If, When I Attain Buddhahood

5.1 If, When I Attain Buddhahood

Everyone who recites the Buddha's name knows that in the West there is a Land of Bliss—ground of seven jewels, lotus pools of virtuous water, birds singing in harmony. We are utterly familiar with its splendor, and rarely stop to ask the plainest question of all: where did this world come from?

It was not discovered by anyone. The Land of Bliss is not an island that was always there, waiting only to be reached by sail. Nor was it built—no blueprint, no crew of craftsmen. Then how does it come to be?

The answer of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha—the Sūtra of Immeasurable Life—is one word: vow. The Land of Bliss is a place congealed out of a vow. This chapter watches that vow leave one man's mouth, and burn, all the way, into a land.

He Relinquished His Country and Went Forth

Ages and ages ago, a Buddha appeared in the world, named Lokeśvararāja Tathāgata. The sūtra says:

"At that time there was a king who, hearing the Buddha teach the Dharma, was glad at heart, and straightway aroused the aspiration for the unsurpassed, true and right way; he relinquished his country, gave up the throne, and went forth as a śramaṇa, called Dharmākara—lofty in talent, brave and wise, surpassing the world."

A king, hearing the Buddha teach, glad and exultant, aroused the unsurpassed aspiration on the spot—relinquished the country, gave up the throne, went forth as a śramaṇa, by the name of Dharmākara. He came before the Buddha Lokeśvararāja, bowed and circled him, knelt long with palms joined, praised the Buddha in verse, and then spoke his heart: I have aroused the mind of unsurpassed right awakening; may the Buddha set forth the teachings for me at length—I would gather up a buddha-land pure, adorned, a measureless and wondrous realm.

The Buddha Lokeśvararāja then set forth for him two hundred and ten koṭis of buddha-fields—showing him, one by one, the coarse and the fine of those lands, the good and evil of their devas and humans. The monk Dharmākara gathered the pure practices of those two hundred and ten koṭis of fields wholly into his mind, pondered them through long aeons, selected and bound them together. Then he returned before the Buddha, and spoke the forty-eight vows.

In his verse of praise, four lines should be set down here first:

"Even though this body should abide amid every pain and poison, my practice shall press on; enduring, I shall never regret."

Even were this body sunk in every pain and poison, my effort goes forward, my endurance holds to the end, and never shall I regret. These four lines are the spine standing behind the forty-eight vows.

Forty-Eight Clauses, One Construction

The forty-eight vows differ clause by clause; their grammar is one. Look at the first:

"If, when I attain buddhahood, there should be in my land the hells, the realm of hungry ghosts, or the animal realm, may I not take the perfect awakening."

If, at the time I become a Buddha, there remain in my land the hells, the hungry ghosts, the animals—then may I not take the perfect awakening: may I not become a Buddha.

Take the sentence apart. The front half speaks of Dharmākara's own Buddhahood; the middle, a condition of the land; and the last words—"may I not take the perfect awakening"—weld the two ends shut: if the condition does not stand, I do not become. "If, when I attain buddhahood" appears in the forty-eight vows forty-eight times—forty-eight times, Dharmākara binds the towering matter of "my becoming a Buddha" onto a clause of "beings' benefit."

So the forty-eight vows are not the rendering of an ideal realm. A rendering says "my land shall be thus and so"; Dharmākara says "if not thus and so, I do not become a Buddha." This is not depiction; it is collateral—staking the greatest thing he has, the fruit of Buddhahood, on the benefit of beings.

The designers of this world never stake themselves into what they design. An architect draws an ideal city; the city unbuilt, the architect is an architect still. Not so Dharmākara. The vows set out, he swore once more in verse, gathering the whole:

"I have founded a vow surpassing the worlds, and must reach the unsurpassed way; should this vow not be fulfilled, may I not become a fully awakened one."

I have founded a vow surpassing all the worlds, and must arrive at the unsurpassed way; should this vow not be filled, I swear not to become perfectly awakened. The collateral of forty-eight clauses is gathered in these four lines into one total stake: Buddhahood and the deliverance of beings welded into one body—either they stand together, or together they do not stand. There is no third possibility.

The Vow Burned into a Land

The vows made, Dharmākara did not sit waiting for them to redeem themselves. The sūtra says he planted and amassed the measureless virtues of a bodhisattva across inconceivable, immeasurable long aeons—filling the vow with deeds, aeon upon aeon.

Then comes the most weight-bearing exchange in the whole sūtra. Ānanda asks the Buddha: the bodhisattva Dharmākara—has he already become a Buddha and passed into cessation? Or has he not yet become one? Or is he present now? The Buddha tells Ānanda:

"The bodhisattva Dharmākara has now already become a buddha and dwells at present in the West, ten trillion buddha-fields from here; his buddha-world is named Peace-and-Bliss."

Ānanda asks again: since his becoming a Buddha, how long has passed? The Buddha says:

"Since his attaining buddhahood, ten eons in all have passed."

Listen closely to the tense of this answer. The Buddha does not say "Dharmākara will become a Buddha," nor "there shall be a land of Peace-and-Bliss." The Buddha says "has now already become," "dwells at present in the West," "ten eons in all"—the tense is present, the direction is pointed, the years are countable. The land that once existed only inside forty-eight clauses of "if, when I attain buddhahood" is now a ready and standing world, with a quarter to point to and an age to count.

Here, for the first time, the vow shows its full power. It is not only an orientation—it can accomplish. The collateral has been redeemed: aeons of amassed virtue filled every clause, and Buddhahood and land stood up together. Vasubandhu, composing the verses of the Treatise on Rebirth, named this power outright:

"Beholding the Buddha's original vow-power, none who meet it pass by in vain; it can swiftly fill the great jewel-ocean of merit."

Behold the Buddha's original vow-power: of those who truly meet it, not one passes by in vain; it can bring a person swiftly to the filling of the great jewel-ocean of merit. The words "it can" are in the active voice: the original vow-power is no backdrop set in place—it is a force at work in the present, acting, really and truly, on everyone who meets it.

One Thing to See Clearly Here

With this origin understood, one thing about the forty-eight vows must be seen clearly.

The forty-eight vows are not an inventory of the Land of Bliss's amenities—not a sheet listing "no three evil destinies in this land, all beings golden in body, lifespan without measure," to be browsed like a development's brochure. An inventory never puts up its lister's whole estate as surety; and every clause of the forty-eight ends with "may I not take the perfect awakening"—a bond of surety with everything at stake, not a page of advertising.

So behind every measure of the Land of Bliss's splendor stands one and the same sentence: if not thus, I do not become a Buddha. When those who recite the Name long for that land, what they long for is not only the seven-jeweled lotus pools—it is the vow underneath, holding that land up.

Walking On

But with the land accomplished, is the matter complete?

However great a vow, however splendid a land—if beings cannot get up onto it, cannot ride it, then this accomplished Land of Peace-and-Bliss remains, after all, the affair of Dharmākara alone. Master Tanluan of the Northern Wei, writing his commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth, named this thorn in a single sentence: were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain.

That the vow accomplished a land is one half; how that land comes to be ridden is the other. The next chapter speaks of this word: ride.