寶王三昧念佛直指

The Buddha-Recitation Samadhi is called the Jeweled King because it is the supreme samadhi among all samadhis. It was first promulgated at Mount Lu and afterward spread throughout the realm. In every generation, many people have faithfully practiced it and attained rebirth, and no small number of writings have recorded their verified experiences.

From ancient times to the present, it has been widely propagated; therefore, both the Chan and doctrinal traditions hold it in the highest esteem, and sages and ordinary beings alike revere it. Regrettably, however, in this age of the Decline of the Dharma, many people have shallow faculties and fail to apply the proper medicine to their illness. They maintain that those who wish to reach the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss need not turn toward the West but need only discern the conditioned reflections of their own minds.

Those who cling to this view labor without benefit; although they practice, they obtain neither spiritual response nor result. For this reason, I, Diệu Khấu, have gathered the wondrous principles found in the commentaries and subcommentaries composed by the patriarchs on the Pure Land sutras and compiled them into this exposition. Although its prose is crude, it contains the cherished aspiration of my heart and mind, intended to awaken both myself and others.

I have therefore entitled it Direct Guidance on Buddha-Recitation in the Jeweled King Samadhi, abbreviated as Direct Guidance on Buddha-Recitation.

I. The Gateway of Faith and Understanding

1. The Environmental and Personal Recompenses of the Land of Ultimate Bliss

The World-Honored One, the Unsurpassed One of Perfect and Universal Knowledge, responded universally to the capacities of beings. Descending from the Tuṣita Heaven into this world, he taught the Dharma continuously for forty-nine years in more than three hundred assemblies, cherishing the aspiration to enable sentient beings equally to realize true permanence. Not until the final assembly at Vulture Peak did he teach the Lotus Sutra, revealing and showing sentient beings how to awaken to and enter the Buddha’s knowledge and vision.

This was the original intent the Buddha wished to proclaim. Yet the path that delivers sentient beings from samsara was not transmitted by Śākyamuni Buddha alone; the Tathagatas of the three times all transmit the true teaching. Nevertheless, throughout Śākyamuni Buddha’s lifetime of teaching, he employed a great many Dharma gates, teaching beings according to their differing capacities.

Yet among all Dharma gates, none surpasses the Pure Land Dharma gate in being suited to the present time, grounded in the profound affinities between the Buddha and sentient beings, direct and straightforward in practice, easy to undertake, and highly effective.

This Dharma gate of Buddha-recitation originated with the bhikṣu Dharmākara, who, immeasurable kalpas ago, had been a great king. Upon hearing the Buddha Lokeśvararāja teach the Dharma, he immediately relinquished his kingdom, left the household life, and became a bhikṣu. In response to Bhikṣu Dharmākara’s aspiration, the Buddha Lokeśvararāja extensively described and revealed twenty-one billion magnificently adorned Buddha lands, including the coarse and subtle conditions of each land and the differing good and evil circumstances of their human and heavenly inhabitants.

Having heard this, Bhikṣu Dharmākara made forty-eight great vows before the Buddha Lokeśvararāja: “When I attain Buddhahood, may the people of my land be free from such things as the three realms of suffering, the three poisons, the eight sufferings, the eight difficulties, the nine afflictions, the ten bonds, and all other obstructions. Those born in my land shall enter the stage of right concentration, attain the patience regarding dharmas, awaken to the true mind, and possess sublime wisdom of liberation.

Those who wish to be born there need only recite the Buddha’s name, even as few as ten recitations, at the time of death, and they shall immediately attain rebirth. If this should not be so, I shall not abide in perfect enlightenment.” At that time, the earth shook, the heavens rained down beautiful flowers, and music sounded spontaneously in empty space. The Buddha Lokeśvararāja also bestowed a prediction of Buddhahood upon Bhikṣu Dharmākara, who attained the fruit of Buddhahood more than ten kalpas ago.

Because of the surpassing great vows he made in the past, his merit, spiritual powers, radiance, ten powers, and fearlessness surpass those of the Buddha lands throughout the ten directions. He is known as Amitābha Buddha.

The Pure Land of Amitābha Buddha lies directly west of this Sahā world, beyond one hundred thousand koṭis of lands. It is called Ultimate Bliss and is also called Peaceful Nurturing. Amitābha Buddha now abides in that land. Through the power of his great vows and spiritual abilities, he is presently teaching the Dharma and gathering in sentient beings throughout the ten directions who recite the Buddha’s name. All sentient beings born in that land attain the stage of non-retrogression. Those who have been born there are immeasurable in number and can only be likened to the sands of the Ganges or particles of dust.

The Land of Ultimate Bliss is adorned with utterly sublime wonders surpassing those of all the Pure Lands throughout the ten directions. The jeweled ponds in that land, whether large or small, are all made of the seven treasures. The great ponds there are boundless in breadth, with beds of golden sand.

Paths surround them, and beside those paths stand spacious and beautiful pavilions rising a thousand stories high. Their brilliant radiance is beyond description. The ponds are filled with clear, fragrant water possessing the eight virtues.

Fourteen trees send forth streams of water; as the water rises and falls, its sounds proclaim immeasurable Dharma gates. Within those waters are as many as six billion lotuses made of the seven treasures, blooming in perfect circles, fresh and beautiful. When the water falls upon their petals of four colors, they emit four kinds of light.

Those who attain rebirth are arranged in due order among the three grades and nine levels, while wondrous fragrances and radiant light fill the entire land.

The jeweled ground of that land is level and was brought into being by the power of vows. Upon it are seven tiers of railings and seven rows of trees. Banners and streamers hang down, strung with jeweled necklaces, each possessing immeasurable forms of surpassing beauty.

They flutter gracefully and adorn the entire land. Throughout empty space rain down celestial robes, celestial incense, celestial flowers, celestial silks, and celestial music, each immeasurable in quantity, drifting and scattering everywhere through the sky. All such immeasurable adornments are fashioned from gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, agate, musāragalva, lohitamuktika, wish-fulfilling jewel-kings, and vajra maṇi gems.

They are beyond calculation and are all formed from precious jewels. From every jewel shine immeasurable hundreds, thousands, myriads, and koṭis of beautiful colors, illuminating one another. Each radiance universally illumines the entire trichiliocosm.

These rays of light mingle and harmonize without the slightest obstruction, pervading empty space beyond all description. Such are the immeasurable adornments and immeasurable lights. These lights and adornments, together with celestial music, incense, and flowers in the sky, the songs of birds, and the ringing of jeweled nets, produce sounds whose tones and modes follow perfect rhythm and whose melodies harmonize, giving forth immeasurable and boundless wondrous sounds.

These sounds continue everywhere without interruption, all proclaiming the paramitas, suffering, emptiness, and non-self; praising the path to bodhi; extolling the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; or teaching the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Four Right Efforts, the Four Bases of Spiritual Power, the Five Faculties, the Five Powers, the Seven Factors of Awakening, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Six Perfections and myriad practices, the Ten Powers, the Ten Fearlessnesses, the Eighteen Distinctive Qualities, great loving-kindness, great compassion, great sympathetic joy, great equanimity, and immeasurable inconceivable Dharma gates.

The Dharma proclaimed there teaches how the environmental and personal recompenses and the form and mind of the Buddhas of the three times interpenetrate without obstruction. All alike encourage practitioners, and these teachings are no different from the Dharma sounds of a Buddha. When sentient beings in that land hear the Dharma, they find satisfaction and peace in every thought and swiftly attain the sublime practices of the Three Vehicles, all factors of the path, and immeasurable liberations, exactly as though hearing them from a Buddha.

Even ordinary beings, after hearing this Dharma, naturally progress with diligence and do not entertain even the slightest thought of weariness; how, then, could they ever conceive of retrogression?

In the Land of Ultimate Bliss there are only males and no females. They are born from lotus flowers rather than from wombs. They wear beautiful garments, their bodies are fragrant, and they are always joyful.

Whatever they desire appears before them in complete abundance. There is neither day nor night, neither cold nor heat; there is no birth, aging, sickness, or death; there are no mountains or earthen ground, and there are none of the three evil realms. They travel freely through empty space and practice walking meditation beneath the trees.

Whenever they wish to perform the works of a Buddha or manifest spiritual powers, these appear immediately in response to their thoughts. The inhabitants of that land possess immeasurable lifespans and enjoy all such forms of happiness; therefore, it is called Ultimate Bliss.

Furthermore, the World-Honored One Amitabha possesses the meritorious qualities of light, majestic spiritual power, and excellent marks, each numbering as many as 84,000. Like a mountain of purple-gold, he sits upon a lotus dais and lion throne, magnificently and radiantly adorned, towering in the sky and as vast as the four great seas. The urna between his eyebrows possesses great power and emits light; like the sun rising high, it makes all other lamps appear beautiful.

Within that light are transformation Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and sravakas, each of whom also emits great light that penetrates even distant lands and gathers in and accepts sentient beings. The Great Beings Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta likewise emit light in this manner. Bodhisattva Manjusri, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, and all the great bodhisattvas are present in that land as those destined to attain Buddhahood in one more lifetime; their number is exceedingly great.

Devas and humans assemble together there. All are virtuous friends who serve the Buddha as their teacher, remain close beside him, hear the ultimate truth, transcend the three realms, immediately realize non-arising, pass beyond the ten bhumis, and perfectly fulfill the two kinds of awakening. In every thought, they can make offerings to the Three Jewels throughout the ten directions and accomplish all Dharma gates.

They possess playful spiritual powers and purify Buddha lands. They even enter the three realms and the six paths, emitting light to dispel darkness and rescuing sentient beings from suffering. Or they manifest divided bodies throughout hundreds of thousands of lands, teaching and guiding according to conditions and prescribing medicine according to each illness.

Like the Buddha's benevolent bestowal, in every thought they perfectly fulfill the practices and vows of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, possess the wisdom-power of Bodhisattva Manjusri and the power of Bodhisattva Mahasthamaprapta, and, like Avalokitesvara, realize bodhi together and dwell together in the presence of the Buddha. The nature of all sentient beings is originally obscured; upon hearing this Dharma, they all rejoice greatly and give rise to joyful faith.

Although the wondrous adornments of that land are fully present within our own minds, had Tathagata Amitabha not, in the past, practiced the bodhisattva path to liberate sentient beings and undertaken inconceivable hardships, how could they have been accomplished as they are today? Therefore, one should know that Buddha Amitabha possesses immeasurable and boundless practices and vows and inexhaustible adornments. Thus, in that land, Tathagata Amitabha's great vows have been perfectly fulfilled, and only then was that jeweled realm brought to completion.

The circumstantial and primary recompenses and all their adornments are entirely perfect. Even if all the sravakas and pratyekabuddhas throughout the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, were to employ their power of great eloquence to praise truthfully the adornments of that realm's circumstantial and primary recompenses, they could not exhaust their praises even throughout all future time.

If any good man or faithful woman hears of the adornments of the circumstantial and primary recompenses and wishes to be born in that land, then, in seeking to follow the Buddha's teaching, that person must fully arouse the three kinds of mind—the sincere mind, the profound mind, and the mind that dedicates merit and gives rise to vows—uphold in full all precepts received, and never transgress the rules of dignified conduct.

Thereafter, with a true and sincere mind, one should contemplate that land, all its immeasurable, supreme, and wondrous states, the adornments of its circumstantial and primary recompenses, and the 80,000 excellent marks and meritorious qualities of that Tathagata's body, together with his pure light. Or one may choose and retain a single scene or a single mark, even the white urna between the Tathagata's eyebrows, while remaining free from false thought.

Whether for one thought or up to ten thoughts, or from one day to seven days, as swiftly as a strong man bends his arm, one will in an instant attain rebirth there. Or if a person firmly believes that the Land of Ultimate Bliss and Buddha Amitabha truly exist, and that through the great spiritual power of his vows he receives and guides sentient beings, without giving rise to the slightest doubt, and thereafter single-mindedly preserves and recites his name, that person will attain rebirth there before long.

Why would one need to wait until the karmic recompense of this physical body has ended before attaining rebirth? One should know that Buddha Amitabha receives and guides sentient beings out of the realms of suffering. He cherishes sentient beings more deeply than parents cherish their children.

In former kalpas, he established great vows: there was no suffering he would not endure, no hardship he would not undertake, no vow he would not make, and no Dharma he would not teach in order to liberate sentient beings. He employed hundreds of thousands of skillful means to liberate them. Today, day after day, his eyes grow weary with expectant watching, and for more than ten kalpas he has held out his hand, awaiting the moment to receive and guide us.

In every thought he never abandons us, his heart consumed with yearning. With single-minded and utmost earnestness, he even enters birth and death, traverses all three evil paths, and does not fear the toil of the fierce fires of hell. If we turn back and recollect the Buddha as a child remembers its mother, thereby consoling the heart of the mother who waits in longing, then even with a single thought we may attain rebirth there.

Why would it be necessary to pass through ten thoughts before attaining rebirth?

2. Dispelling Delusion and Revealing the True

Practitioners who wish to be born in the Land of Ultimate Bliss and escape birth and death must first clearly distinguish the true mind from the deluded mind when aspiring for birth in the Pure Land. They must understand whether the world of Ultimate Bliss lies in an external realm or within the mind. If it lies within the mind, then it would belong entirely to illusory thought, with no realm into which one could be born.

If it lies in an external realm, then although there would be a place into which one could be born, the mind would be lost. If it is said that one seeks birth in both mind and realm, then since body and mind are one, how could one speak of being reborn from this place into another? If it is said that mind and realm are one, then when one single-mindedly seeks birth there, one clearly perceives mind and realm distinctly, so they cannot be said to be one.

Furthermore, Ultimate Bliss and the Saha world—the two realms of purity and defilement—are not the same. How much more so, when the World-Honored One earnestly instructed us to abandon the defiled realm and seek birth in the Pure Land; how is the meaning of this to be understood? The four propositions—existence, nonexistence, neither existence, and neither nonexistence—cannot provide the answer.

Some say that every place is the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss; some say that wherever the mind is pure, that place is Ultimate Bliss; and some say that Ultimate Bliss is not apart from one’s own mind. All such understandings are called wrong views, and therefore I cannot remain silent.

If, upon hearing that Ultimate Bliss is within the mind, one mistakenly takes this mind to be inside one’s body, then since it is said to be within the body, this should be called merely seeking the mind; why, then, is it called seeking birth? Could it be that our World-Honored One did not know that Ultimate Bliss is within the mind, and therefore said that to the west, beyond a hundred thousand kotis of Buddha-lands, there is a Land of Ultimate Bliss outside us?

Why did he not point only to the inner mind, but instead speak exclusively of an external realm? At present, the world of Ultimate Bliss lies in the west, where Amitabha Buddha is now teaching the Dharma; the reality of that realm is perfectly clear. These are the golden, truthful words spoken by the Great Sage—how could we dare not believe them?

Yet people do not understand that the Land of Ultimate Bliss, beyond this mind that apprehends conditioned images, is precisely our true mind. This true mind of ours is like the great ocean, neither increasing nor decreasing. What we deludedly call the realm of Ultimate Bliss within the mind of conditioned images is like a single bubble in the ocean.

Its arising and ceasing are entirely delusive, yet you falsely call it the mind.

If you stubbornly cling to deluded views and do not eliminate them, believing that Ultimate Bliss exists outside while also believing that Ultimate Bliss exists within the conditioned images of your mind, you are mistaken. Because the mental image you apprehend has no real substance, you should not use the mind to seek birth within the mind while failing to understand that although the Land of Ultimate Bliss lies in the west, that west still lies within our true mind.

The true mind has no fixed nature; thus, the name and essence of that land serve to reveal our mind. Since name and essence are originally empty, they also indicate only the characteristics of our mind. Mind and realm are of one essence; sentient beings and Buddhas share the same source.

To seek that Buddha is to seek one’s own mind; it is not to seek outside oneself. If, in order to investigate one’s own mind, one must seek that Buddha, what error could there be?

Understood in this way, accepting and rejecting, liking and disliking, become perfectly clear. Even though we seek, how could what we seek be outside the mind, since the mind contains everything completely? Therefore, one should know that within this mind are fully contained the dependent and primary recompenses, all realms, and even form and mind, purity and defilement, sentient beings and Buddhas, cause and effect, and all dharmas of the three periods throughout the ten directions.

It universally encompasses them all, and all partake of the same functioning. Not even a single characteristic can be found outside it. Although there is no external nature, within the undivided there is still differentiation; therefore purity and defilement are distinctly evident.

Thus, one should understand: could such seeking possibly be seeking within the deluded mind?

May this aspiration receive the Buddha’s seal of approval. It is utterly different from the views of worldly people who do not know the original mind and, being ignorant and unable to reach it, do not seek the Buddha in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss but turn only toward the fleshly body and the deluded mind of conditioned images, calling this the Mind-Only Pure Land and Amitabha of the Original Nature. The Land of Ultimate Bliss does not rest upon the deluded mind of conditioned images, nor is the physical body of Amitabha Buddha contained within the skandha-body of sentient beings.

If, within this body and mind of the four great elements and conditioned images, I seek the Buddha of my own self-nature without seeking the Buddha in the west, then because the deluded mind arises and ceases, that Buddha will also arise and cease. Because that Buddha arises and ceases, samadhi cannot be attained. Even if such seeking were successful, it would produce only a Buddha subject to arising and ceasing, and one would return to a realm of arising and ceasing, unable to accomplish the true and proper practice.

The sutra says: “When the mind of samsara gives rise to attachment to samsara, even the nature of perfect enlightenment revolves along with it.” If one wishes to abandon all deluded attachments and be born directly in that land, one should seek only Amitabha Buddha in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, a hundred thousand kotis of lands away. Using the wondrous nature of correct contemplation, one should contemplate so that one’s original enlightenment and the excellent marks of that Tathagata become manifest and unite with the enlightened essence of sentient beings.

The true mind will thereby be revealed; initial enlightenment and original enlightenment will unite; Buddha and sentient beings will respond to one another; samadhi will immediately be attained; and proper practice will thereby be established. Only then can one be born in the realm beyond arising and ceasing.

Therefore, one should know that this mind pervades every place and does not exclude even the hells; why, then, would it not encompass the Land of Ultimate Bliss? It is only because the hells are places of suffering that we now accord with our nature by seeking to leave them far behind. Likewise, we now accord with our nature by seeking birth within one of the nine grades of Ultimate Bliss.

Relying upon the canonical sutras and following the Buddha’s Dharma-voice, we seek to leave suffering and attain bliss, advancing from the state of an ordinary being into sagehood. Truly, none of this lies outside our mind-nature; hence it is called the Mind-Only Pure Land and Amitabha of the Original Nature. How could this mean seeking from within the deluded mind?

The deluded mind is fundamentally without substance; how could it be called the mind-only original nature of the Buddha?

You seek by following the conditioned reflections of your own deluded mind, regarding the physical body, mountains, rivers, the great earth, and the lands of the ten directions as external objects. But if you seek by turning toward your own true, unmoving mind, then the mountains, rivers, the great earth, and the lands of the ten directions are within the inner mind. If you know that the lands of the ten directions all arise from within the mind, mind and objects merge into a single whole.

Then, within the mind, you may freely abandon impurity and choose purity, weary of the East and delight in the West, without going outside the mind. Because that great vow truly exists, the Buddha will certainly come to receive and guide you, and whatever you seek will be fulfilled. If you say that the lands of the ten directions are objects outside the mind, you divide them into two opposing sides.

Thus, as soon as a thought arises, you depart from the essence of the Dharma, lose its wondrous function, and fail to realize your own mind. You render the inherently complete Buddha-nature devoid of effective power; therefore, although you seek, you do not attain.

Furthermore, the existing deluded mind is merely a false conditioned reflection, mistakenly believed to reside within the physical body; it has no land in which to be born. The true mind contains all lands and inherently possesses in full both the circumstantial and personal rewards of the Land of Ultimate Bliss; if you seek it, you will immediately attain birth there. The deluded mind abandons the outer and runs inward, whereas for the true mind, the outer itself is the inner, and within it there is no outside.

Therefore, to seek the Buddha-fruit endowed with form is to seek one’s own mind. The deluded mind that runs inward is not real; therefore, in seeking within, there is no sovereign subject—one merely follows reflections and does not see one’s own mind. The deluded mind clearly divides mind and objects, whereas in the true mind, mind itself is the object.

The deluded mind arises and ceases without any basis; the true mind neither moves nor comes. In the deluded mind, while at the causal stage there is no fruit, and before and after there is arising and cessation. In the true mind, cause and fruit are of one accord, and inherent nature and cultivation completely interpenetrate.

Thus, one should know that seeking from the true mind and seeking from the deluded mind are vastly different. Were one to discuss this exhaustively, even throughout countless kalpas it could not be completed; the further one examines it, the more apparent it becomes that they are as far apart as heaven and the abyss. In terms of essence, the true mind perfectly encompasses the tenfold expanse of space, while the deluded mind exists only within the body of the five skandhas.

In terms of function, the true mind immediately transcends the Saha world and forever ends birth and death, whereas seeking with the deluded mind is like trying to cook sand into rice: even after countless kalpas, success would be difficult. Therefore, how could practitioners who arouse the bodhicitta and seek birth in the Pure Land seek only the conditioned reflections of their own deluded minds and not seek the real Buddha in the West?

This is truly pitiable! It is like someone who wishes to travel westward but continually faces east, who wishes to climb upward but stubbornly clings to a rock, who parts water in search of fire or digs through fire in search of water—how could such things ever be attained?

Alas, people today do not know that the true mind pervades every place. Taking form as the manifestation of its essence, they mistakenly recognize objects conditioned by sensory dusts as their own fundamental nature. This is a grave error, like mistaking a thief for one’s child—the family’s wealth will surely be exhausted and destroyed. Those who mistakenly take the discriminating reflections of phenomena to be the mind are just the same! If one knows that the child is a thief, the thief can do no harm. If one knows that discriminating consciousness is delusion, how could delusion harm oneself? Yet such people still fail to recognize that it is precisely the circumstantial and personal rewards of the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Great Master Fazhi taught: “When it is said in some places that delusion itself is the true, or that contemplating the mind is contemplating the Buddha, there is absolutely no intention of rejecting the real realm of the circumstantial and personal rewards of the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Why, then, in this age have those with wrong views arisen and hordes of demons become active, destroying the Buddhadharma, severing the seed of Buddhahood, and falsely claiming that the Land of Ultimate Bliss lies within the conditioned reflections of their own minds, while refusing to seek birth in the West?

Their inversions are indeed numerous. Those destroyers have not heard the true Dharma, and so they secretly transmit this wrong view among themselves, causing others to become confused. That they can hardly escape the painful retribution of hell need not even be mentioned.

But if we, monastics with shaven heads and square robes, share the same understanding as these deluded people, that would be truly lamentable. If we are genuinely concerned with birth and death, then this false teaching is an obstacle arising from grave karmic hindrances and cannot be followed within the Dharma gate of Buddha-recitation.

“We must examine this carefully and understand that the realm of the conditioned reflections of the deluded mind is false and has no real essence. Because it has no real essence, it arises and ceases according to the self, yet one mistakenly identifies it as the self. Thus, it is said that this mind is within the physical body, that the physical body is within the present world, and that this world is within empty space.

The nature of empty space is vast and immeasurable, containing lands such as these; thus, empty space is great, while the realm is small. The mind is feeble within the body, and even when a single thought shifts, it cannot stir anything. How, then, could a single powerless thought of this feeble, deluded mind enable one to seek birth in the wondrous realm of the Land of Ultimate Bliss, adorned with magnificent circumstantial and personal rewards?

To strive to seek what cannot be sought—is this not an exceedingly great delusion?

“When this meaning is clearly understood, one knows that although the nature of empty space is vast, boundless, and immeasurable, its source nevertheless issues from within our pure mind of great awakening, like a small wisp of cloud suspended in the vast sky. How much more is this true of the worlds within empty space! How much more of the physical bodies within those worlds!

How much more of the deluded minds within those physical bodies! Therefore, one should know that the deluded mind, bound to a tiny body, grasps at realms encompassed by vast empty space; yet whether small or great, none lies outside the fundamental mind. Thus, one should know that our true mind is like boundless empty space, while the emptiness of the deluded body is like the space within a cup.

Our mind is vast and without boundary, pervading all empty space, all lands as numerous as motes of dust, and all the physical bodies of sentient beings throughout the ten directions and the three periods of time. All arise from deluded thoughts. Even if one wished to seek a single dharma outside the mind, it could never be found.

How, then, could it be said that the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss is outside the mind? Even though one gives rise to all kinds of deluded and inverted thoughts, one still cannot leave the mind to seek anything; how much less could the adornment of pure practices, birth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, and liberation from birth and death be sought outside the mind?

“The sutra says: ‘Within delusion, awakening is recognized; obscurity becomes empty space. Within that obscurity and emptiness, darkness congeals into form. Form mingles with deluded thought, and the appearance of thought becomes the body.

Conditions gather within and cause movement; they run outward unrestrained after appearances. One takes this obscurity to be the nature of the mind. Once deluded, one firmly mistakes the mind as being within the physical body, not knowing that everything outside the physical body—even the mountains, rivers, and the great earth—is nothing other than an object within the Wondrously Luminous True Mind.

This is like abandoning hundreds of thousands of great oceans and recognizing only a single bubble, regarding it as the whole ocean in the fullness of its wondrous functions. Such a person is truly doubly deluded, no different from my hand. The Wondrous Mind of Luminous Awakening pervades the lands of the ten directions, sustains the lands of the Tathagatas throughout the ten directions, and adorns the pure realm of the King of Wondrous Awakening.

The empty space of the ten directions arises within your mind like a small wisp of cloud suspended in the blue sky—how much more so the worlds contained within empty space!’”

If we contemplate the meaning of the passage from the Surangama Sutra cited above, we see that the lands throughout the ten directions of space, together with their dependent and direct recompenses, form and mind, are all fully present within us. I now resolutely seek rebirth in a land that is inherent within me and seek to behold a Buddha who is inherently present; how could I fail to succeed, and how could this be called seeking externally?

Since I have made the vow to seek, my mind can evoke a response; therefore, that Buddha manifests for me. This is precisely the manifestation of the Mind and Buddha originally present within my own home. Since Mind and Buddha are true and real, how can this be called seeking externally?

If one does not seek externally, then when that Buddha appears, it is one’s own mind that appears; and when one’s own mind appears, that Buddha also appears. Thus, my mind is precisely the mind of that Buddha, and that Buddha is precisely the Buddha of my Mind—one essence, not two—because the nature is originally perfectly interfused. Why, then, would one take the Buddha of the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss within that mind and falsely insist upon a separate Buddha who is Mind-Only?

Someone further asks: “Even the deluded mind fully contains the dharmas of dependent and direct recompense; why, then, must people be told to seek an external realm?”

Answer: “Although the deluded mind fully contains all dharmas of dependent and direct recompense, how could it not also contain the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss? If one knows the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss to be a real realm, just as the Saha world is, it can be sought because the mind fully contains it. If one says that this mind is true suchness and that outside the mind there is no real realm, while this realm is merely an imagined projection of the deluded mind, then how could it truly exist and be called something fully contained by the mind?

The mind that accords with its realm is called the true mind; the mind that departs from its realm is called the deluded mind. Thus, although true and deluded mind are alike in essence, they differ precisely according to whether they accord with or depart from the realm. Therefore, it is said that by according one attains, while by departing one loses; one must accord with what is right and depart from what is wrong.

This meaning is perfectly clear. For example, when Dharma Master Shaokang recited the Buddha’s name, with every utterance a Buddha appeared from his mouth, one following another like a string of jewels. These Buddhas even possessed complete physical marks, and everyone in the Buddha-recitation assembly could see them.

Since the Buddha possessed form, how could the Buddha-land not truly exist? If one says that it exists in terms of phenomena but not in terms of principle, or claims that every place is itself the Pure Land, how pitiable! Such people are deeply deluded and find it difficult to relinquish their error.

In former times, when National Teacher Nanyang presented Chan practitioners with the koan ‘insentient beings expound the Dharma,’ although he did not specifically address the essential purport of the Pure Land teaching, he nevertheless lamented that people in the latter age followed conditioned shadows in their search for the Buddha. This is sufficient to clarify the matter.”

3. Reproving Misunderstandings

The Buddha-Recitation Samadhi is called the king of all samadhis because its realm is exceedingly profound, and those of limited wisdom find it difficult to comprehend its ultimate meaning. From ancient times to the present, the great masters who transmitted this teaching have not all explained it in the same way. The Tiantai school expounded it with great completeness; the masters of the Huayan school each elucidated it according to their particular strengths; and our own Chan school revealed it even more distinctly.

Yet later students, being of limited faculties, have not found the way of return. Since they have not even entered the gate, how could they enter the inner chamber? Unable to find the entrance, they form many divergent views.

They then take the Sixth Patriarch’s statements on the Pure Land in the Platform Sutra of the Dharma Treasure and, with confused understanding, produce divergent interpretations by clinging to the words, saying that there is no Pure Land and no need to seek rebirth there. They do not realize that our great master spoke according to the capacities of those before him, while the true meaning of his words always accorded with the purport of the sutras.

Even if one follows his words literally, he taught, ‘Do not seek rebirth in the Pure Land.’ This statement clearly does not deny the existence of the Pure Land. Since the Pure Land exists, the principle of seeking rebirth there is self-evident. Why, then, do beginners mistake the finger for the moon?

According to the Great Master’s words: ‘Deluded people recite the Buddha’s name and seek rebirth in that land; awakened people purify their own minds.’ He also said: ‘People of the East whose minds are pure are free of transgression, while even people of the West whose minds are impure are at fault. When people of the East commit transgressions, they recite the Buddha’s name and seek rebirth in the West; when people of the West commit transgressions, in what land do they seek rebirth?

Ordinary people do not understand and do not recognize the Pure Land within their own bodies, so they make vows toward the East or the West. For awakened people, it is the same wherever they may be.’ He further said: ‘Whether the Pure Land is described as near or far depends solely upon the differing wholesome roots of sentient beings; thus, Buddha-lands appear near or far accordingly.’ When he said that there was no need to seek rebirth, his essential purpose was to teach sentient beings to put a permanent end to the ten evils and the eight wrongs, and to cultivate fully the ten wholesome deeds and the Noble Eightfold Path.

He also pointed directly to the supremely subtle ground of mind, which is not apart from this very body; only delusion and awakening differ. If awakened, one constantly practices loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, enabling the body to become virtuous, upright, and impartial. To be thus is to be Avalokitesvara, Mahasthamaprapta, Sakyamuni, and Amitabha.

If deluded, one discriminates between self and others, and the distinctions of deviant thought, falsehood, and defilement arise; these are precisely the realms of Mount Sumeru, the oceans, heavens, dragons, ghosts, and hells.

We now clearly understand that the Great Master’s purport was that, if one purifies oneself, then wherever one dwells will also be pure. This is truly identical in meaning to the occasion in the Vimalakirti assembly when the True Buddha pressed his toe upon the earth and transformed the defiled land into a pure land, whereupon everyone in the great assembly saw themselves seated upon precious lotus blossoms. These meanings are truly not two.

Therefore, the sutra says that when one’s own mind is pure, the Buddha-land is pure. This explanation sufficiently demonstrates that the Great Master’s teaching accords completely with the Buddha’s mind and the purport of the scriptures. It is simply that when sages expound the Dharma, their refutational and affirmative expressions are not always the same.

Those who have not attained their level should not seize upon words of refutation and thereby deceive themselves.

Moreover, throughout the teachings of the Great Canon, when expressed in terms of refutation, all things are denied—so what need is there to seek rebirth? When expressed affirmatively, however, all things are established—so one must seek rebirth. These two modes of teaching both issued from the Buddha’s mouth, and their meanings are not at all contradictory.

How could one cling one-sidedly to the words of refutation and immediately discard the affirmative teaching concerning the meaning of seeking rebirth in the Pure Land? If the Great Master had truly taught directly that one need not abandon the defiled land and choose the pure land, but need only purify one’s own mind, then he should simply have told everyone to purify the mind; why would he also have instructed people to end all evil karma and cultivate all wholesome karma?

Since he instructed everyone to end evil and practice goodness, it is perfectly clear that, with regard to lands, one must abandon the defiled—the evil—and choose the pure—the good. Therefore, when the Buddha spoke in the mode of refutation, it was precisely to reveal the affirmative teaching of seeking rebirth in the Pure Land. When he spoke affirmatively, it was precisely so that, through the refutational teaching, one might realize non-arising.

It should be understood that when the Great Master of Caoxi taught people that if the causal ground of their own minds is first purified, then the resultant realm will naturally be pure, and that there is no need to seek rebirth, these were words of negation intended as instruction. When Patriarch Huiyuan of Mount Lu taught people to enter the Buddha’s pure resultant realm so that the causal ground of the mind would naturally become pure, and taught that they must seek rebirth, these were words of affirmation.

The Buddha and the patriarchs taught the Dharma of cause and effect without duality, neither before nor after; these two meanings have never been separate. Although they guided people to enter by different approaches, the essence of the Dharma is fundamentally one. Why, then, do people today, upon hearing words of negation, immediately regard them as correct, yet upon hearing words of affirmation, immediately regard them as wrong, thereby creating their own obstructions and falling back?

This is truly lamentable. They do not understand that the Great Master’s words of negation, saying there was no need to seek rebirth in the Pure Land, were precisely intended to reveal the affirmative teaching that one should seek rebirth in the Pure Land.

Moreover, throughout his lifetime of proclaiming the teachings, Śākyamuni Buddha taught them in many periods and many divisions, yet all possessed the single flavor of liberation. When expounding the exoteric teachings, he mostly praised the exoteric teaching; when explaining the meaning of the esoteric, he especially extolled the esoteric teaching. Each school speaks particularly of its own aspect according to its guiding principle, but how could the Buddha have spoken of the wondrous teaching as belonging exclusively to any one approach?

He merely wished to accord with people’s capacities, enabling sentient beings to recognize, receive, and uphold the teaching single-mindedly and without hesitation. Now, at the end of the Semblance Dharma age, those who uphold their schools and study the teachings surely have their own principles to elucidate. The Sixth Patriarch wished to propagate the samadhi of the single practice, whose principle transcends all vehicles.

Patriarch Huiyuan of Mount Lu wished solely to proclaim the Buddha-recollection Samadhi, enabling practitioners to transcend the three realms by the horizontal path; both sought to gather in beings of every capacity. How could later students presumptuously form two kinds of attachment? They must examine this point carefully.

He further said: “Whether one is in the East or the West, if the mind is pure, there is no offense; if the mind is impure, there is fault.” This shows that in the East the environment is evil and harsh, the Buddha has entered nirvana, and it is difficult to purify the mind. It is like people living amid worldly life: the burning house blazes ten thousand times over, and even if they strive to cultivate, their practice is lost.

It is also like a small stone dropped into water, which immediately sinks. Therefore, one must seek rebirth in the West, where Amitābha Buddha and the assembly of sages are presently abiding. There the environment is supremely excellent and cultivation is easy, like a lost child who has returned and is personally instructed by the Buddha, or like a monastic dwelling in a monastery, where wholesome conditions are complete and there is no retrogression.

Therefore, upon being born in that land, the mind is purified and there is no fault, just as a great stone placed aboard a boat does not sink when it enters the water.

Furthermore, in principle, East and West are fundamentally of one essence. In that Buddha’s land, not only are the objects and wisdom supremely excellent, but, most importantly, the Buddha is presently teaching the Dharma and can eliminate every mistaken path, fault, and offense. The mind will certainly become pure, and practitioners can advance to the stages of the sages.

Therefore, one must leave the Sahā world far behind and seek rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Those of supreme capacity, such as the Sixth Patriarch of Caoxi, can still enter the ocean of suffering of birth and death, seek out the cries of those in anguish, and teach sentient beings—why would they need to seek rebirth? But if those whose power of the Way is insufficient insist on imitating the earlier awakened ones, neither seeking rebirth themselves nor teaching others to seek rebirth, they will certainly be like someone trying to rescue a drowning person while unable to swim and having no boat or raft: both will drown.

Is this not truly lamentable?

Moreover, our Great Master was the Sixth Patriarch to receive the Dharma and transmit the Chan school, and all his words elucidated the Chan of Patriarch Bodhidharma. For example, he said: “If the mind is already impartial, why labor to observe the precepts? If conduct is already upright, what need is there to practice meditation?” It would be wrong to rely on these words and then say that there is no need to observe the precepts or practice meditation.

Such people do not understand that if the mind is truly impartial in the proper sense, then there is nothing toward which one is not impartial. If self and others are regarded impartially, how could one kill them to nourish oneself, steal their possessions for one’s own benefit, discriminate the characteristics of male and female in order to engage in sexual misconduct, speak untruthful words, or drink alcohol and thereby intoxicate and delude oneself?

When the impartial mind is free from every characteristic of violating these precepts, all the precepts are contained within it. How could one completely dispense with observing the precepts, rob others, kill people, commit all manner of evil deeds, and still claim that one’s mind is impartial? Thus it should be understood that the statement, “If the mind is impartial, why labor to observe the precepts?” fully reveals the great precepts.

“Dhyāna” is a Sanskrit word translated as “pure contemplation”; it is also called right concentration or the samadhi of the single practice. How could anyone say that their conduct is upright while their mind is restless with thoughts, while even in concentration they are not upright, and while their actions are not unified? Thus it should be understood that the words concerning what need there is to practice meditation point precisely to the sublime state of meditative concentration.

It should be understood that the Great Master’s practice transcended gods and humans. During the Semblance Dharma age, fearing that later students would cling to dharmas and thereby defile the essence of the precepts, he said within the teaching of the precepts, “There is no need to labor at observing the precepts”; and within the realm of meditation, he said, “Why make use of meditation practice?” Following this same intent, concerning the very place where one should seek rebirth in the Pure Land, he said that one need not seek rebirth.

Later students, however, became attached and deluded, saying that there truly is no need to seek rebirth. This is extremely foolish, for the Great Master’s words were admonitions expressed in reverse, intended to enable students to recognize ultimate reality. The patriarchs’ instructions were sometimes expressed directly and sometimes inversely, but all were simply means of showing people how to advance in cultivation.

Whether expressed directly or inversely, they accorded with the capacities of people at that time; in truth, there was no fixed Dharma. For example, the saying “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha” means only to destroy the deluded conception in which a Buddha appears; it does not mean actually killing the Buddha. If the words “kill the Buddha” were literal, would Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva’s taking up the sword also mean that he truly intended to kill the Buddha?

If people follow the words of the ancients without understanding the minds of the ancients and take literally the statement that there is no need to seek rebirth in the Pure Land, they are precisely those who regard the precious, supreme ghee of this world as poison.

Therefore, the Great Master taught the perfectly wondrous principle of that other shore: within birth, he spoke of non-birth; within non-cultivation and non-attainment, he spoke of cultivation and attainment. Neither extreme can be grasped, and even the Middle Way does not remain, allowing the perfect and sudden Dharma gate of the teaching vehicle to reveal itself naturally. It is like suspending the sun and moon above a dark road so that they illuminate every place.

Thus it is said that the Chan school has not yet completely exhausted the purport of the Buddha-recollection Samadhi. For this reason, Daochuo of Hexi, Shandao of Chang’an, Chan Master Xinyuan, Zhijue, and Cijue were all successors in the Chan school who propagated the Pure Land teaching. Daozhen and Huaiyu practiced the Pure Land path and taught it to others.

Chan Master Yuanzhao and his fellow Chan masters cultivated the Pure Land path, and all had verifiable experiences of its benefits. Moreover, the Baizhang Rules of Purity records that, when praying for the well-being of a sick monk, one must recite Pure Land sutras and recollect the Buddha; and when conducting the cremation of a deceased monk, one must invoke the Buddha’s name and recite invocations wishing for rebirth in the Pure Land.

These matters remain recorded in the Chan Rules of Purity; how could they be false?

4. Presenting the Essential Point of Contemplative Wisdom that Illuminates the Mind

The samadhi of mindfulness of the Buddha truly has the power to lead all sentient beings beyond the three realms and provides a direct path to rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. It was first proclaimed by the Buddha on Vulture Peak; afterward, at Mount Lu, Great Master Huiyuan further established its rites and methods. It was praised throughout the ten directions and transmitted and upheld by the patriarchs.

From ancient times to the present, the patriarchs of the various schools have propagated the Pure Land teaching, yet their expositions have not been uniform, making it difficult for later students to comprehend them thoroughly. Only the teaching of the Three Contemplations of the Tiantai school has principles that encompass all the sutras and far surpass ordinary discourse. If those who follow this teaching attain its essential purport, its benefit is truly inconceivable.

Therefore, later students should take these Three Contemplations as their boat and raft for proceeding directly to the other shore.

The Three Contemplations mean that a single thought is simultaneously empty, provisional, and the Middle. While dwelling in the world, the Tathagata skillfully revealed this teaching, but it was not until Great Master Zhizhe that it was fully and perfectly awakened to. Thus, when emptiness is taught, all is empty; when provisional existence is taught, all is provisional; and when the Middle is taught, all is the Middle.

They simultaneously refute and establish, yet are simultaneously beyond refutation and establishment. Perfect and complete, without opposition, they are difficult to conceive and difficult to discuss. They gather the profound gateways of all divisions of the scriptures, illuminate the objects and wisdom of Buddhas and sentient beings, penetrate the ultimate source of the myriad dharmas, and reveal the perfectly integrated practice of the Pure Land school.

Without this teaching of the Three Contemplations, the samadhi of mindfulness of the Buddha would remain in some respect incomplete.

Great Master Siming elucidated the wondrous purport in order to instruct later students. Now, employing his words to seek rebirth in the Pure Land, one finds that nothing lies outside it—not the minor wholesome deeds of the world, nor those contemplative practices. If the profound purport of the Sutra of the Sixteen Contemplations is not explained through the Mahayana teaching of the perfectly wondrous Three Contemplations, thereby enabling people to awaken and begin the practice, on what could they rely to attain rebirth there?

The first of the Sixteen Contemplations is the Contemplation of the Setting Sun. Its purpose is to present a simple method of contemplation that directs one’s thoughts toward that Buddha. Although beginners in the practice know that the faculties and their objects are all the Dharma-realm, the power of their contemplation remains weak, and thus the sublime realm is difficult to manifest.

Therefore, the Tathagata established an extraordinary expedient, taking the setting sun as the object of contemplation, so that when contemplation of the sun is initiated, its wondrous principle may be revealed. One understands that this contemplating mind inherently possesses all dharmas of both the dependent and primary recompenses. Now, with this mind that contemplates the sun, one takes as its object the sun within one’s own mind, causing the sun’s inherent nature to appear clearly before one’s eyes.

This is to use the mind of the Dharma-realm to apprehend an object of the Dharma-realm, from which the sun of the Dharma-realm arises. Since all is the Dharma-realm, how could it not itself be emptiness, provisional existence, and the Middle? Here they are indicated collectively as being fully present.

If one speaks specifically of employing the Three Contemplations to accomplish the practice of contemplating the sun, then by taking the faculties and their objects as empty and quiescent, mind and sun are unobstructed; by taking dependent origination as provisionally established, the contemplation continues uninterrupted and causes the sun to arise; and because this mind and sun are none other than the Dharma-realm, the contemplation of the sun is accomplished immediately in its very essence.

Thus, the Three Contemplations abide together within the single mind: neither one nor three, yet one and three—an inconceivable reality. The contemplation of the sun is thus, and the other contemplations are likewise. One should therefore know that all sixteen contemplations employ the contemplation of forms as empty, provisional, and the Middle according to the Three Contemplations in a Single Mind.

Next, in contemplating clear water, one further visualizes it becoming ice. Because the ground of that land is made of lapis lazuli and is difficult to visualize, one is taught first to visualize ice. Once the visualization of ice has been accomplished, the jeweled ground of that land can be seen.

As above, seeing the sun and the ice serves as an expedient. Next come the contemplations of the ground, the trees, and the ponds. Of the sixteen contemplations, the first six contemplate the dependent recompense of the Pure Land.

The contemplation of the lotus thrones concerns that upon which the bodies of the Three Sages depend. The contemplation of their precious images concerns the true forms of the Three Sages. To contemplate the Buddha, one must first contemplate the lotus throne; because the real Buddha is difficult to contemplate, one must first contemplate his image.

From the contemplation of the lotus throne through the thirteenth contemplation, these seven contemplations all concern the primary recompense of the Land of Ultimate Bliss. The final three contemplations explain the beings reborn from this world into the Land of Ultimate Bliss in the three grades and nine levels. Because the causes cultivated by practitioners are not the same, the resulting fruits they experience also differ.

These three contemplations also enable practitioners to understand the higher and lower distinctions among the three grades, so that they may relinquish the middle and lower grades, cultivate the highest grade, and attain rebirth in its highest level.

In each contemplation, the sutra indicates the characteristics of the object, which one should retain in mind as the object contemplated. Yet one should understand that the mind inherently possesses the dharma of each contemplation; the external object is merely borrowed to complete the visualization and reveal the mind’s eye. Thus, the title of the sutra states, “The Buddha Speaks the Sutra on the Contemplation of Amitayus,” directly indicating this Buddha as the object of contemplation.

The primary recompense encompasses the dependent recompense, and the name of the transforming lord includes his entire assembly. Although there are sixteen contemplations, the word “Buddha” encompasses them all. Therefore, it is essential to contemplate that Buddha.

To contemplate that Buddha, one must first contemplate his physical body as vast as empty space, upright, majestic, subtle, and wondrous. Each part of his body possesses 84,000 marks; each mark possesses 84,000 excellent characteristics; and each excellent characteristic radiates 84,000 rays of light. Within each ray of light are many oceans of worlds.

Within those oceans of worlds are all the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and members of the Sangha, as numerous as motes of dust—so vast that they cannot be fully described. One must retain and visualize these things until they are seen by the mind’s eye. Having seen them, one immediately sees all the Buddhas of the ten directions.

Because one sees all the Buddhas, this is called the samadhi of mindfulness of the Buddha. To perform this contemplation is called contemplating the bodies of all Buddhas. Because one contemplates the Buddha’s body, one also sees the Buddha’s mind.

The Buddha’s mind is great loving-kindness and compassion: unconditional loving-kindness that receives and guides sentient beings. Those who accomplish this contemplation will, upon relinquishing their recompense-body, be born in their next life before the Buddha and attain patience with the non-arising of dharmas.

Those who contemplate Amitayus Buddha must enter through one excellent mark. They need only contemplate clearly and distinctly the white curl between his eyebrows. Upon seeing this white curl between his eyebrows, the 84,000 excellent marks will naturally become clearly manifest.

To see Amitayus Buddha is to see the innumerable Buddhas throughout the ten directions. Because one sees innumerable Buddhas, one receives predictions of awakening in the presence of those Buddhas. This is the comprehensive contemplation of all the marks of the physical body.

One should know that among the sixteen wondrous contemplations, visualization of the Buddha is essential. Because contemplating all eighty thousand excellent marks is extremely difficult to accomplish, one is instructed to contemplate the white-curl mark between the eyebrows as being like five Mount Sumerus. If this visualization is accomplished, all eighty thousand marks and 84,000 excellent characteristics will become manifest.

This, therefore, is the essential contemplative method. If, through practicing the preceding contemplations, one’s mind has become keen and one’s contemplation broad and profound, one may take the white curl as the object of contemplation, causing all 84,000 marks and characteristics to become manifest. The Commentary states: “Those who have only just begun and have not practiced the preceding contemplations, or who have practiced them but have not yet accomplished them, should select just one mark of the Buddha’s body so that beginners may contemplate it and attain samadhi.”

Master Ciyun instructed practitioners to visualize Amitabha Buddha, his body sixteen feet tall, seated upon a lotus flower, and to concentrate the mind exclusively upon the white urna between his eyebrows. This light is fifteen feet long and five inches in circumference, with eight facets on the outside and hollow within, spiraling to the right. Situated between the eyebrows, it is radiant, clear, and translucent beyond description, illuminating the face so brilliantly that every feature can be seen distinctly.

When practicing this contemplation, one must apply the mind and sustain the visualization firmly without wavering. Once this visualization is accomplished, samadhi manifests before one. Therefore, the Sutra on the Samadhi of Contemplating the Buddha states: “If a person safeguards the mindfulness wholeheartedly, sits upright, and contemplates the Buddha’s physical form, one should know that this person’s mind is like the Buddha’s mind and is no different from the Buddha.

Although dwelling amid worldly defilements, one is not obscured by the various defilements. One who practices this contemplation is one who is truly mindful of the Buddha. One should know that the merit of contemplating the Buddha is this immense.” Furthermore, the excellent marks and radiant light of that Blessed One are subtle, wondrous, and vast, while the minds of sentient beings are narrow and their visualization is difficult to accomplish.

Therefore, before teaching contemplation of the Buddha’s true body, the Buddha first instructed them to contemplate an image of the Buddha seated upon a throne. They must first contemplate the throne; only after contemplation of the throne has been accomplished should they visualize the Buddha. The sutra teaches: “The Tathagatas, the Buddhas, possess the body of the Dharma realm, which enters the minds and thoughts of all sentient beings.

Therefore, when you visualize the Buddha, that mind is endowed with the thirty-two excellent marks and the eighty minor characteristics. That mind makes the Buddha; that mind is the Buddha. The ocean of the Buddhas’ right and universal knowledge arises from the mind’s visualization.

Therefore, you must single-mindedly safeguard the mindfulness and steadfastly contemplate that Buddha.”

The body of the Dharma realm is the Buddha’s reward body of Dharma-nature. The complete fulfillment of initial awakening is called the reward Buddha, while the ultimate revelation of original awakening is called the body of Dharma-nature. When initial awakening and original awakening unite, responsive functions can arise; yet if there were no invocation from sentient beings, how could the Buddhas respond? That which invokes is like water, and that which responds is like the sun. Thus, initial awakening united with original awakening is like the cloudless sky at noon; it can therefore enter pure visualization, just as moonlight appears in a hundred rivers. There is invocation and there is response; the union of these two is the meaning of entering the minds and thoughts of sentient beings.

Furthermore, the body of the Dharma realm is the Buddha’s body, which is universally present everywhere; hence it takes the Dharma realm as its essence. If one can attain this samadhi of contemplating the Buddha, the discerning mind of contemplation enters the Buddha’s original essence. The Buddha’s original essence enters this discerning mind of contemplation: this is initial awakening revealing original awakening, and thus original awakening in turn enters initial awakening.

There is discernment and there is entry; the two correspond with each other. This is what is meant by entering the minds and thoughts of sentient beings. One should therefore understand that the present contemplative mind does not contemplate the Buddha of one’s original nature within the skandha-mind, but merely relies on speaking of another Buddha to reveal one’s own original nature.

Thus, one must first clearly understand that the responsive Buddha enters one’s own mind and thought; next, one must clearly understand that the Buddha is entirely original awakening and is therefore revealed through the responsive Buddha. When one knows that one’s own original awakening is inherently luminous, the meaning of relying on what is external is fulfilled, and contemplation of mind-only is established. These two meanings together constitute this method of contemplation.

The sutra states: “That mind makes the Buddha; that mind is the Buddha.” The reason contemplation of the Buddha is taught here is to clarify the purport of cultivation and nature. “Making the Buddha” has two meanings: 1. A pure mind can invoke a responsive manifestation of a Buddha in another realm.

This means that the Dharma bodies of the Buddhas have no physical characteristics; yet because the minds of sentient beings are pure and perfume the Dharma body in accordance with karmic consciousness, they can behold the Buddha’s supremely excellent physical characteristics appearing in response. 2. Samadhi can accomplish one’s own fruit of Buddhahood. This means that sentient beings use a pure mind to perfect the samadhi of contemplating the Buddha, and thereby can ultimately bring themselves to attain the fruit of Buddhahood.

Of these two meanings, the former is making the other Buddha, while the latter is making the Buddha within oneself. One should therefore know that realization of the fruit of Buddhahood does not occur naturally; rather, it is revealed through the practice in which one’s entire nature becomes cultivation. It does not mean that the virtue of one’s nature is naturally and by itself already the Buddha.

“Is the Buddha” also has two meanings:

1. The mind is the responsive Buddha: As explained above, the Buddha is originally without characteristics but appears through the invocation of the mind. Thus, the mind and the Buddha, existence and nonexistence, seem clearly distinct. Yet when this attachment to views is relinquished, the mind of sentient beings is wholly the responsive Buddha; therefore, apart from this mind, there is no Buddha.

2. The mind is the fruit of Buddhahood: Since it is said that the mind is the fruit of Buddhahood, one should know that there is no cause that newly produces Buddhahood, for within the minds of sentient beings the Tathagata is already seated in the full lotus posture. Why wait until the future to attain the fruit of Buddhahood?

Of these two meanings, the first concerns the responsive Buddha and the second the fruit of Buddhahood. One should know that the fruit of Buddhahood is originally complete and is not produced through conditions. In “making” there is “being”: the entirety of cultivation becomes nature and reveals it; Buddhahood is not produced by the causes and conditions of cultivated virtue.

If “making” is used to elucidate the three contemplations, then neither negating nor provisionally establishing is called “making,” and this belongs to the contemplation of the two extremes. If one negates without establishing, this is called “being,” the fruit of the Middle Way. When “being” is wholly “making,” all three truths both negate and establish.

When “making” is wholly “being,” all three truths are beyond both negation and establishment. The emptiness of the middle and the provisional is termed “making,” for it can eliminate the three delusions and establish the three Dharmas; it therefore invokes the three bodies, responds with the complete three bodies, and can bring the three bodies of our own mind to fruition. This is precisely the middle of emptiness and the provisional: the entirety of invocation is wisdom, and the entirety of obstruction is virtue.

Therefore, the mind is the responsive Buddha, and the mind is the fruit of Buddhahood. One should know that the meanings of “making” and “being,” cultivated single-mindedly, constitute the inconceivable three contemplations, for they are the total substance of the sixteen contemplations and the wondrous tenet of the entire sutra. The passage excerpted here gathers together the meanings of the beginning and the end.

Practitioners must therefore use this principle to cultivate the cause of the Pure Land. Someone may ask: Why not follow the sutra’s words and rely solely on phenomenal visualization to be born directly in the Pure Land? Why reveal the method of wisdom-contemplation, making it difficult for beginners to enter?

Answer: Phenomenal contemplation and wisdom, down to even the smallest wholesome deed performed by a person, can all lead to birth in the Pure Land if practiced with single-mindedness. They differ only in being coarse or subtle. At the coarse level, there is merely phenomenal visualization; at the subtle level, there is concentration of the mind.

The Commentary on the Contemplation Sutra states: “This is because perfect understanding is entirely different from the Lesser Vehicle. The Lesser Vehicle is ignorant of mind-only and regards the Buddha as existing externally; therefore, the essences of mind and Buddha are not identical. Practitioners of the Mahayana know that their single mind is endowed with Buddha-nature.

By relying upon an object to cultivate contemplation, the Buddha’s form immediately manifests. We now contemplate Amitabha’s circumstantial and direct recompenses as conditions that perfume the mind-nature. Since the mind-nature is already endowed with the circumstantial and direct recompenses of the Land of Ultimate Bliss, they arise through this perfuming.

What arises was originally inherent within the mind; how could it ever be separate from the mind-nature? The whole mind is Buddha, and the whole Buddha is mind. To contemplate the mind throughout the day is to contemplate the Buddha throughout the day.

This purport is truly clear.”

Furthermore, one should clearly understand that the perfectly interfused and inconceivable essence of the Dharma realm constitutes our single thought of mind. It takes its own essence to form sentient beings, Buddhas, dependent recompense, direct recompense, faculties, and objects. A single mind, a single mote of dust, even the smallest infinitesimal particle—all are the Dharma realm, formed wholly from its entire essence.

Since to form one dharma is to form the entire Dharma realm, each single part perfectly encompasses the entirety of the Dharma realm. Since it is the entire Dharma realm, what could it possibly lack? Throughout all places, all dharmas are Buddha-Dharma.

Therefore, one should know that sentient beings are the Buddha’s inherent virtues: neither self nor other, neither cause nor effect, but precisely the essence of the Perfect, Eternal, Greatly Awakened One. One should know that the fruit of Buddhahood is the essence of perfect illumination, while we ordinary beings inherently possess these virtues of the nature. Therefore, the four kinds of samadhi are collectively called the Buddha-recollection samadhi.

If, in this contemplation, one keeps the body amid the dependent and direct recompense of the Land of Peace and Bliss, employs subtle and wondrous contemplation, concentrates upon Amitabha, and reveals the essence of the true Buddha, then although one keeps the body amid those objects of contemplation, one should know that dependent and direct recompense alike abide within the single mind. The mind-nature pervades everywhere: there is no dharma it cannot produce and no dharma it does not fully contain.

If even the slightest dharma were born from outside the mind, this could not be called a Mahayana contemplation.

The Humane Kings Prajnaparamita Sutra says: “The Buddha asked King Prasenajit, ‘By what characteristics do you contemplate the Tathagata?’ The king replied, ‘I contemplate the body’s true characteristic, and I contemplate the Buddha in the same way. It has no beginning boundary, middle boundary, or final boundary; it neither abides in the three boundaries nor departs from them. It neither abides in the five skandhas nor departs from them; neither abides in the four great elements nor departs from them; neither abides in the six ayatanas nor departs from them; neither abides in the three realms nor departs from them.

It is not reached through seeing, hearing, understanding, or knowing. Where the activities of mind cease and verbal expression comes to an end, it accords with the true limit of the nature of all dharmas. By these characteristics do I contemplate the body of the Tathagata.’ The Buddha said, ‘You should contemplate in precisely this way.

Any other contemplation is called erroneous contemplation.’” The meaning of this passage provides perfectly clear testimony.

Question: If matters are as explained above, why not contemplate directly the wondrous reality of the true body and that land? Why does the Contemplation Sutra first instruct people to contemplate an image of the Buddha?

Answer: The Teacher of the Saha world praised the Land of Ultimate Bliss because he wished to guide sentient beings out of the five turbidities. Before teaching them to contemplate the Dharma-body, sixty myriads of kotis of nayutas of yojanas in height, he first employed a jeweled image standing upon a lotus blossom, intending to open a skillful means and teach people to contemplate from the coarse to the subtle. Next, he employed an image one zhang and eight chi in height to accommodate ordinary beings of lesser capacity, teaching them to contemplate from the small to the great.

This is because coarse and subtle visualizations differ, yet both proceed from the nature to initiate cultivation. Although the forms differ in size, both are traces issuing from the same source. Since the nature that performs the contemplation is from the outset without difference, why should the contemplated objects need to be measured against one another?

Therefore, when the perfect and sudden teaching is reached, a single utterance is sufficient to encompass everything. Although its instruction unfolds in stages, it is not gradual; it accords with differing capacities without falling into partiality. It opens wide every gateway of contemplation and wholly reveals the true characteristic.

Is this not the very source from which the teaching through images emerged? This is the direct purport of the Buddha-recollection samadhi. Its earlier and later teachings are nondual; it is the Way of the perfect and sudden Mahayana, like the sun and moon illuminating the whole world.

It enables everyone to understand that the true mind and the deluded mind are one yet not identical, while the principle encompasses them both completely. One may say that without departing from daily activities, understanding and practice, contemplation and wisdom, can all be fulfilled. How could those wishing to learn fail to devote their whole hearts and minds to its practice?

5. The Correct Contemplation of Buddha-Recollection in the Sacred-Image Practice Hall

In general, the samadhi of contemplative wisdom must employ the purport of this contemplative wisdom to contemplate the dependent and direct recompense of that Land of Ultimate Bliss, causing the mind to become thoroughly trained, until mind and object are one principle and one attains direct birth in that land. The correct contemplation in the practice hall is undertaken for this purpose. Yet even when one has realized the purport of contemplative wisdom, because the six faculties still retain sensory objects, regression may sometimes occur.

Therefore, within a practice hall containing sacred images, even its adornments and articles of offering should be contemplated as one in essence with the dependent and direct recompense of the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Although practitioners have not yet departed from the Saha world, through this unified contemplation of mind, it is as though they have already been born in the Pure Land; when their lives approach their end, they will certainly obtain a response.

When practitioners perform repentance, purify the practice hall, arrange adornments and articles of offering—even a single stick of incense or a single flower—what is not the principle of those three truths? If they do not integrate all such phenomenal truths and principles, contemplating them with correct mindfulness and directing their excellent practice toward its proper destination, then the perfect and sudden Way of the Mahayana cannot be disclosed.

In that Buddha’s land are immeasurable articles of adornment, all established through practice when that Buddha first cultivated the bodhisattva path. When the resultant land manifested, its adornments therefore became supremely wondrous beyond measure. By contemplating the fruit now, we understand the cause and thus know that every adornment in a samadhi practice hall is no different from the causes and fruits of that Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Does not each one likewise constitute the Great Samadhi and reveal the wondrous, perfectly interfused reality of all Dharma gateways, without differing from the Land of Ultimate Bliss? Oneself and that land alike are fully adorned. These are wondrous bodily characteristics, and the body that makes offerings is neither this nor that, neither one nor many.

Dependent and direct recompense merge with one another, revealing the principle of the Dharma realm, as inconceivable as all Buddha lands. How could these be regarded merely as earth and wood serving as objects of contemplation? One should therefore know that whether object or mind, body or land, all share one free and unobstructed enjoyment.

The sutra says: From the paramitas arise all jeweled canopies. From clear comprehension of all pure realms arise all flowers, banners, and streamers. From the patient acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas arise all garments.

From entering the adamantine Dharma and the unobstructed mind arise all bells and nets. From the mind that understands all dharmas to be like illusions arise all enduring fragrances. From the mind that pervades the realms of all Buddhas and the seat of the Tathagata arise all jeweled seats.

From the tireless mind that makes offerings to the Buddhas arise all jeweled banners and streamers. From understanding all dharmas to be like dreams and giving rise to a joyful mind arise all jeweled palaces in the Buddhas’ dwelling places. From non-attachment to roots of goodness arise all clouds of jeweled lotus blossoms.

Through this manner of contemplation, we know that the dependent and direct recompense of the Land of Ultimate Bliss was created by the causal practices of the Tathagata Amitabha and has now been brought to fruition. Since our present practice hall is already a cause of the Pure Land, although its excellence may vary, just as the sea and a bay differ in shape yet share the same body of seawater, how could they not be of one essence?

For this reason, when those in the practice hall employ their six faculties in relation to incense, flowers, lamps, candles, banners, streamers, jeweled canopies, all articles of offering, and even garments, bedding, food, drink, medicines, and other articles of use, every form, every fragrance, and every infinitesimal particle is samadhi and is a Dharma gateway. All enable practitioners to awaken wondrous understanding, realize their own minds, and attain sagehood.

Though they utter no sound, they can still manifest the great Dharma gateway of the Buddha-recollection samadhi. They are also the very bodies of all sentient beings and all Buddhas, wherein objects and wisdom are unobstructed. They can accompany us in practice and become genuine Dharma companions.

Would practitioners dare to regard them lightly and thereby fail to awaken wondrous realization and attain birth in that land?

The scripture teaches: “Meditative concentration keeps the mind constantly upon a single object; wisdom clearly apprehends that the object is identical with samadhi.” The meaning here is likewise. If one can employ this contemplation, faculty and object become one; why then worry that our three karmic activities cannot be cultivated? The instruments of punishment in hell are knives, clubs, swords, and fire.

Because those beings previously created evil causes that set such instruments in motion, they transform into snakes, dogs, insects, and birds, gnawing their bones, drawing out their marrow, and inflicting all manner of suffering upon them. How, then, could the adornments and ritual implements of the Dharma hall, which share the same source as the circumstantial and direct recompenses, not be Dharma gates of liberation that join us in accomplishing samadhi?

Moreover, adorning the Dharma hall with sacred images and ritual implements can inspire people to arouse the resolve and understand the wondrous meaning of liberation. How much more so when we revere the Honored Images and make offerings with utmost sincerity and devotion, regarding them as our father and mother—could all this fail to bring us liberation and swift rebirth in the Land of Peace and Bliss? Furthermore, the image of Amitabha Buddha and those of the two attendant bodhisattvas enshrined in the Dharma hall serve as the principal figures before whom practitioners confess and repent.

The other images are their companions; collectively, these are called the adornments of direct recompense. The remaining adornments are called the adornments of circumstantial recompense. Thus, although the principal and attendant figures and the circumstantial and direct recompenses within the Dharma hall are not equal in coarseness or subtlety to those of the Land of Ultimate Bliss, the principal image possesses spiritual powers and the power of vows identical to those of the Buddha’s true body.

Therefore, reverence brings numinous efficacy, and supplication brings a response—how could there be any difference? Since there is no difference, how could we look upon the image in this Dharma hall merely as something fashioned from wood, glue, plaster, gold, or bronze, and fail to contemplate the Buddha’s true body in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss, complete with his great vows, marks, and excellent characteristics?

If a person, when facing the image in the Dharma hall, cannot perceive the true body, it is because that person’s mind is not unified; samadhi is difficult to accomplish, wondrous realization cannot become profound, and many benefits are thereby lost. This is because the Buddha image we see today and that Buddha’s true body are not two. It is only because Amitabha Buddha’s great compassion universally embraces all that he manifests responsively according to beings’ capacities without there being two bodies: sometimes as a true body, sometimes as a transformation body, and sometimes as an image.

Because the obstructions of our vision remain profound, our perceptions of the one Dharma vary. We call the Buddha’s true body an image; yet know that this image is surely not merely an image! For example, the Contemplation Sutra speaks of the Buddha coming to welcome beings of the three classes and nine grades.

According to each grade, the form in which he appears upon arrival differs from the highest to the lowest; no two grades are the same. We should therefore understand that the form of the Buddha image we see corresponds precisely to our own capacity and to the extent to which our obstructions have been subdued. It is not that the Buddha’s compassion is neither impartial nor universal, causing him to manifest for us images of differing beauty or ugliness.

Although what we see is not always the same—at times the true body, at times a transformation Buddha—it is solely the one essence of Amitabha Buddha.

The scripture teaches: “When a person repenting of visual obstructions has temporarily diminished them and beholds the seated Buddha, that person first sees one Buddha, then two Buddhas. As the obstructions diminish further, that person gradually sees Buddhas filling the realm of empty space. If, with a mind of repentance and aspiration for rebirth, we accord with the principle, we first behold a Buddha image sixteen feet tall and transformation Buddhas; afterward, we may gradually behold the Buddha’s true body, immeasurably vast and lofty.” Just as in the Avatamsaka Assembly, the Buddha’s body was only one, yet the great bodhisattvas saw it as the immeasurably vast body of Vairocana of the Thousand-Petaled Crown;

followers of the Three Vehicles saw the Buddha as the body of an aged bhiksu born in a royal palace; and ordinary beings saw the Buddha as a body molded from clay or carved from wood.

If this were not so, why does the Sutra on the Contemplation of Samantabhadra say: “Merely by repenting of the offenses of the eyes, one is able to see the Buddha”? We should therefore understand that the Buddha is originally one essence; whether one sees the true body or the body of an image depends upon differences in our own perception.

Long ago there was a most filial son whose mother died. He carved an image of her from wood and venerated it morning and evening. This wooden mother even acquired a complexion like that of his real mother.

Later, his jealous wife pierced the mother’s hand with a needle, and tears visibly flowed from the wooden image. If the filial devotion of a worldly son could even move Heaven, how much more could our Buddha, possessed of immeasurable great vows and spiritual powers, cause his true jeweled image to respond—would its responsiveness be inferior to that of a wooden mother? Moreover, from ancient times until the present, there have been countless numinous responses from the making of sacred images: some emitted light, some revealed excellent marks, and some even produced relics from their bodies or remained undamaged when burned by fire or immersed in water.

The recorded accounts are too numerous to relate fully. Thus, the principal image in the Dharma hall is precisely the true form body of Amitabha Tathagata; because our obstructions are many and we cannot perceive it, we merely call it an image. Even if these were only representations, practitioners could still sit before them and contemplate, proceeding from the represented form to behold the true body.

Is this not the wondrous revelation of the Buddha who is identical in essence with all? The scripture says: “The Buddha’s body is pure and pervades every place.” It also says: “All dharmas are the Buddha-Dharma.” Could this image alone somehow not be the Buddha?

Question: Freedom from all marks is called Buddha. Even the Buddha’s body cannot be said to exist; how much less could this image be identical with the Buddha?

Answer: If whatever possesses marks is not the Buddha, this would not apply only to an image; even the reward body of Vairocana would not be the Buddha. If nothing whatsoever is the Buddha, then everything is precisely the Buddha—what place, then, is not the Buddha? If one knows this meaning, one realizes that the Honored Image I now venerate and serve is inseparable from the fundamental vows, fully possesses great spiritual power, and can gather in and receive beings.

All its qualities—the ten powers, the ten fearlessnesses, the eighteen distinctive qualities, great loving-kindness and great compassion, permanence, bliss, self, and purity, and its radiant marks and excellent characteristics—are no different from those of Amitabha Buddha’s true body. When practitioners perform the rites of repentance before it, they are like poor people who have drawn near to an emperor: they constantly harbor reverent awe, hoping to receive his compassionate regard and assistance, yearning to be gathered in and accepted, longing to leave forever the impoverished and starving realm of worldly existence and remain eternally near the sovereign.

How much more so for us, who for countless lives and kalpas have wandered lost and alone, longing to return to our Compassionate Father! This encounter is exceedingly difficult to obtain, yet now we have met him. How could we dare treat it lightly, thereby preventing our supreme practice from advancing and creating obstacles and hardships for ourselves?

Furthermore, practitioners mindful of Amitabha Buddha pray for his compassionate protection. Before the Buddha image, they should imagine that they have encountered the real Buddha, who accepts their sincere confession and repentance. Once he has accepted the practitioners’ repentance, all their grave offenses will surely be extinguished, and they will attain rebirth in the Pure Land.

The repentant mind then gives rise to the joy of liberation, as when a gloomy sky suddenly clears. One gains the Dharma eye, and that Land of Ultimate Bliss appears as though directly before one. We should therefore understand that the true body of the Buddha is exceedingly profound.

Practitioners should simply face the image with wholehearted and utmost sincerity, regard it as the real Buddha, openly disclose their faults and repent, and perform all Buddha-work; they will thereby obtain an immediate response. It is earnestly hoped that you will not give rise to doubt, suspicion, or erroneous understanding.

6. Dispelling the Erroneous View of Attachment to Emptiness

Throughout his lifetime of teaching, Śākyamuni Tathagata’s true teaching concerning the karmic consequences and causes and conditions of wholesome and unwholesome dharmas never changed from beginning to end. Although there are statements transcending the hundred negations, not one of them departs from the Dharma of causes and conditions. In the present age, some people commit deeds that sever wholesome roots and create the gravely evil karma of icchantikas, solely because they do not understand that the Buddhas and patriarchs, for the sake of others, broke attachments and dispelled doubts, using words to untie bonds and loosen knots.

Taking these teachings as their basis, such regressive and obstinately attached people falsely declare: “Apart from this mind, all practices are empty; there is no Buddha and no Dharma, neither good nor evil.” Mistaking deluded consciousness for the true, they say that outside this mind no dharma whatsoever can be obtained. They therefore deny cause and effect, disparage transgression and merit, and say that all images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas are merely things made of gold, silver, copper, tin, clay, stone, and wood.

They claim that the entire treasury of teachings is merely a heap of bamboo strips and palm leaves, all miscellaneous and impure things; that paper and ink are inherently unreal and therefore insufficient to rely upon; and that all merit arising from wholesome deeds must be entirely swept away, calling it attachment to appearances.

Some people specialize in speaking of others’ shortcomings to display their own virtues, or follow the method of investigating the critical phrase and say that one must not cling to anything. They teach everyone that only when inwardly and outwardly empty, pure, and unencumbered can one suddenly attain great awakening. Yet they then continually commit evil deeds of lust, anger, and delusion, saying that such things do not obstruct the Way.

They harm themselves and also harm others. The perverse thoughts within their minds are truly unbearable to hear, like worms within a lion’s body devouring the lion’s own flesh. There are many varieties of such views.

Certainly these are the work of Pāpīyān, the heavenly māra, whose ancient hatred has not yet subsided and who has therefore come to disturb and destroy the Buddhadharma. Today he assumes the appearance of a monastic and wears monastic robes in order to destroy our Dharma. Thus he shows no pity or restraint.

This is truly most grievous!

If such people insist that sacred images are not the Buddha, do they know what the Buddha is? If paper and ink are not sutras, do they know what truly constitutes a sutra? If their own mind is the Buddha, then what thing is not mind?

Why do they single out images of the sages and say that these are not mind and not Buddha? If mind is already Buddha, who is without mind? Why do they single out their own mind as Buddha, yet teach others that images are not the Buddha and scriptures are not sutras?

They do not understand that the minds of sentient beings are wholly immersed in delusion and must therefore borrow the sacred images of the sages and the Dharma of the scriptures as symbols through which the truth is revealed, enabling people to find a basis for realization. Once they have realized it, they know that the true mind of Buddhas and sentient beings is originally equal and pervades all places. A sutra teaches: “The Buddha declared all dharmas empty in order to liberate those attached to existence.

If one then becomes attached to emptiness, one goes against the Buddha’s intent in teaching and transforming beings. It is better to hold a view of existence as immense as Mount Sumeru than a view of emptiness as small as a mustard seed.” Even those who realize the emptiness of dharmas may still remain confined to the Lesser Vehicle. How could they compare with Mahayana bodhisattvas, who proceed from emptiness into existence, realize the conventional and the provisional, and liberate sentient beings in accordance with the Buddha?

Therefore, the Lesser Vehicle’s view of emptiness is precisely what Mahayana bodhisattvas abandon. The Buddha’s teaching of emptiness is not yet the definitive meaning. Furthermore, the Buddha taught the Dharma of emptiness in order to reveal the empty nature.

Because empty nature is not separate from existence, it is called true emptiness. Those who speak of emptiness today believe that only separation from existence can be called emptiness. Their attachment to emptiness becomes the annihilationist view.

This is truly terrifying, like falling into a perilous, deep well and never being able to emerge. Chan Master Yongjia Xuanjue said: “Rejecting existence and clinging to emptiness are the same disease; it is like entering fire to escape drowning.” This is precisely the meaning. In ancient times, Bhikṣu Sunakṣatra falsely taught the Dharma of emptiness, while Bhikṣuṇī Precious Lotus Flower willfully engaged in sexual misconduct.

Both were reborn in hell. Are these not mirrors for later generations? Those who come afterward must see the cart ahead overturn and steer the cart behind away from danger if they wish to escape harm.

When a blind person leads a multitude of the blind, both teacher and disciples sink together. How pitiful indeed!

Furthermore, when a filial child hears that his father has committed an offense, he still remembers the kindness of being given birth and raised and cannot bear to condemn him. How much more should this be true of us, the children of the Buddha, who bear the kindness of his world-transcending liberation? Yet toward images of the Buddha and the Buddha’s Dharma, people wantonly show contempt and disparagement, remaining at ease and unafraid.

This is truly grievous. Such people will certainly fall into the Avīci Hell amid immense mountains of fire, where each must undergo the consequences of the mistaken understanding held today. How could these be false words?

Although Master Danxia and Master Deshan burned wooden Buddha images, and Mañjuśrī brandished a sharp sword, saying that upon encountering a Buddha one should slay the Buddha, these were merely temporary expedients used to break people’s attachments and reveal the true principle. How could such conduct be taken as a model to transmit to later generations? Today, we who are born in a later age fail to understand the skillful means of the ancients and instead swallow their phlegm and spittle.

Deluded in a single direction, we say that demolishing Buddha halls and burning wooden Buddhas is the practice of the ultimate Way. This is an unacceptable inversion. If, according to such claims, mere burning and destruction constitute the Way, then should all the disciples of Śākyamuni throughout the world today, like Mañjuśrī carrying a sharp sword at his side, slay the Buddha when there is a Buddha and destroy sacred images when there is no Buddha, and call that the Way?

Would there then be no need to transmit the Dharma of samādhi and wisdom, while this alone could still be called the Way?

The Buddhadharma has been transmitted in the world entirely through scriptures, sacred images, monastic attire, and dignified deportment. Those who cultivate goodness attain it by relying upon the Dharma. If all these are now discarded, how could the Buddhadharma continue to remain in the world?

Therefore, the Buddha taught in the sutras that failure to treat scriptures and sacred images with utmost sincerity, reverence, and respect already incurs grave offenses. How much more immense, one should understand, is the rebellious offense of contemptuously destroying them. The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wondrous Dharma says: “In the past, when Devadatta was the seer Asita, he was the teacher of Śākyamuni.

During that lifetime, Śākyamuni offered his own body as a bed and seat and served and made offerings to him. Śākyamuni has now perfected the practice of the six pāramitās, acquired excellent marks and a golden complexion, realized the four fearlessnesses and the distinctive qualities, fully attained spiritual powers and the strength of the Way, and become a Buddha who liberates sentient beings. All this was accomplished early through the aid of this spiritual friend, Devadatta.

Yet after Śākyamuni had attained realization, Devadatta injured the Buddha’s little toe and could not escape the sufferings of hell for many kalpas. How much less, after the Buddha’s parinirvana, could those who falsely and deceitfully speak of nonexistence ever escape the consequences of hell?”

Furthermore, the Buddha taught the Dharma of emptiness because he wished practitioners to realize the nature of emptiness and put an end to evil karma. Why, then, do we fail to understand the Buddha’s intent, instead clinging to emptiness and allowing our wholesome resolve to regress? Is this not utterly inverted? Such people further say, while engaging in evil karma, “I am unobstructed,” yet they do not ask what obstruction exists in wholesome dharmas that makes them unwilling to practice them!

Long ago, a Chan master answered a student that a person who has attained the Way is not subject to the law of cause and effect. For this, he fell into the body of a fox for five hundred lifetimes and could not have escaped that existence without the aid of Chan Master Baizhang. How much worse are those today who falsely expound the Dharma of emptiness and deny cause and effect! Unafraid of future retribution, they recklessly utter falsehoods. Not only do they destroy sutras and images, but they also compare vegetarians to cattle eating grass. How immeasurably grave is the offense of those who teach such false Dharma!

They do not understand that wisdom and comprehension are like a person possessing bright eyes, while practicing the Way is like a person possessing strong legs. One who has eyes but no legs, though seeing clearly, cannot reach the destination. One who has legs but no eyes may walk but cannot see the road; because he cannot see, he falls into pits and ravines. Yet if one does not walk at all, how can one reach the jeweled sanctuary? Having failed to reach the jeweled sanctuary, one instead pursues disputes over right and wrong; having fallen into a pit, one loses both body and life.

Therefore, a sutra says: “The five perfections are like blindness; wisdom is like having eyes and walking upon the right road. The blind who walk will surely fall into an evil place, while those with eyes who walk upon the right road will surely reach the jeweled sanctuary.” How could one speak words contrary to the intent of the sutras and teachings and still obtain the fruit? Know, therefore, that both understanding and practice are essential to practitioners.

Although one may practice without understanding, this is not equal to taking wisdom and understanding as the foremost guides in practicing the Way. If one possesses understanding but lacks practice, bodhicitta may still arise; if one practices without understanding, it is difficult to enter the Perfect Vehicle. Thus, one should know that Mañjusri, profound in understanding, is the teacher of all Buddhas, while Samantabhadra, great in practice, is the father of all beings.

How could one偏ly favor one side and cling to one’s own view?

The Patriarch of Nanyue in the Chan school said: “To liken it to a single thing misses the mark; yet cultivation and realization cannot be dispensed with, while defilement cannot be attained.” This is the essential principle for awakening to the Way and entering its gate. How, then, can people of the present age, whose wrong views are so deeply rooted, swiftly escape this place of extreme danger and suffering?

The Surangama Sutra says: “Those who claim that they are already complete in themselves suddenly give rise to immense arrogance. In their minds, they even dare to slight the Tathagatas of the ten directions, much less those of lesser attainment such as sravakas and pratyekabuddhas. They suddenly incline toward a state of eternal quiescence, deny cause and effect, and single-mindedly enter emptiness.

When the mind of emptiness manifests before them, they devote themselves entirely to cultivating an annihilationist understanding. They do not venerate stupas or temples and destroy sutras and images. They tell their patrons: ‘These are merely gold, bronze, earth, and wood; they are not Buddhas.

Sutras are merely leaves and bamboo slips. My fleshly body is the true Buddha. Instead of revering yourselves, you go and worship wood and clay.

This is truly inverted.’ Those who believe and follow them smash images and destroy scriptures, causing beings to fall into doubt and error. They enter the Avici Hell. Having forfeited right concentration, they must undergo bodily suffering.”

According to this teaching in the sutra, we know that the World-Honored One foresaw that those who falsely teach emptiness, claim attainment without having attained, and claim realization without having realized would fall into hell. Since this is so clear, how can people today escape what the Buddha foretold?

Some say: “Devadatta entered hell and suffered there; what have I to fear?” They do not understand that because Devadatta’s mind sought to oppose the Buddha, while in hell he not only felt no suffering but experienced bliss like that of the Third Dhyana. Yet because his body, speech, and mind maligned the Buddha, he still underwent immeasurable kinds of suffering in hell. Out of compassionate mercy, the Buddha forgave him and treated his illness, yet the karmic result of harming the Buddha still brought him immeasurable suffering in hell.

How much worse are those today who imitate him and tell others not to give rise to reverence and faith toward sutras and images, regarding images as mere wood and clay and sutras as heaps of old books! Such people do not understand cause and effect, offenses and blessings. They violate the Buddha’s teachings and commit the five rebellious acts.

How can they be saved from such evil retributions?

7. An Instruction Revealing That Chan and Buddha-Recitation Are Not Two Dharmas

Sakyamuni Tathagata taught the Dharma gate of Buddha-recitation, which embraces all capacities throughout the Dharma realm without omitting a single one. This is truly the realm of great beings, realized by Bodhisattva Mañjusri and Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. The Venerable Siming of the Tiantai school classified this Dharma gate, together with the Avatamsaka Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, as belonging to the ghee flavor, while in the Chan school it is the singly transmitted Way that directly points to the mind.

For this reason, Chan Master Yongming Yanshou composed the Fourfold Summary, one passage of which says: “Without Chan but with the Pure Land, of ten thousand who practice, ten thousand attain it; once one meets Amitabha Buddha, why worry about not awakening?” This is truly a path leading upward.

Why, then, are there people today whose schemes for fame and gain have failed and who consequently think: “Now I shall relinquish everything. Chan meditation is not what I seek; it would be better to recite Amitabha Buddha’s name and hope to be delivered in the next life”? They continue reciting the Buddha’s name in a negligent manner, never once awakening. Moreover, if they suddenly encounter circumstances that satisfy their ambitions, they immediately commit immeasurable evils, acting according to their former habits, with no one able to restrain them. What benefit can Buddha-recitation bring to people like this? This must be clearly understood.

Some maintain that although Chan meditation is exceedingly wondrous, it is exceedingly difficult, like constructing a hundred-story tower, whereas Buddha-recitation is crude but very easy, like building a thatched hut. This view is truly mistaken. It is like encountering drought and famine and then, fortunately, being treated to a hundred exquisite dishes from the royal household, yet taking them to be a simple meal of vegetables; or obtaining a wish-fulfilling jewel but regarding it as a fish eye. How pitiable!

They do not understand that although the two gates of Buddha-recitation and Chan meditation differ at the point of departure, they are the same in returning home together. Why is it said that their points of departure differ? Those who practice Chan rely upon their own effort and do not need to seek the Buddha’s support. If they themselves lack right knowledge and right view and also fail to encounter a person of right knowledge and right view to assist them, then even if they do not regress, they will mostly stray onto demonic paths, because they lack the Buddha’s power of protection.

Those who practice Buddha-recitation, however, think of nothing whatsoever except Amitabha Buddha. Although they may lack correct understanding and may have no teacher or spiritual friend to inspire and instruct them, they need only firmly believe in the existence of the Buddha’s body and Buddha-land and arouse the determined vow to go there; they will then attain rebirth there. Even if their minds remain narrow, they will ultimately return to the true Dharma because they are protected by the power of Amitabha Buddha’s vows.

Thus, one should know that their points of departure differ; it is not that the Dharma gates or the levels of realization differ in depth or shallowness. Therefore, Chan meditation is Buddha-recitation, and Buddha-recitation is Chan meditation. Practicing Chan without Buddha-recitation, one does not attain rebirth in the Pure Land; practicing Buddha-recitation without Chan meditation, one does not attain contemplative wisdom. How, then, could Buddha-recitation and Chan meditation be two separate matters?

If one understands this meaning, then with a single stroke one can sever attachment to gratifying worldly matters such as official rank, fame, wealth, and honor, courageously arouse the great resolve, and practice the supramundane Way. Regarding worldly things such as property, precious treasures, wives and children, one’s head, eyes, marrow, and brain, and even one’s entire body and life, one can give them away without the slightest reluctance, resolutely aspiring to be reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

This is the supreme Dharma gate. How could it be a refuge merely for those whose ambitions have failed and whose opportunities have passed? To regard it as merely building a thatched hut, to mistake a wish-fulfilling jewel for a fish eye, and to seek to practice this Dharma with a careless mind—this is truly pitiable and regrettable.

If one knows that this Pure Land Dharma-gate is a supreme and unsurpassed teaching, then from this point onward one should relinquish worldly entanglements, give rise to the aspiration to enter directly into the jeweled sanctuary of the Great Vehicle, and resolutely remain mindful of the Buddha without allowing the mind to regress. This is like a boat traveling with the current and meeting a favorable wind, further aided by strong, skillful rowing and steering: it will certainly reach its destination swiftly. What could be more fortunate than this?

Question: If this is so, why is it that in Chan texts, when someone came and asked, “What is the Buddha?” the reply was, “A dried stick of excrement,” or, “Three pounds of hemp”? It was also said, “Had I seen him at that time, I would have beaten him to death and fed him to the dogs; only then could we hope for peace throughout the world,” and even, “When you meet a demon, kill the demon; when you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha.” In contrast, those who cultivate the samadhi of mindfulness of the Buddha revere and cherish the Buddha in their minds, constantly loving and yearning for him. Since the two traditions ultimately share the same purport and arrive at the same home, are these approaches the same or not?

Answer: Those mindful of the Buddha fundamentally recollect the Land of Ultimate Bliss in the West and the reward-body of Amitabha Buddha. This Buddha’s reward-body possesses immeasurable light and excellent marks, transformation Buddhas, bodhisattvas, shravakas, vows, powers, and merits that cannot be fully described. This is the Buddha’s body. The circumstantial realm of the Buddha contains all kinds of jeweled ponds, jeweled ground, jeweled trees, jeweled banners and streamers, jeweled nets, jeweled terraces, jeweled bells, jeweled flowers, and jeweled waters. All these adorn it as a realm of wondrous fragrances and precious treasures.

That Buddha takes his body as the land and the land as his body. Body and land are mutually unobstructed; mind and its objects are perfectly interpenetrating. Whether there or here, they share one and the same enjoyment.

Even the five skandhas, twelve entrances, eighteen dhatus, twelve ayatanas, all the way through to unsurpassed bodhi, as well as the meanings of that which kills and that which is killed—at all times and in all places—are without obstruction or impediment, without bondage or liberation. Horizontally and vertically, contrary and favorable, all are the pure form-body of Amitabha Buddha. Why?

Because mind is the object and the object is mind; the body is the land and the land is the body; sentient beings are the Buddha and the Buddha is sentient beings; this is that and that is this. All colors—blue, yellow, white, and red—the faculties of eye, ear, nose, and tongue, and all such dharmas, whether body or mind, are in every respect sovereign and liberated. If one does not even discriminate between lust, anger, and delusion and pure conduct, or between worldly afflictions and companions in the Dharma, how could a dried stick of excrement or three pounds of hemp not be the Buddha?

Since these already are the Buddha, why needlessly establish within the pure ground a place where he manifested his descent and birth, tearing open the flesh to make a sore and conceiving the notion of liberating sentient beings? It would be excellent to strike him dead with a single blow and feed him to the dogs. This would awaken the many people who put on airs and make a show of six years of ascetic practice, subduing demons, and teaching the Dharma; who proclaim arising and cessation within all that is equal, unborn, and unceasing; who perform a thousand kinds of antics, agitate the world, disturb everyone, stir up waves on level ground, and cause the deaths of countless people.

Would this not bring peace to the world? Yet upon reaching this point, one must above all avoid mistaking it. One must not cause any disturbance; if one does, one will surely be beaten.

If it is said that this teaching came from the disciple of Caoxi, who glimpsed the profound and wondrous realization while pounding rice, then those who have never seen it must have the backs of their donkeys broken; only then might they perhaps awaken. Here, the masters’ purpose was to destroy both ordinary sentiments and holy interpretations. If one knows that a dried stick of excrement is lowly, then the Buddha is not lofty, for all things are equal.

It is only because of attachment that one rashly asserts that the practices of Chan and Pure Land are different.

Question: If the Dharma-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha possesses such extraordinary qualities and is no different from the Chan School’s direct pointing to the mind for the attainment of Buddhahood or the Tiantai School’s contemplation of mind and contemplation of the Buddha, then it may be said that the three thousand wondrous dharmas are revealed within a single thought, while the three contemplations are clearly practiced without departing from the myriad dharmas. Since the ultimate principle of the True Suchness teaching is realized through the one mind, how can people of dull faculties in later generations cultivate so as to accord with it?

Answer: One need only turn away from defilement, accord with awakening, and put the teaching into practice. Why worry that it will not be accomplished? It is like an empty valley that answers every sound: a loud sound produces a loud echo, and a soft sound produces a soft echo.

Whatever sound is uttered, an echo responds accordingly. Likewise, in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, sentient beings are received within three classes and nine grades. They too are guided according to whether their faculties are keen or dull, their realization shallow or deep, their views deviant or correct, and their progress slow or swift.

Whichever grade they ought to be born into accords with their capacities. Just as echoes in a valley may be high or low, if one is diligent and energetic, there will certainly be a result. Moreover, time has neither before nor after, so why worry that those of dull faculties will attain no result?

From the foregoing principle, one knows that all Dharma-gates are one Dharma-gate and that one Dharma-gate is all Dharma-gates. Not only are Chan and Pure Land nondual; in general, the entire lifetime of teachings proclaimed by Shakyamuni Buddha does not go beyond the Dharma-gate of mindfulness of the Buddha. The scope of this Dharma-gate is exceedingly vast: it embraces beings of every capacity and leaves none behind, so both the foolish and the wise receive its benefit.

I earnestly hope that worthy ones of later generations will not give rise to divergent views concerning this Dharma-gate.

8. The Dharma-Gate of Rejection and Embrace in the Two Lands

The Saha World and the Land of Ultimate Bliss constitute the Dharma-gate by which the Buddhas cause beings to reject one realm and embrace the other. When practitioners hear the circumstantial and direct recompenses described above, they may rely upon the scriptures and clearly understand that this land truly is a realm of suffering, while that Land of Ultimate Bliss truly is a realm of joy. Although we have heard the subtle and wondrous teaching of perfectly interpenetrating contemplative wisdom, we must nevertheless clearly perceive these two lands as truly existent realms.

We must not be like those of shallow understanding who say that the Land of Ultimate Bliss is merely created by the mind, so that when the mind exists, that land exists, and when the mind does not exist, that land does not exist; that it is illusory like a gleam of light or a flash, false and unreal; and that every place is therefore the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. How could they know that the Land of Ultimate Bliss, just like this land, is definitely real and cannot be mistaken?

If one possesses the wisdom to discern this, all biased views, deviant interpretations, and evil spiritual teachers will immediately be eliminated, and right contemplation will manifest before one. Regarding the suffering and happiness, purity and impurity, of the two lands, one gives rise to two kinds of mind as skillful means. Without these two kinds of mind, one cannot be born in that land.

What are these two kinds of mind?

1/ The mind of disenchantment and desire to depart: When one gives rise to disenchantment with this Saha World and desires to leave it, one accords with the teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, who revealed that this land is a realm of suffering worthy of rejection. This is called the gate of rejection.

2/ Joyful aspiration: When one gives rise to joyful aspiration toward that Land of Ultimate Bliss and desires to return there, one accords with the teaching of Amitabha Buddha, who revealed that the Land of Ultimate Bliss is worthy of rejoicing in and who constantly wishes to welcome and guide beings there. This is called the gate of embrace. If one diligently cultivates through these two gates, the samadhi of mindfulness of the Buddha will certainly be accomplished.

Why is it called the gateway of rejection? When practitioners hear of the supremely wondrous adornments of the Land of Ultimate Bliss described above, they should contemplate in accordance with principle that this Saha world is entirely suffering, without the slightest thing that can be called happiness. In the hells and the three evil destinies, beings are burned day and night; hungry ghosts and animals endure unbearable torments; asuras fight in anger and find peace nowhere; human beings undergo countless sufferings, as the sense faculties and their objects unite with the eight sufferings.

Through cause and effect, beings of the four modes of birth rise and fall. The seasons bring heat and cold; the environment is filled entirely with dust and defilement; decay proceeds day and night, and impermanence never abides. Moreover, the body one receives is filthy; men and women have different forms; obtaining clothing and food is difficult, coarse, and harsh; lifespans are short; and all sufferings converge.

Even if one is born in a heavenly palace, when one’s merit is exhausted, one returns to extreme suffering. People do not understand that happiness in human life is itself suffering, that laughter is but tears dried before they can fall, and that one’s own relatives are precisely one’s adversaries. Deluded and inverted, they run about without seeking the way of escape.

From creating karma they proceed to create still more karma. Sufferings such as these are beyond reckoning and must therefore be abandoned and left far behind.

Why is it called the gateway of attraction? When practitioners hear that the Saha world truly involves such suffering, they give rise to great joyful aspiration for the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. The Land of Ultimate Bliss has jeweled ground and jeweled ponds, and none of the three evil destinies.

Its sublime adornments surpass those of all the Pure Lands throughout the ten directions. There is neither heat nor cold by day or night, nor the karmic bonds of birth, aging, sickness, and death. All are male, with no women; they are born by transformation from lotus flowers.

Food and clothing appear naturally, and all partake of the joy of Dharma. Their lifespans are immeasurable, and their bodies possess boundless radiance. On hearing the sounds of Dharma, they recollect the Three Jewels and know the place to which they may return.

Upon seeing the excellent marks, they awaken to the Way in a single instant. Its various forms of happiness are immeasurable; therefore, it is called Ultimate Bliss and should be joyfully aspired to. If one can diligently cultivate these two gateways without interruption day and night, one accords with the teachings of the Buddha’s Way.

Regarding all sights and sounds in this world, one should perceive them as hell, as an ocean of suffering, and as a burning house. Regarding precious objects, one should perceive them as instruments that produce suffering. Regarding food, drink, and clothing, one should perceive them as ulcerated sores and iron skin.

Regarding one’s family and attendants, one should perceive them as yakshas and rakshasas that devour human flesh. How much more should one become disenchanted with and wish to escape the ceaseless round of birth and death through many kalpas!

When meeting virtuous spiritual friends, or when reading sutras and hearing of that Buddha’s power of vows and the adornments of his land, one should, in every thought, joyfully aspire toward that place. One should regard it as a place of peace and security, as arrival at the jeweled sanctuary, as a return to one’s former homeland, and as arrival at the place of liberation. One should regard Tathagata Amitabha, the bodhisattvas, and the Sangha as a loving father and compassionate mother.

One should perceive oneself as being received and guided, and as reaching the farther shore. When frightened or confronted by urgent danger, one invokes his name and immediately receives a response; one’s effort is not lost, and in a single instant he comes to rescue and protect. One should therefore remain mindful of leaving this world behind.

Such immeasurable merit is truly worthy of joyful aspiration. If one cannot cultivate this gateway of rejection and one’s disenchantment is slight, it will be difficult to escape the karma that binds one to the Saha world. If one cannot cultivate that gateway of attraction and one’s joyful aspiration is not earnest, it will be difficult to return to the sublime realm of Ultimate Bliss.

Therefore, practitioners who wish to be born in the Pure Land and accomplish the Buddha-recollection samadhi must fully cultivate these two gateways as the initial step in commencing practice. If they do not cultivate these two gateways, then even if they clearly understand the purport of contemplative wisdom, that understanding will remain empty and false. Though they may wish to be born in that land, without employing joyful aspiration and disenchantment, they will have no means of accomplishing it.

If they diligently cultivate these two gateways of joyful aspiration and disenchantment but do not understand the purport of contemplative wisdom, then although they may be born in that land, they will attain only conceptual contemplation, and their rank will not belong to the highest grade. If, while possessing joyful aspiration and disenchantment, they cultivate contemplative wisdom, they will assuredly be born there and enter directly into the highest grade.

How could students dare disparage these two gateways as attachment to characteristics?

Someone asked: “Why not relinquish all conditions and let a single thought endure for ten thousand years, causing mind and principle to unite and objective conditions and spirit to merge? Would this not naturally accord with the Way? Why is it necessary to regard joyful aspiration and disenchantment, acceptance and rejection, as lofty and wondrous?”

The reply: If one says that relinquishing all conditions is the Way, then merely giving rise to a thought in one’s mind to relinquish them cannot be called relinquishment. It is exceedingly far removed from the Way and belongs to the annihilationist view of non-Buddhist paths. Therefore, Master Ehu said: “Do not merely forget the body and render the mind lifeless; this approach can hardly cure the many ailments.” He also said: “If you remain silent and still like a fool, I know that you have not yet understood the practice.” Among the eighteen distinctive qualities of a Buddha is undiminished diligence, and among the six paramitas, it is through diligence that fulfillment is attained.

Moreover, relinquishment means relinquishing worldly karmic conditions; how could it mean relinquishing diligence in realizing the Way? The ancients said, “Those who sit where there is nothing to be done are precisely this sort of person.” If unrestricted relinquishment were the Way, and there were no need personally to practice diligently and single-mindedly, how could mind unite with objective conditions and merge with them, becoming a single piece and thereby according with the Way?

If one understands that non-relinquishment is relinquishment, then clearly joyful aspiration and disenchantment, acceptance and rejection, are themselves freedom from joyful aspiration and disenchantment, acceptance and rejection. Cultivation is non-cultivation, and recollection is non-recollection. This is called effortless practice and is also called the wondrous mind of non-action.

What difficulty could there then be in realizing the principle of the Middle Way? Furthermore, by cultivating, one departs from the annihilationist view; by non-cultivation, one departs from the eternalist view. Once the annihilationist and eternalist views have been left far behind, one goes beyond the premise of the question and is born directly in the Land of Peace and Bliss.

There one cultivates together with the two Great Beings and meets Amitabha Buddha every day. What Dharma would one be unable to inquire about? What practice would one be unable to learn?

What doubt would remain unresolved? What aspiration would remain unfulfilled? Once the stage of non-retrogression has been attained, is not this practice of joyful aspiration and disenchantment the practice of great beings for accomplishing unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment?

II. Gateway of Making Vows

9. Exhortation to Practice

The pure and defiled lands alike exist within the one mind; sentient beings and Buddhas share one principle; all dharmas are originally equal—what need is there to rely on words to exhort people to practice? It is only because the minds of sentient beings are deluded and consequently produce objective realms that purity and defilement become differentiated and arise in mutual opposition. Thus bondage and liberation differ, and through many kalpas beings rise and fall without awareness or understanding.

It is therefore necessary to exhort sentient beings in the ocean of suffering of the Saha world to seek birth in the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss. Practitioners who have clearly heard the two Dharma gateways of joyful aspiration and disenchantment explained above will correctly understand the true nature of purity and defilement, suffering and happiness, in the two lands, without error. They should therefore make vows to seek birth there, just as farmers who know that cultivating fields will provide food exert themselves in the work and cannot be prevented by anyone.

Farmers think only of hunger and cold in the coming year, yet they plow deeply, hoe diligently, and labor assiduously from morning to evening throughout the year without knowing fatigue. How much more should practitioners cultivate that samadhi! If they can be diligent for even a single thought, they can escape the suffering of many kalpas in the Saha world and ascend through the nine grades in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, where they will enjoy peace and security for immeasurable kalpas until they attain Buddhahood.

This is far more than laboring diligently for one year merely to obtain warmth and sustenance for one year. When the two are compared, their superiority and inferiority are perfectly clear. Why, then, should one need another person’s exhortation before being willing to practice?

Previously, the practitioner was shown the two approaches of admonition and attraction, and their purport has now been made clear. Once we know which things are gold and jade and which are earth and stone, even a three-year-old child knows to cast aside the stones and take the gold. Without needing to be urged, the child knows how to choose what is good and precious and reject what is bad and worthless.

The same is true of practitioners cultivating the Pure Land path. Having clearly understood that this realm is suffering while that realm is bliss, that this realm means drowning in birth and death while that realm offers freedom and liberation, they will certainly abandon this defiled realm and seek birth in the Pure Land. Naturally, thought after thought will never cease and mind after mind will never be interrupted.

As though putting out a fire blazing upon their heads, upon hearing the instruction to recollect the Buddha, they will practice at once—what need is there for further exhortation? The suffering and bliss of these two realms were spoken directly from the Buddha’s golden mouth. Those who believe with certainty and without doubt and cultivate accordingly will personally realize the truth.

In this world, when people see foul excrement, they immediately cover their noses, knit their brows, revile its stench, and wish to leave that place at once. When they see brocade and silk garments, perfumes, and ornaments, they surely smile with delight, crave what is beautiful and fragrant, and wish to obtain it quickly. Although all these are merely temporary pleasant and unpleasant illusory phenomena, people still cannot help feeling attraction and aversion.

How much more, then, should they swiftly give rise to delight and disenchantment when faced with dwelling for many kalpas in places of extreme suffering or extreme bliss! Those who lack such delight and disenchantment are truly burdened by exceedingly deep karmic delusion or are exceedingly foolish; they are indeed worthy of compassion.

Furthermore, in this Sahā world, Śākyamuni Buddha has entered nirvana, Maitreya Buddha has not yet been born, and the sages and saints have all gone into concealment. All sentient beings roam and drift through the ocean of suffering like children who have lost their father. If they do not take the King of Vows of the Land of Ultimate Bliss as their refuge, upon whom can they rely for rescue and protection?

Moreover, throughout the six realms of this world, beings ascend and descend. Although the heavenly and human realms are better than the other paths, once their meritorious rewards are exhausted, their inhabitants immediately fall. If we now discuss the vertical path of cultivation beginning from the human realm, even the various classes of immortals have not yet departed from their own stations and cannot reach the realm of nothingness—how much less the heavenly realms!

Those born in the heavenly realms cultivate the causes of the three grades of the ten wholesome deeds and are born into the three levels of heaven. Advancing from low to high requires many kalpas, yet their wishes are not fulfilled: those who succeed are few, while those who fail are many, like a drop of water compared with the ocean. During such cultivation, should they encounter wicked and perverse māras, they may regress forever.

How could they dare speak of escaping the three realms and hope to reach the four fruits of the śrāvakas? How much less could they speak of the ten stages of faith, the ten abodes, the ten practices, the ten dedications of merit, and the ten bhūmis, and hope to advance through them!

If people can cultivate this Dharma gateway of Buddha-recollection and seek birth in the Pure Land, although they still occupy the station of ordinary beings and have not yet escaped birth and death, they immediately plant the cause for transcending laterally beyond the five paths within the three realms and rising above all classes of beings. Received and guided by the Buddha, they are at once born in the Land of Peaceful Nurture.

There they take birth within the nine grades; when the lotus blossoms open, they see the Buddha, hear the Dharma, and awaken to the Way. Without departing from the present thought, they proceed directly throughout the ten directions to make offerings to all the Three Jewels and teach and transform all sentient beings. When the World-Honored Maitreya descends to be born in this realm, they return to Sahā and, together with the Buddha, propagate loving-kindness and compassion.

Their parents, spouses, children, brothers, sisters, and all those bound to them by enmity or affection over many kalpas are instructed and led into the Way. They reveal to them the causes extending through many distant kalpas and enable them all to realize the fruit. How could the fulfillment of such practices and vows not be a vast and great practice and vow?

Those who recollect the Buddha and seek birth in the Pure Land will not be burdened by the three obstructions or by any kalpic karma in this Sahā world. With merit such as this, if one cultivates it in a single thought, one belongs to the life to come; how could one delay? Furthermore, worldly affairs have myriad entanglements, and human life has ten thousand noisy and disturbing conditions.

Like locks and hooks, they bind us continuously and never cease. The mind does not pause for even a single thought, while the body undergoes incessant transformation. They lead us upward and downward and obstruct our original nature.

For many kalpas until now, they have never stopped. Impermanence brings continual change, and nothing can be preserved for long. Even if one were to live for a hundred years, compared with the current of time, it would pass faster than the snap of one’s fingers.

As day follows day, one’s life can hardly be safeguarded. Suddenly the eyes close, and in an instant one has passed into the next life. Following the causes created through karma, one undergoes punishment according to one’s kind: covered in fur, crowned with horns, crawling upon the ground, or flying through the air.

All one’s present understanding disappears. Once one has entered the three evil paths and the six realms, one drifts for many kalpas without knowing the way home. This may rightly be called great suffering.

Even when Maitreya Buddha appears in the world, we do not know where we shall have been born. Those who have fallen into the lower realms cannot even hear the names of their parents or of the Three Jewels, much less discuss the teachings of the sutras. Although they assume many different bodies, their attachment and clinging remain profound and heavy.

Passing from karma to karma, they go from darkness into deeper darkness. Fearing death and craving life, they are no different from what they are today.

Practitioners of the Pure Land should not hesitate, procrastinate, and let the days pass. A human body is difficult to obtain, and the Pure Land teaching is difficult to hear and difficult to believe. That we have now heard and believed it means that only through blessed affinities planted over many lives have we been able to encounter it.

Therefore, after hearing this teaching, practitioners must emulate the heroic resolve of the awakened sages of old, courageously arouse the great bodhicitta, establish firm and decisive determination, and exert all their strength. With a single stroke of the blade, they must cut through every deluded thought and all defiling toil; with a single leap, they must escape the forest of wrong views. They must open both ends completely and relinquish everything.

Only then can they fulfill their pure vow, radiate harmonious light that moves both devas and humans, enable all kinds of beings to receive the grace of the Buddhas’ mindful protection, close the three evil paths, and open the gateway of dharani. If they can accomplish this, they need not wait until their karmic body in the Sahā world comes to an end, for they will already have attained rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Some people’s faith is uncertain. With their mouths they say that the Sahā world is a realm of suffering worthy of disenchantment, yet in their hearts they remain infatuated with it, procrastinating as the days pass. They say, “I must wait until this land is peaceful and secure, until I have sufficient food and clothing, until everything accords with my wishes.

I must plan ahead and consider what follows, choose an auspicious day and hour before arousing the resolve, settle all debts of gratitude and resentment, and finish all my undertakings; only then will I arouse the mind of Buddha-recollection.” For people such as these, even if the worlds throughout space could come to an end, the day for which they wait would truly never arrive. Their deluded thoughts are boundless and their greed is bottomless—how could these ever be exhausted?

This is because they do not believe in the Tathagata’s two approaches of admonition and attraction. Thus, when the sky is dry, they refuse to set out, but wait until rain covers their heads before trying to escape getting wet. This is truly unreasonable.

Therefore, the ancient virtuous masters often said:

“Today, while you still can go, swiftly turn your steps;

Do not wait until tomorrow, when no road remains.”