Transition ⑦ · From Samantabhadra's Vows to the Coda

Transition ⑦ · From Samantabhadra's Vows to the Coda

Part Seven carried buddha-recollection into its widest country — the Flower Ornament.

There, buddha-recollection swelled to the size of the dharma-realm: a single moment of recollection holding all Buddhas, all times, all places; Samantabhadra's ten great vows stretching buddha-recollection open, from a solitary act into a whole way of living — to the very end of future time, moment by moment unbroken — looking up to the Buddhas, bending down to sentient beings, every share of merit in one's hands dedicated to the dharma-realm.

And at the far end of that widest country, it settled gently back onto the plainest phrase of all — "Namo Amitābha Buddha."

Here, the road this book promised — from early Buddhist recollection to the Flower Ornament vision — has been walked, whole, to its end.

From the Pāli foundations, to the earliest Chinese translations, to early Mahāyāna, to the Three Pure Land Sūtras, to the great Mahāyāna sūtras, to the parting and joining of the two streams of Chan and Pure Land, to Samantabhadra's ten great vows in the Flower Ornament — this one word, niàn, has walked this land for more than a thousand years. It has parted tracks, settled a home, faced outward, faced inward, swelled into the whole dharma-realm — and returned, again and again, to that one plainest phrase.

A complete map lies spread open.

But a map, in the end, is for walking — not for framing and hanging on a wall.

Having walked this whole long road, we must turn around at the last and ask the plainest of questions: what does all of this have to do with me? This great map, covered with sūtras and patriarchs and schools — what, in the end, is it meant to hand over to me, an ordinary person, holding one buddha-name?

That is what the final part — the coda — has to say.

It adds no new sūtras and no new patriarchs. What it does is gather this whole long road of recollection, let it settle, and then, gently, place it back into the palm of your hand: not as a subject to be understood, but as a thing to be done.

We turn this last page, and walk into the coda.