龍舒增廣淨土文

LONGSHU’S EXPANDED PURE LAND TEXT — VOLUME 11

Suppose someone asks: “The Buddhas and bodhisattvas take great compassion as their work. If practitioners wish to liberate sentient beings, they should vow to be born within the three realms, amid the five defilements and the three evil destinies, to rescue suffering beings. Why, then, do you seek birth in the Pure Land, caring only for your own peace and abandoning sentient beings? If so, are you not concerned solely with your own benefit while also obstructing the path to bodhi?”

Master Zhizhe replied:

“There are two kinds of bodhisattvas. The first are those who have long cultivated the bodhisattva path and attained the patience of non-arising. If they do not take birth in the three realms and so forth, such criticism would indeed be justified. The second are those who have not yet attained the patience of non-arising, down to ordinary beings who have only recently aroused the aspiration. Ordinary bodhisattvas must constantly encounter a Buddha. Only after perfecting the power of patience can they dwell within the three realms and rescue beings suffering in an evil and defiled age.

“Therefore, the Mahaprajnaparamita Treatise says: It is never the case that ordinary beings still completely bound by afflictions can, merely through a compassionate vow, be born in an evil age and rescue suffering sentient beings. Why? Because the afflictions in an evil world are exceedingly fierce.

If they themselves do not yet possess the power of patience, their minds will be turned by circumstances and immediately fettered by sights and sounds. If they themselves fall into the three evil destinies, how could they rescue sentient beings? Even if ordinary beings completely bound by afflictions are born in the human realm, it remains difficult for them to attain the noble path.

Through observing precepts and cultivating merit, they may be born among humans and become kings or great ministers, wealthy and powerful; yet when they encounter a good spiritual friend, they may not believe. They merely sink into the mire of greed, delusion, and heedlessness, thereby creating many kinds of evil karma.

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“Once they fall into the three evil destinies, they must pass through immeasurable kalpas. After escaping hell, they again receive a lowly and impoverished body; and if they do not meet a good spiritual friend, they fall into hell once more. Thus they have continued revolving in samsara until this very day. Everyone’s wandering in samsara is like this. Therefore, I call this the Difficult Path of Practice.

“For this same reason, the Vimalakirti Sutra says: ‘Unable to cure your own illness, you nevertheless presume to cure the illnesses of others!’

“Furthermore, the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: ‘It is like two people whose relatives are drowning. One, in panic, immediately leaps into the water to save them, but because he lacks the aid of skillful means, both drown. The other quickly goes to find a boat with which to rescue them; because he has the support of skillful means, both escape drowning. Likewise, newly aspiring bodhisattvas who lack the power of patience cannot rescue sentient beings. For this reason, they must constantly remain near a Buddha. After attaining the patience of non-arising, they possess the power to liberate sentient beings, just as the person who obtained a boat could effect a rescue.’

“Moreover, the treatise says: It is like an infant who must not leave its mother. If separated from its mother, it may die by falling into a pit or from want of milk. Again, it is like a fledgling whose feathers and wings are not yet fully grown: it may only cling to the branches and must not go far. Once its feathers and wings are complete, it can soar freely through the sky without obstruction.

“Ordinary beings who lack the power of patience are permitted only to concentrate on mindfulness of Amitabha Buddha so that samadhi may be perfected. Through attaining samadhi, when death approaches practitioners gather their thoughts and attain rebirth. This should not be doubted.

After seeing Amitabha Buddha and realizing the patience of the non-arising of dharmas, practitioners will return to take birth within the three realms, riding the vessel of the patience of non-arising to liberate sentient beings and freely perform Buddha-work according to their vows.” For this reason, the treatise speaks of “sporting in the hells.” This means that after practitioners are born in the Land of Ultimate Bliss and attain the patience of non-arising, they immediately return to the realm of birth and death to teach the beings in hell and rescue those who suffer.

“For these reasons practitioners seek birth in the Pure Land. I earnestly pray that cultivators will concentrate their minds upon the Pure Land. Therefore, the Vibhasa Treatise calls this the Easy Path of Practice.”

Chan Master Changlu Zongze of Zhenzhou exhorted Chan practitioners to cultivate the Pure Land.

Those attached to the notion that “mindfulness is mindfulness and birth is birth” fall into the error of eternalism. Those who cling to “no-mindfulness is no-mindfulness and non-birth is non-birth” are deluded by wrong views. “Mindfulness yet no-mindfulness; birth yet non-birth”—this is the ultimate truth. Thus, on the ground of ultimate reality, not a single mote of dust is admitted: above, there are no Buddhas who may be contemplated, and below, there is no Pure Land into which one may be born. Yet at the gate of Buddha-work, where not a single dharma is discarded, all capacities are embraced.

The Buddha-mindfulness samadhi is the essential method for returning to the source and the gateway opening onto rebirth. Thus, although practitioners are mindful of the Buddha throughout the day, they do not contradict the principle of no-mindfulness; although eagerly seeking rebirth, they do not oppose the principle of non-birth. Hence there is the “mystic communion of stimulus and response.” Although noble ones and ordinary beings each abide in their own place, and East and West do not travel back and forth, consciousness nevertheless moves and is born in the Pure Land. No one can fathom this phenomenon to its limit!

Therefore, the sutra says:

“If anyone hears of Amitabha Buddha and holds fast to his name” … up to … “When death approaches, their minds will not be confused, and they will immediately attain birth in Amitabha Buddha’s Land of Ultimate Bliss.”

Although the World-Honored One distinguished the two gates of subduing and embracing and manifested the two lands of purity and defilement, this does not mean that he regarded the pits and mounds, the mingling of the five destinies, the earth, stones, mountains, and pervasive corruption of the Saha world as entirely loathsome. Nor did he regard the golden ground, rows of trees reaching toward the heavens, towers made of the seven precious substances, and four-colored flowers of the Land of Ultimate Bliss as entirely objects of admiration.

Rather, because the power of patience of bodhisattvas newly entering the path is not yet mature, they must rely upon the Pure Land as a dominant supporting condition. Why? In the Saha world, Sakyamuni Buddha has entered nirvana and Maitreya has not yet been born, whereas in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, Amitabha Buddha is presently teaching the Dharma.

In Saha, practitioners can only look up with joy to the auspicious names of the bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Mahasthamaprapta, whereas in the Land of Ultimate Bliss these two supreme beings personally become their good companions. In Saha, the many kinds of maras compete to disturb practitioners, whereas within the great radiance of the Land of Ultimate Bliss there are certainly no demonic affairs. In Saha, false and deviant sounds confuse practitioners’ thoughts, and there are female beauty and lust; whereas in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, all the birds, waters, trees, and forests proclaim the wondrous Dharma, while the beings there are pure and there are truly no women.

Even if one’s cultivation in Saha possesses every favorable condition, it still cannot equal cultivation in the West. Yet those of shallow and meager faith arrogantly give rise to doubt and slander.

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Allow me to discuss this with you through worldly analogies. In this realm, who does not dislike the clamor of the lay household, and who does not delight in the quiet of monasteries? Therefore, whenever someone leaves home to become a monastic, everyone earnestly praises that person. Yet the suffering of Saha is hardly limited to the clamor of lay households, nor is the tranquility of the Land of Ultimate Bliss limited to the quiet of an aranya. Those who recognize the goodness of leaving home but do not vow to attain rebirth bear within themselves the first disease of foolishness!

Some travel a thousand miles and endure countless hardships in search of a good spiritual friend, hoping to illuminate the great matter and resolve the question of birth and death. Yet Amitabha Buddha’s reward-body is supremely transcendent, and the power of his vows is immeasurably vast. When he expounds the perfect voice but once, everyone gains awakening. Those who wish to visit good spiritual friends but do not hope to behold Amitabha Buddha bear within themselves the second disease of foolishness!

Where a monastery has a large assembly, everyone wishes to entrust themselves to it; where a place of practice has only a small community, no one even wishes to cast a shadow there! Yet the beings destined for Buddhahood after only one more birth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss are innumerable, and all the supremely virtuous people gather together in one place. Those who wish to entrust themselves to a monastery but reject that pure oceanic assembly bear within themselves the third disease of foolishness!

Human life in this realm does not exceed one hundred years; childhood is ignorant, old age is confused, and illnesses of every kind arise. In general, torpor and sleep consume more than half a lifetime. Even bodhisattvas may be obscured when passing between skandhas, and sravakas may still be bewildered when emerging from the womb.

Of the fleeting inches of time before the red cliff of death, nine parts out of ten have already been lost. How could those who have not entered the stage of non-retrogression fail to find this terrifying? By contrast, the lifespans of beings in the West are inexhaustible.

Once born within the womb of a lotus blossom, they forever end the suffering of birth and death. Their lives continue until they attain the path; thus they reach the stage of avaivartika and join hands in the hope of attaining Buddhahood. Those who revolve within the brevity of Saha, unaware of the vast years and months of the Pure Land, bear within themselves the fourth disease of foolishness!

Only if practitioners have reached the stage of non-retrogression and attained the patience of non-arising, feel no desire while dwelling in the desire realm, and remain undefiled by dust while living in the world, can they give rise to unconditional loving-kindness, exercise compassion of shared essence, return to the weariness of the defilements, and mingle their light with the dust of the five defilements. Some have shallow learning and limited wisdom; others have accumulated merely a few practices corresponding to minor virtues, yet hastily imagine that they have forever escaped the four currents and passed beyond the Ten Grounds.

At the same time, they constantly denounce and disparage the Pure Land, crave Saha, blindfold themselves as they return to emptiness, and drift unsteadily like refuse. They become cattle and horses and undergo manifold sufferings in hell. They do not know what sort of people they are, yet imagine themselves equal to provisional bodhisattvas.

Such people bear within themselves the fifth disease of foolishness!

Therefore, the sutra says:

“You should make the vow to be born in that land.”

Are those who disbelieve the truthful words of the Buddhas and do not vow for birth in the Pure Land not deluded people?

Those who believe the Buddha’s words and are born in the Pure Land are not bound by the cords of worldly systems or harmed by the waves of the kalpas. They leave far behind the eight kinds of human suffering and the five signs of decline in the heavenly realms: “Even the names of the evil paths do not exist there; how much less could those paths actually exist?” There they make radiant only the Dharma of the One Vehicle, and certainly not three vehicles.

They take refuge solely in the Three Jewels of one essence and serve the Tathagatas throughout the ten directions. The Buddha’s light shines upon their bodies, so thousands of delusions silently disappear. The flavor of the Dharma nourishes their consciousness, so they possess the six superknowledges; the thirty-seven factors conducive to awakening are perfectly accomplished in accord with their thoughts.

According to the kinds of sentient beings, they manifest thirty-two bodies filling space and time. They traverse the five destinies, transforming beings of every capacity. They sport throughout all samadhis without disturbing the one mind.

They sprinkle the water of meditative concentration throughout the three-thousandfold world to lead sentient beings out of the burning house. They perfect both benefit for themselves and benefit for others.

Only this may be called “Amitabha of one’s own nature and the Pure Land of mind alone.” It is the essential gateway to liberation and the swift, direct path of cultivation. Therefore, all definitive Mahayana sutras point toward the Pure Land; ancient worthies and later sages, whether relying upon self-power or other-power, all prayed for rebirth. For … one who wishes to liberate others must first liberate oneself….

Alas!

“If a person does not consider what lies far ahead, sorrow and suffering will surely be close at hand.” Once this body is lost, we may regret it for a thousand kalpas. Therefore, I, Zongze of Changlu, urge every member of the great oceanic assembly to recite Amitabha Buddha’s name one hundred, one thousand, or even ten thousand times, and then dedicate this merit to all who share these affinities, vowing to be born in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

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Once practitioners entrust themselves to the supreme assembly of the Lotus Pool, the Dharma of the golden ground becomes manifest. Supported by supreme conditions, their aspirations are fulfilled. To express it poetically, they sail with the current and are aided further by the power of the oars; thus, although the road extends ten thousand miles, they reach their destination without exhausting their strength or breath!

In the winter of the fourth year of the Yuanyou era, I, Zongze, dreamed of a man about thirty years old, dressed in white robes and wearing a black headcloth. His countenance was radiant and his bearing exceedingly refined. He greeted me and said: “I wish to join your Amitabha Society, and therefore have come to ask the Master to enter my name.” I immediately took up the register of the Supreme Lotus Assembly, held my brush, and asked: “What is your name?” He replied: “Universal Wisdom.” Just after I had written it, the white-robed man said: “My elder brother also wishes to enter his name.” I asked: “What is your brother’s name?” He replied: “Universal Worthiness.” Having spoken, he vanished.

After awakening, I consulted senior elders about the two names from my dream. They said: “The names of these two bodhisattvas appear in the ‘Detachment from the World’ chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra.” I, Zongze, thought that these were disciples of the Buddha performing Buddha-work to assist the Buddha’s teaching and transformation. Thus the Pure Land has surely received the hidden praise of worthies and sages, and the affinities of those participating in this society are certainly not slight.

Therefore, today I have placed the names of these two bodhisattvas first in this Amitabha Society!

Chan Master Yongming Yanshou of Hangzhou forbade those who had not attained realization from slighting the Pure Land.

Suppose someone asks: “Once practitioners see their nature and awaken to the path, they are liberated from birth and death. Why must they also be mindful of the Buddha and seek birth in another direction?”

Answer: Genuine practitioners should examine their own bodies and minds. Just as those who drink water know for themselves whether it is hot or cold, so should they know themselves. I shall now cite the teachings of sages and worthies to dispel the many delusions of such people.

Virtuous ones, examine your own practice and understanding! With respect to seeing the nature and awakening to the path, receiving the Tathagata’s prediction, and glorifying the station of the patriarchs, are you equal to Asvaghosa and Nagarjuna? With respect to attaining unobstructed eloquence and realizing the Lotus Sutra Samadhi, can you compare with Tiantai Zhizhe? With respect to thoroughly comprehending both the Chan school and doctrinal teaching while cultivating both practice and understanding, are you equal to National Master Zhong?

Yet all these worthies left teachings single-mindedly exhorting practitioners to seek rebirth. Those who have accomplished both self-benefit and benefit for others never deceive people or delude themselves. How much more so when this Pure Land Dharma-gate was praised by the Great Hero and entrusted to us from his golden mouth! Those who follow the footsteps of earlier worthies and obey the Buddha’s teaching will certainly not fall into error or delusion. Numerous manifestations of eminent practitioners from ancient times to the present are recorded in the Biographies of Rebirth. Practitioners should read them to examine themselves and thereby save themselves.

Can you remain masters of yourselves at the time of death? Can you guarantee that your deep obstructions and heavy karma will not manifest? Can you be certain that this reward-body will not undergo samsara? Can you be certain that you will suffer no distress and can enter and leave freely while passing among the various beings of the three evil destinies? Can you, according to your wishes and without obstruction, take birth in the heavenly realm, the human realm, and worlds throughout the ten directions?

If you are confident that you have attained such a level, nothing could be better! But if you have not, you should not cling to a momentary sickness of arrogance and thereby sink in samsara for thousands of millions of kalpas. Once you have buried your own roots of goodness, whom could you still hope to rescue?

Alas!

How sorrowful!

How could words of lamentation ever reach you!

(The words of Chan Master Zongze may be read in the Collection of the Chan Master’s Exhortations to Transformation. The words of Master Zhizhe and Chan Master Yanshou may be read in the Direct Pointing to the Pure Land to Resolve Doubts by Vice Minister Wang Minzhong of the Song dynasty.)

The Vice Minister’s surname was Wang and his personal name was Gu. While he was serving as an official, even the immortals knew of his reputation. The Perfected One Zhongli once presented him with this poem:

Storm-lamp and wave-foam trade places with each other;
What benefit lies in clinging forever to hollow glory?
The pearl beneath your chin ought to be grasped;
With the Way within your body, whom else do you seek?
Lofty talent and refined grace are called immortal bones;
Wisdom shines numinously like a great precious tortoise.
Half a green mountain has nowhere to be sold;
I await you, hand in hand, to speak of the subtle mystery.

From this it may be seen that the Vice Minister was no ordinary person, and therefore understood all the more that the Western Pure Land is a place toward which one should indeed aspire.

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AN EXHORTATION TO CULTIVATE THE PURE LAND
BY PRIME MINISTER ZHENG QING

Everyone says that cultivating the Pure Land is inferior to Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya. I alone say that the Dharma-gates of Chan and doctrine are inferior to the Pure Land.

This true nature—pure, luminous, wondrous, empty, penetrating, numinous, and responsive—is fully present in the foolish and the wise alike. Yet because the illusory objects of the faculties and their objects sink together, and because the samsara of birth and death never ceases, Sakyamuni Buddha provisionally established the skillful means of Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya, causing sentient beings to enter through these gates and all attain liberation.

Only the Buddha of Infinite Life established a single gate called cultivation of the Pure Land. This Dharma-gate is simple, essential, direct, and decisive, like one medicine capable of curing a hundred illnesses. If practitioners concentrate single-mindedly with one thought, they immediately attain rebirth. Everyone can cultivate this Dharma-gate, whether monastic or lay. People know only that this teaching transforms shallow-minded ordinary people, but in truth it is the swift and direct road to Buddhahood.

The studies of present-day practitioners do not go beyond Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya. Considered in terms of ultimate, perfect, and sudden realization, no Dharma equals Chan. Yet unless one is of sharp faculties and the highest capacity, spiritually apprehending and inwardly understanding, one cannot escape the error of falling into stagnant emptiness.

Considered in terms of investigating the Three Vehicles, no Dharma equals doctrine. Yet unless one has reached the level of “forgetting the trap once the fish is caught” and “seeing the moon by means of the pointing finger,” one cannot escape the disease of “gnawing upon old paper.” Considered in terms of safeguarding goodness and preventing evil, no Dharma equals Vinaya. Yet unless one’s body and mind are pure and one is the same within and without, one cannot escape the suffering of tying oneself in bonds!

In general, from the standpoint of practitioners’ cultivation there are Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya; when seeking the destination to which practitioners return, there are morality, samadhi, and wisdom. If practitioners wish to possess morality, samadhi, and wisdom without proceeding through Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya, there is only the single gateway of the Pure Land!

That is to say, when practitioners are mindful of the Buddha, reciting with the mouth, reflecting with the mind, and committing no evil, this itself is morality. When practitioners bind their thoughts to the pure realm, illusory sense-objects are extinguished; this is samadhi. The nature of mindfulness is no-mindfulness, and the mind-flower is transparent; this is wisdom.

If practitioners can cast aside the myriad threads of thought and concentrate upon the West, then without brandishing staffs or shouting they still awaken to the mechanism of the perfect and sudden teaching; without reading the Tripitaka they still obtain the eye of the true Dharma; without constraining themselves within the four deportments they still attain freedom—being neither defiled by existence nor purified by emptiness, neither bound nor liberated….

At that very moment, what are morality, samadhi, and wisdom? What are Chan, doctrine, and Vinaya? One’s own mind and the Buddha’s mind are one, without distinction.

This is the consummation of Pure Land cultivation. Why, then, should practitioners doubt “the water of eight virtues and the golden lotus terraces?”

—A record of the dream of a man surnamed Li from Luling Commandery.

In the guisi year of the Qiandao era, my entire family contracted an illness. On the fifth day of the fourth month, I, Yanbi, also became so ill that I could neither take medicine nor eat gruel. On the morning of the nineteenth, I dreamed of a man wearing a red robe, whose expression was radiant.

He patted and rubbed my body with his hand and called: “Yanbi! Quickly sit up!” Alarmed, I asked: “Who are you?” He replied: “I am Longshu.” I then told him of my illness. Although I wished to grasp hold of him, I could not.

I asked what I should do to recover. He said: “Do you remember the swift and direct path that Jingque Zhong taught?” I replied: “Yes! Every day I recite the name of Amitabha Buddha.” He said: “Sit up and eat some plain rice gruel, and your illness will immediately be cured!” When I awakened, I told my family to bring me gruel.

I ate it, and indeed the illness was cured. Later, when I saw a portrait of Layman Longshu, his appearance was exactly the same as the man I had seen in my dream!

I, Yanbi, heard that the Layman had long been thoroughly versed in the six arts, was highly skilled in the Book of Changes, and taught others tirelessly. The proprietor of the place where people came to study gave him the Hall of Tranquil Repose in gratitude for his work. Outside the door of the Hall of Tranquil Repose, shoes always filled the ground. On the eleventh day of the first month, I sent my nephew to receive instruction from him. Before long, he returned and said: “At nightfall, after the Layman finished teaching, he recited scriptures and bowed to the Buddha as usual. During the third watch, he suddenly recited ‘Amitabha Buddha’ several times in a loud voice and said: ‘The Buddha has come to welcome me!’ Having spoken, he passed away while standing.”

That same night, someone in the region dreamed that two people in blue robes led the Layman westward. This became the most wondrous event, and all who had known him or had not known him paid homage. I regret that I was unable to serve him as my teacher; the more I speak of it, the more deeply my heart grieves.

Three days before displaying the stillness of nirvana, the Layman visited people and urged everyone to cultivate diligently, saying: “From this time onward, we shall not meet again!”

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On the tenth day, the Layman visited Lord Zhao Jinghan, borrowed Zhao’s pure chamber, and said: “The work of the path is complete; now it is excellent to depart.” The Layman also wrote down the number of recitations accumulated in his daily practice—more than 925,500 repetitions—and posted it on the wall. Ah! Unless one possessed keen faculties and had penetrated the truth of birth and death, it would not be easy to reach such a level!

I, Yanbi, suffered an illness so grave that my life nearly ended. Coffin, outer casket, and burial garments had already been placed before my eyes. Fortunately, through the Layman’s compassionate rescue I recovered. Truly, he gave life to my bones and flesh.

Someone said: “Dreams arise from imagination!” But could the curative effect of eating plain gruel also be an empty tale? From this we know that the Layman’s compassionate vow was exceedingly profound, and that his merit of salvation reached human beings. Although dwelling in the Light of Eternal Tranquility, the Layman has not forgotten the power of his vows. How could we fail to strive diligently in response to the Layman’s exhortation to cultivate the Pure Land and attain Buddhahood?

I reverently had an image of him carved and wrote this account of his miraculous response so that it might circulate widely. I dared not embellish the words and thereby confuse people’s eyes and ears. Therefore, this postscript directly recounts and fully states these events in order to support the reverent faith of those who see and hear it. May everyone be imbued with its benefit.

I respectfully pray that the consciousness of Layman Wang will illumine and bear witness to my words above.

His surname was Wang, his personal name was Rixiu, his courtesy name was Xuzhong, and his sobriquet was Layman Longshu.

At the end of this year, respectfully recorded by Li Yanbi of Luling.

POSTSCRIPT BY NIE YUNDI OF HUJIANG

Before attaining rebirth, the Layman constantly and earnestly used the Pure Land teaching to exhort and transform others, traveling throughout the villages. At that time, I was only a little over twenty years old and happened to be planning to journey eastward with others. Moreover, at that time I did not yet know that there was a Buddhadharma, nor had I met him.

When I reached thirty years of age, one calamity followed another, and only then did I understand that human beings sink in the sea of suffering and that afflictions have no boundary. I thereupon single-mindedly gathered all the Layman’s words as a means of transcendence. Three years later, the Layman attained rebirth in Luling.

The people of the commandery embroidered his image and enshrined it. This occurred in the first month of the guisi year, during the Qiandao era. Five years later, in the dingyou year, my elder brother, an official of the Ministry of War serving as prefect, assumed his post in Luling and obtained the printing blocks, which he brought home.

Fearing that this text might disappear and fail to circulate for long, I had it engraved upon stone and placed in Amitabha Hall at Bao’en Monastery north of the city. I now vow to print and distribute ten thousand copies of the Layman’s Pure Land Text. I have also placed at the beginning of the volume the Layman’s portrait, together with the eulogy composed by Prime Minister Duke Zhu Yi and the subsequent writings; all were gathered into the Luling edition.

May all who see and hear it increase their faith and strive diligently. If so, the Western Pure Land will truly not be difficult to reach.

In the guihai year of the Jiatai era, respectfully written as a postscript by Nie Yundi of Hujiang, Gentleman for Literary Service, Judicial Commissioner of the Huguang General Administration, Xiangyang Prefecture, and Grand Military Provisioner of the Ministry of Revenue.

I, Yundi, have often seen beginners who practice Chan know only to revere the Chan school. They regard the Western Pure Land as attachment to characteristics and vigorously disparage and refute it. How could they know that Sakyamuni Tathagata appeared in the world for one great causal condition: to enable sentient beings to comprehend birth and death and leave behind the suffering paths of samsara?

The Dharma-gate of Chan inquiry was originally intended for comprehending birth and death. If one awakens through Chan inquiry, one comprehends birth and death in this very life. If one is born in the Pure Land, one sees Amitabha Buddha and thereafter comprehends birth and death, realizes the patience of the non-arising of dharmas, ascends to the stage of non-retrogression, and proceeds directly to Buddhahood.

Why should beginning students who practice Chan stubbornly choose only the single Dharma-gate of Chan? I have now briefly selected two or three teachings and appended them to Longshu’s Pure Land Text in order to clarify this matter.

—Postscript by Duan Fozhong of Siming.

Layman Longshu wrote the Pure Land Text in eleven volumes. Its opening section establishes faith in the Pure Land, while its final section discusses the “self”; it may be said that its arrangement is orderly. Both the phenomena and the principle are lucidly explained, leaving nothing more to be said. These ten volumes of text were personally engraved by the Layman while he was alive, for he wished them to circulate throughout the world so that everyone might together be mindful of the Buddha and be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss. His intention was truly difficult to equal.

Only the twelfth volume, added after the eleventh, was suspected of not reflecting the Layman’s intention. It must have been the opening portion of the text of volume four. At first I wished to discard the manuscript, but on reconsidering that later generations would revere the Layman, I could not bear to do so and therefore called Volume 11 an appendix.

Moreover, the purport of its cultivation Dharma-gate is the same as that of volume four, except that its meaning and diction are more solemn and refined. I once examined a manuscript in the Layman’s own hand; when compared with the text above, it corresponded exactly, like something lost and now recovered. Although the engraving has now been completed, this itself accords with the firm intention behind its composition.

I also wished to take the appended texts of earlier masters and arrange their exhortations in sequence, revising and completing them so that the book would have no omissions. If later readers find any defects, I ask that they supplement them.

On an auspicious day in the middle summer of the guiyou year of the Hongwu era.