Transition ⑥ · From the Two Streams to Samantabhadra's Vows in the Flower Ornament

Transition ⑥ · From the Two Streams to Samantabhadra's Vows in the Flower Ornament

Part Six told a human drama a thousand years long.

That buddha-name which was originally one thing landed in history and parted into two rivers: one flowing outward, seeking birth in the West; one flowing inward, pressing the question of this mind. They divided the household, they contended — and then Yongming, Yunqi, Hanshan, and Ouyi, generation by generation, gathered them back into one. At the end, Ouyi's single line — "one's own mind intrinsically possesses the Land of Bliss" — joined the outward land and the inward mind into one thing.

Arriving here, the long road of buddha-recollection would seem to be at its end.

From the recollection of the Āgamas, to the calling of the name in China, to the home the Three Pure Land Sūtras settled, to the deep meanings of the great Mahāyāna sūtras, to the parting and joining of the two rivers of Chan and Pure Land — it would seem every face of buddha-recollection has now been seen.

Not yet.

The buddha-recollection of the first six parts — outward or inward, phenomenal or principled — kept always within one frame: "one Buddha, one land, one mind." The Buddha you recollect is the one Buddha, Amitābha; the land you seek is the one land, Bliss; the mind you see is this one mind of your own.

There is a country wider than this, which the language of the first six parts has never stretched open.

It is the country of the Flower Ornament Sūtra.

In the Flower Ornament, buddha-recollection opens out from "one Buddha" into the whole dharma-realm — a world layer upon layer without end, where one is all and all is one: to recollect one Buddha is to recollect all Buddhas; bow to one Buddha, and the Buddhas of the ten directions receive the bow at once; within a single dust-mote appear measureless buddha-fields. Buddha-recollection here swells into the breathing of the whole universe.

And the one who leads us into this country is a great bodhisattva — Samantabhadra. He spreads buddha-recollection out into the "ten great vow-kings": reverencing all Buddhas, praising the Tathāgatas, extensively making offerings, repenting karmic obstructions, rejoicing in merit, requesting the turning of the dharma-wheel, requesting the Buddhas to abide in the world, constantly following the Buddha in study, accommodating sentient beings, and universal dedication.

These ten great vows stretch buddha-recollection open — from a practice you do alone, into a whole way of living, woven layer upon layer between you and all Buddhas and all sentient beings, dedicating without end.

And this is the very destination the book's title promised: from early Buddhist recollection, to the Flower Ornament vision.

We turn the page, and walk into the Flower Ornament — into Samantabhadra, and those ten great vows that take in the entire dharma-realm.