Many people today travel and check in at a hundred cities, filling their social media grids with nine-photo collages. But Sudhana did not travel for photographs; his "hundred cities" were an upgrade of the mind—with each spiritual friend visited, a sliver of the mind's dark attachment brightened. A person who has walked a hundred cities yet remains arrogant and obstinate inside is still hovering outside the first city gate.
The second misreading is understanding "百城" as "finding a better teacher." Here lies a hidden trap: many people are addicted to visiting, leaving each place thinking "this one isn't good enough," then moving to the next "better" one—spending a lifetime migrating, never putting down roots. But the measure of Sudhana's visits was visit when it is time to visit, realize when it is time to realize—he did not skim; he stayed at each place until he had thoroughly absorbed that teaching. The bodhisattva's hundred cities are cities of sequential progress, not cities of escape.
The third misreading is understanding "百城" as "you must take a master." Of course not. Visiting spiritual friends does not conflict with reading, self-reflection, or solitude. Sudhana's visits were important precisely because they were inseparable from inner cultivation—he was not seeking an external add-on but borrowing an external mirror to see himself. So solitude is a city, reading is a city, an honest session of introspection is also a city. But conversely—solitude without face-to-face exchange easily becomes building a cart behind closed doors. The healthy state of "百城" is cultivating both inner and outer.
III. Why Contemporary People Need It
Ours is an age of information overload but impoverished mentorship lineages. This point deserves particular attention.
On the one hand, we can hear far more "spiritual friends" than Sudhana could in his time—a single phone can receive the voices of the entire world. On the other hand, the spiritual friends who can truly land in our lives are fewer and fewer. This is because all contemporary content creation has been accelerated into fragments by algorithms, all teachers have been packaged by media into performers, and all relationships have been flattened by social software into the word "acquaintance." Our encounter with any "source of knowledge" is not deep. We lack the patience to walk through one city to completion, because we have been trained to become spectators endlessly swiping to the next piece of content.
This is why the contemporary era needs "百城" more than ever.
It gives us a capacity for slowness. In our time, time is chopped into pieces, attention is monetized, and deep relationships are sliced apart by mortgages and overtime. "百城" as an image offers a different scale: properly visit one place, stay for a while, and plant what it brings so that it takes root. The real skill of visiting has never been in the feet, but in the mind.
It gives us a capacity to not self-limit. Sudhana journeyed south—the direction was clear (seeking southward), but he did not self-limit who the next stop would be. He did not know whether the next spiritual friend would be a maiden or a night deity, but he was willing to go. We contemporary people are locked fast by labels of identity, profession, circles, persona, and credentials, often feeling we "can only be" this or "can only do" that. The spirit of "百城" is: as long as your intention is truly directed toward the path, the next city will open itself to you.
It gives us a capacity to admit what we do not know. The diligence of the bodhisattva path is not endless output; it is endless willingness to take in. The contemporary anxiety about growth is actually because we want too much to output—social media, short videos, podcasts, books, personas—substituting output for input, mistaking self-expression for growth. Sudhana was a youth; every time he appears, it is "hearing this, the youth rejoiced with delight, bowed with head and face at the feet, circumambulated countless times, withdrew to one side, and said"—all postures of reverence. This posture has nearly gone extinct in our time—we are most impatient with being "taught," dismissing it as preaching. But once we shut our ears to spiritual friends, our growth spins in place.
Finally, and more deeply—"百城" gives us a capacity to dwell with impermanence. Each time we arrive at a city, we must leave it; each time we visit a spiritual friend, we must bid farewell and continue to the next stage. The poetry of "百城" is built upon unceasing farewells. The deepest spiritual friend—Mañjuśrī—was only realized by Sudhana at his final, backward glance; he never "possessed" any teacher. We contemporary people especially love to seek a spiritual mentor we can rely on for life, but "百城" reminds us: the true spiritual friend is a passerby, a supporting condition, a lamp that ultimately lets us illuminate ourselves without needing it. This view of impermanence is harder to accept than any self-help platitude—and more precious.
IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Finally, let us sort out the faces of "百城" most commonly misread in the contemporary context.
Misreading One: "百城" simply means the fifty-three visits. Strictly speaking, the spiritual friends explicitly recorded in the *Gandavyūha* of the *Avataṃsaka Sūtra* are individually enumerated—the classical tradition generally counts fifty-three (the source of this number relates to the manner in which the various assemblies of the text are combined, with slight differences across transmission lineages). "百城" is a later, highly condensed poetic generalization of the entire process of study—a figurative number, not a direct numeral from the scripture itself. If we truly speak of "hundred," it means beyond any method of counting, there are still infinite unrecorded visits—the bodhisattva's visiting does not end at fifty-three.
Misreading Two: "百城" is merely a story of traveling afar. Many assume Sudhana's is a geographical journey—traveling south over a thousand *yojanas*, passing city after city. In fact, the *Gandavyūha* explicitly records that several spiritual friends are not in distant lands at all—one is his own kinsman in his hometown, and another is the very place where he first aroused the mind. The "journey" of "百城" has geographical meaning, but it is primarily a journey of the mind. When we make excuses out of our inability to travel far, we have strayed from the spirit of "百城"; when we assume that not leaving our keyboard means not practicing, we miss the cities right under our noses.
Misreading Three: A spiritual friend is someone more impressive than us. This has been said above; here, one more note: the referent of "spiritual friend" in the *Gandavyūha* is quite broad—anyone who can cause sentient beings to abandon evil and turn toward good, cut through delusion and realize truth, is one. A person may be your junior in seniority, younger in age, or ordinary in social status—but if they can wake you up at a specific critical point, they are your spiritual friend. The deepest contemporary arrogance is classifying people by identity and then listening only to certain categories—this is a posture of wandering outside the map of "百城."
Misreading Four: Visiting is servile and passive. Sudhana appears extremely humble at every turn—but this is not passivity. He has his own aspiration, his own direction (southward), his own resolve (after each visit, he continues south), and his own questions (each visit carries his deepest present perplexity). Humility is not lack of conviction; reverence is not abandoning autonomy. The contemporary "ingratiating visit" is another misreading—merely going along with what the other says, not daring to raise one's own confusion. Sudhana's questions had an edge, were pointed and specific; he did not ask, "Please tell me what to do," but "Please teach me how I may enter and realize this Dharma-door." Timid questions do not obtain the true transmission of a spiritual friend; only one who dares to ask, dares to expose their own doubt, and can make a decision upon hearing the teaching, has the right to the next city.
Misreading Five: Once "百城" is completed, everything is fulfilled. Wrong. The diligence of the bodhisattva path has no such thing as "completed." Even after Sudhana's realization (in different interpretive lineages, the circumstances of his realization are detailed or brief), he must continue to manifest among sentient beings. "百城" is not a version with an ending point but an eternal posture—as long as I am still willing to grow, the next city is not far away. This is why the character "百" is so vivid: not "fifty," not "sixty," but an open, figurative number symbolizing diligence without end.
In Closing
Returning to the classical entry's definition—"the places where the youth Sudhana visited various spiritual friends"—we find, upon reading, that this concept is actually posing us a question both very gentle and very exacting:
Are you willing, like the youth, to treat every encounter of the present moment as a city? Are you willing to set down your pride, set down the comfort of what you already know, set down your self-imposed limits, and walk into the next one?
Contemporary people do not lack opportunities for visiting; what we lack is the youth's mind. When a person can set down the posture of "I am already like this," the excuse of "I don't have time," and the prejudice of "they're not qualified," then no matter where they are, doing the most ordinary things, they are already journeying south—their own hundred cities will open before them in sequence.
百城 has never been a place. It is an orientation—toward all those still knocking on our door, toward the stretch of road we ourselves have not yet finished walking.