Part Five · The Original Vows of Amitābha · A Vow Accomplished

The vow of the last part was the common one: the Four Great Vows, which anyone may raise—and having raised them, walks on the strength of his own vow-power. The vow of this part is a particular one: a monk, before a Buddha, made forty-eight vows clause by clause—and he accomplished them.

This is Amitābha's original vow. The word "original" must be heard rightly first: it points not simply to "the vow he made," but to a vow-power rooted in past ages, already accomplished, possessed of its full efficacy here and now. The forty-eight vows of the monk Dharmākara, through inconceivable long aeons of practice, have congealed into a real and present land—the Land of Bliss in the West, ten aeons now since its Buddha awakened.

So in this part the vow shows two faces never seen before. One face is accomplishment: a vow, it turns out, can congeal into a world—the vow is not only an orientation; it can complete. The other face is riding: a vow already accomplished stands open to all beings—those who cannot carry the long road of self-power may entrust their direction to it, and ride it as they go.

Two chapters in order. Chapter one, the construction of the forty-eight vows—every clause sealed with "may I not take the perfect awakening": Dharmākara staked his own Buddhahood on the benefit of beings; and then how this vow burned, all the way, into a land. Chapter two, Master Tanluan on "other-power"—not indolence, not a transaction, but the entrusting of one's direction to a vow that holds.

For those who recite the Buddha's name, this part tells the road under their own feet; for those who do not practice the Pure Land way, it tells the furthest place that vow-power can reach.