So the disciple of the Fully Enlightened shines with wisdom among the ignorant, blind, rubbish-like ordinary people.

Saṅkārabhūtesu andhabhūte puthujjane — among ordinary people who are like rubbish and are blind. The language is strong: puthujjana (ordinary unenlightened person) is equated with the rubbish heap and described as andha (blind). Not a value judgment but a description of the condition of ignorance (avijjā) that is the background suffering of ordinary existence.

Atirocati paññāya — shines with wisdom. Atirocati comes from ati (superior, above) + roca (to shine). The disciple not only has wisdom: one shines with it, one’s presence is luminous, visible. The verb suggests that wisdom cannot be hidden: the person who has it radiates it inevitably.

Sammāsambuddhasāvako — disciple of the Fully Enlightened: the sammāsambuddha is the Buddha fully enlightened by himself. His sāvako (disciple, literally “listener”) has not only memorized his words but realized in themselves the transmitted wisdom.

The couplet 58-59 closes the flower chapter with its most powerful image: the ordinary human being, sunk in the rubbish of confusion, has the capacity to transform into a lotus. The rubbish of the ordinary world is not obstacle but nutritive soil. Suffering itself, understood with wisdom, becomes the fertile ground for liberation.