Part Five · The Great Mahāyāna Sūtras · A Thousand Faces of One Buddha-Name

Through the first four parts, buddha-recollection grew from its Indian root all the way into China, and at last, in the Three Pure Land Sūtras, settled into a warm home: recollect Amitābha, and seek birth in the Land of Bliss.

But buddha-recollection was never the private property of one Pure Land household. It had long since overflowed that little courtyard and run into the deepest, greatest sūtras of Chinese Buddhism. On the heights of these great scriptures, each one in turn holds buddha-recollection up to the light and reveals a face of it never seen before.

Part Five leads you through these deep halls, one chamber at a time. Each has its own scene: at the Śūraṅgama assembly, Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva rises from his seat; within the Golden Light, the bodhisattva Ruciraketu dreams by night of a great golden drum; and by the time of the Ghanavyūha, even the lecture hall itself is set within the buddha-land of Secret Adornment.

In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva teaches buddha-recollection as "gathering in the six sense-roots" — drawing all six into this one recollection. In the Lotus Sūtra, Avalokiteśvara's "Universal Gate" turns calling the name into a net that catches people wherever they fall. Further on, buddha-recollection will join to the precepts, join to confession, join to the subtlest turning-over of consciousness in the depths of Yogācāra, and at last join to the One-Practice Samādhi that Mañjuśrī taught, sealed with prajñā itself.

Great sūtra after great sūtra, face after face. One same buddha-name is here turned over and over, deepened, and lit.

This part is the deepest stretch of the whole book. We begin with those eight characters of the Śūraṅgama — gathering in the six sense-roots.