Other-Power and the Grammar of Entrusting

I. The Question: Is Other-Power the Opposite of Self-Power?

Few terms are misread as readily as "other-power."

One reading takes it for indolence: since there is a buddha's power to lean on, my end has nothing left to do—the Buddha will come for me, and I need only lie back and wait. Another reading takes it for a transaction: other-power is a deal, in which I supply a quantity of recitation and the Buddha supplies the result of rebirth; recite the Name enough times and I cash in a ticket. The two readings run in opposite directions, yet they share one buried assumption—both set other-power against self-power as its contrary. Self-power is "I do"; other-power is "I do not, and another does." Self-power is "rely on yourself"; other-power is "rely on someone else." Once the two are paired off in this way, other-power has only two exits left: either abandon effort (indolence) or convert effort into a chip and trade it away (transaction).

But this very pairing is what the present paper means to dismantle. The other-power Tanluan speaks of is not the contrary of self-power; it is a type of vow. To see this clearly, we must first return to where the previous paper left off.

The previous paper argued that a Pure Land is neither a place discovered nor a place built, but a place a vow "accomplishes": the Forty-Eight Vows, through the formula "If, when I attain buddhahood … may I not take the perfect awakening," stake the maker's buddhahood on the benefit of beings, and then, through aeons of accumulated merit, burn that stake into a habitable land of adornments.¹ That paper ran in the direction "vow → land"—how vow-power accomplishes a land. Yet however great a vow may be, if beings have no way to "ride" it, the vow remains the private affair of one monk. Tanluan saw this thorn early. What the present paper takes up is precisely the reverse direction—"land ← practitioner": this land, accomplished by a vow, how is the practitioner to ride its vow-power and enter?

Set the question this way and other-power ceases to be "the contrary of self-power" and becomes instead a question about how the direction of a vow is entrusted. What follows first supplies the suture between the two papers, watching Tanluan name the thorn of "the vow must be ridden" (Section II); then digs out of the "gate of making the vow" that often-omitted entruster's end within other-power, and erects the two-way vow-structure of "entruster ↔ entrusted-to" (Section III); next lets the philosophy of trust and the autonomy/heteronomy distinction throw mutual light on the matter (Section IV); then corrects the three misreadings most easily slipped into (Section V); and finally closes with the returning aspect of dedication, handing the thread to the next part of this volume (Section VI).

II. The Canonical Basis

2.1 The Suture: "Were It Not for the Buddha's Power, the Forty-Eight Vows Would Be Set Up in Vain"

In the second fascicle of his Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth, discussing why the original vow-power of the Tathāgata Amitābha can cause those reborn to "all attain, without exception, the stage of non-retrogression," Tanluan offers one cutting line:²

"It is because of the original vow-power. How so? Were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain."

This line catches, exactly, the thorn the previous paper left lying at its close. That paper stopped the thread at "the vow has become a land": the Forty-Eight Vows, after five aeons of deliberation and immeasurable aeons of planted merit, were at last accomplished as the present Land of Peace and Bliss in the West. But here Tanluan reminds us: even granting that vow-power has accomplished a land, if no one can enter that land, if it cannot be ridden, then the original forty-eight clauses of "If, when I attain buddhahood, [it is not thus], may I not take the perfect awakening" become idling provisions—"set up in vain" means, on its face, set up for nothing. In other words, the accomplishment of the vow is still missing one end: the end that can be ridden. Vow-power and "the power to ride the vow" must be clasped into a single matter before this land counts as truly "not set up in vain."

One distinction is worth marking. Tanluan here assigns the opposite of "in vain" to "the Buddha's power" (the original vow-power), not to whether the practitioner "recites enough." The Buddha's power is prior and foundational—it precedes and upholds practice, rather than being a result that practice purchases. We will return to this point in Section V when correcting "other-power is not a transaction"; for now let it simply be marked: the weight of the suture falls on "the vow must be ridden," not on "practice can buy the vow."

2.2 The Signature Line: "Other-Power Can Be Ridden; Give Rise to Faith, Do Not Confine Yourself to Your Own Portion"

What, then, is this act of "riding," concretely? A little later in the same fascicle Tanluan gives an exhortation that comes close to a rebuke:³

"How foolish! Let later students, hearing that other-power can be ridden, give rise to faith, and not confine themselves to their own portion."

Three key actions are hidden in this line, and together they lay bare the structure of entrusting.

First, "other-power can be ridden." To "ride" is a directional act—as one rides a boat or a carriage, the person does not vanish; he merely commits his own going-toward to a larger carrying-power already in motion. The one who rides the boat must still board it, must still sit oriented toward his destination; what he hands over is the "power of travel," not the "will to travel." So too the one who rides the original vow-power hands over the "power of accomplishment," not the "heart that aspires to be born."

Second, "give rise to faith." What follows "can be ridden" is not "lay everything down" but "give rise to faith"—faith is something to be "given rise to," an actively initiated movement of mind, not a blank passively received. This stroke matters greatly: it blocks the reading "other-power = indolence." Were other-power truly a matter of lying back and waiting to be fetched, Tanluan could have said, "hearing that other-power can be ridden, do nothing at all"; instead he says, "give rise to faith." Faithful entrusting is not inaction; the entrusting is itself a vow initiated at the practitioner's end—a vow that says, "I will entrust myself thus."

Third, "do not confine yourself to your own portion." To "confine oneself to one's portion" is to wall oneself within the narrow bounds of self-power, supposing that everything must be carried, alone, on this one measure of one's own strength. The "folly" Tanluan rebukes is exactly this self-confinement—not a rebuke of effort, but a rebuke of mistaking effort for "this lone strength and nothing else." Not to confine oneself to one's portion is to tear down that self-erected wall, so that one's own vow may open onto a larger vow.

2.3 The Entrusting End: The Gate of Making the Vow

To this point the "entrusted-to" end of other-power (Dharmākara's original vow) is clear. But there is also an "entruster" end within other-power that is often read past—the practitioner's own vow. Its canonical basis lies in Vasubandhu's five gates of mindfulness in the Treatise on Rebirth.

The five gates of mindfulness are the five practice-gates Vasubandhu lays out for one who aspires to be born: worship, praise, making the vow, contemplation, and dedication. Of these the third, the gate of making the vow, Vasubandhu defines thus:⁴

"What is making the vow? To constantly make the vow with the mind, single-mindedly and wholly intent, to be reborn at last in the Land of Peace and Bliss—for one wishes to cultivate śamatha in accordance with reality."

Note the grammatical person of this gate. It does not describe what the Buddha's end has done; it prescribes what the practitioner's end is to do—"to constantly make the vow with the mind": the practitioner is to give rise, again and again, to a vow, and this vow has a definite direction ("to be reborn at last in the Land of Peace and Bliss"). In other words, within the picture of "riding the original vow-power," the practitioner is no blank, passively receptive plate; he too has a vow, a vow of his own, actively initiated and oriented toward rebirth.

This completes the structure of other-power. At one end is Dharmākara's original vow (the entrusted-to)—a vow long since accomplished, a vow that holds. At the other end is the practitioner's making of the vow (the entruster)—a vow now being initiated, a vow to be handed over. Other-power is not "one vow (the Buddha's) acting upon one who has no vow (the being)"; it is "one vow (the being's making of the vow) meshing into another vow (Dharmākara's original vow)." Entruster and entrusted-to are two vows that require and uphold each other. What the next section argues is precisely this "two-way vow-structure."

III. The Argument: Entruster ↔ Entrusted — Other-Power as the Meshing of Two Vows

3.1 Other-Power Is Not a Second, Bolt-On Engine

First, break the most stubborn image: imagining self-power and other-power as two engines. As if practice were a vehicle, self-power the motor that came installed, and—its horsepower being insufficient—other-power were bolted on as a second engine to reinforce it, pushing along the stretch self-power cannot manage.

This image is seductive because it preserves the intuition that "self-power" and "other-power" are each independent, separable, and severally measurable. But it is exactly wrong. If other-power really were a second engine, then its relation to self-power could only be "addition" or "subtraction": a degree more other-power, a degree less effort required from self-power—which slides straight back into the reading of indolence. And the suture of the Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth says nothing of the sort. "Were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain" says: the Buddha's power is the founding power that lets the whole matter stand at all, not a reinforcing power. It does not start up a second motor alongside self-power; it upholds the entire road itself.

So the relation of other-power to self-power is not two parallel forces summed, but one vow upholding another vow.

3.2 The Two-Way Vow-Structure: The Entrusting and the Entrusted-To

Set side by side the two ends dug out in Section II, and the true structure of other-power comes into view.

The entrusted-to—Dharmākara's original vow. This vow has one utterly crucial tense-feature: it is already accomplished. As the previous paper argued, after Dharmākara made the Forty-Eight Vows, he passed through five aeons of deliberation and immeasurable aeons of accumulated practice; he has now become the Buddha Amitābha, and ten aeons have elapsed since his awakening, so that the Land of Peace and Bliss already stands, complete.¹ This means that what the practitioner is to entrust himself into is not a promise of "may it yet be accomplished," but a vow "already completed"—a ready-made land, a land that holds.

The entruster—the practitioner's making of the vow. Vasubandhu's gate of making the vow requires the practitioner to "constantly make the vow, single-mindedly and wholly intent, to be reborn at last." This is the practitioner actively initiating the direction of his own life, definitely oriented toward that already-accomplished land.

The act of "riding" happens at the meshing-point of these two ends: the practitioner aligns and slots his own "aspiration to be born" (the entruster) into Dharmākara's "already-accomplished vow" (the entrusted-to). Once the meshing is complete, the practitioner's vow is no longer a vow hung in isolation, to be redeemed by his lone strength; it becomes a vow upheld by a greater vow. What he hands over is not "responsibility" (as though he might now stop caring) but "direction"—he is still oriented toward rebirth; only now that orientation rides upon a power already accomplished. What he faithfully entrusts is not "a ticket" (a voucher still to be redeemed) but "an already-completed vow" (a ready-made land).

This is the core thesis of the paper: other-power is the meshing of two vows, a directional transfer of the vow, not the cancellation of the vow.

3.3 A Plain Simile: Docking, Not Hitchhiking

A homely contrast can pin the point down.

The "hitchhiking" version of other-power (the misreading): I stand at the roadside doing nothing, waiting for a car to stop and carry me off. The car is another's, the road is one another has charted, and even "where to go" is left to the driver—my end is wholly passive; even the direction is not mine. This is the merged image of "indolence plus transaction": I am responsible only for sticking out a hand to flag the car (paying the minimum chip), and other-power handles all the rest.

The "docking" version of other-power (the true sense): I have a definite destination of my own (the gate of making the vow: "to be reborn at last"); I set out toward it, trim my course to it, and then dock this leg of my voyage into a track already laid and genuinely bound for that place (the original vow-power). The track is ready-made, and it holds (already accomplished); but "to travel this track" and "to head this way" are, throughout, initiated, faithfully entrusted, and handed over by me. What I hand over is the carrying of the voyage, not its direction or its will—those two remain, from first to last, with me.

The fork between the two images falls exactly on the entruster's end: the hitchhiker has no vow of his own (he has ceded even his direction); the one who docks has a vow of his own (the gate of making the vow), and merely hands that vow over to a greater vow to be carried. That other-power is a type of vow turns on just this: the entruster's end is not empty.

IV. Interdisciplinary Bridges: Trust, Autonomy, and Transaction

Holding "entrusting" up before three mirrors of modern philosophy lets the distinctive character of other-power be isolated more sharply.

4.1 First Mirror: Trust as "Accepted Vulnerability" (Annette Baier)

The contemporary ethicist Annette Baier, in "Trust and Antitrust," defines trust as a kind of "accepted vulnerability"—to trust another is to hand oneself into the hands of another's competence and goodwill, and thereby to bear the risk of being let down.⁵ This definition looks remarkably close-fitting to "entrusting": the faithful entrusting of other-power looks precisely like an act of handing oneself over to the Buddha's vow-power.

One may grant it: other-power is indeed a form of faithful entrusting, a structure of handing one's own direction over. But here lies a crucial difference worth pressing back upon. Baier's trust carries "vulnerability" and "the risk of being let down" because the party trusted is an agent who has not yet acted, whose goodwill and competence both remain to be proven—I trust that you will help me, but you may also fail to. The faithful entrusting of other-power is not this wager-like trust. Why? Because the vow entrusted-to is already accomplished—Dharmākara has been a buddha for ten aeons, and that land already stands ready (Section III). What the practitioner aligns himself with and entrusts himself into is not an uncertain agent who "will do something for me," but a vow "already completed."

So the faithful entrusting of other-power is not "the trust of vulnerability" (wagering on a goodwill not yet shown) but "the trust of alignment" (slotting into an already-completed structure). The risk does not lie in "whether the Buddha will deliver"—that has been delivered; what risk there is lies only at the practitioner's end, in "whether he is willing truly to hand the direction over." Baier's mirror shows the form of entrusting, but by contrast it also throws into relief the peculiarity of other-power's entrusting: the object entrusted-to is not an unforeseeable other, but an already-accomplished vow.

4.2 Second Mirror: Is Other-Power Kantian Heteronomy?

A second easily encountered worry comes from Kant. Kant takes the will's "autonomy" (Autonomie) as the ground of morality—the will legislates for itself; the opposing "heteronomy" (Heteronomie) is a will determined by an external authority or object, and so robbed of self-governance. Other-power is named, after all, "other" power: is it not therefore precisely a heteronomy? To hand one's direction over to the Buddha—is that not precisely to let the will be determined from outside?

The dissolving of this worry turns entirely on the question, "what, exactly, is it that is handed over?" What other-power hands over is not "the will's authorship" (who legislates this vow) but "the carrying-power of the vow" (who upholds this vow to its end). The practitioner has not surrendered to the Buddha the legislative power of "whether or not I am to be reborn"—on the contrary, the gate of making the vow expressly requires that this vow be one the practitioner "constantly makes with the mind," initiated by himself (Section II); even the very act of entrusting, "give rise to faith," is still a vow the practitioner actively sets in motion (Section II). What is handed over is only how the "direction" is to be carried, not who decides the "direction."

So other-power is not heteronomy. In heteronomy, the direction of the will is determined by an external force; in other-power, the direction of the will is, throughout, set by the practitioner himself (the gate of making the vow), and what is handed over is only the carrying by which that direction may be brought to its end. To borrow a phrase: other-power is not the negation of self-power but the re-routing of self-power—the same will to be born, no longer trying to carry the whole course on its lone strength (confined to its own portion), is now guided and slotted into a larger track of vow-power. Self and other, here, are not two. (That self and other can be not-two has its root in the doctrinal placement that "other-power is a dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya), not a causal condition (hetu-pratyaya)"; this mechanism is treated in a dedicated study elsewhere in this project, and is not restated here—only its conclusion on the vow-side is borrowed, namely that other-power is not the negation of self-power but its re-routing.⁶)

4.3 Third Mirror (to Be Refused): Transaction and the Vending Machine

The third mirror is one to be looked into and then firmly shattered: reading other-power as a transaction—a "I pay, the Buddha delivers" bargain, which at its extreme becomes a "vending machine" model of deliverance (insert sufficient recitations of the Name, out drops a ticket to rebirth). This reading is hardly rare in religious imaginings of the "prosperity-gospel" sort, and it is the direction in which "other-power" is most often vulgarized.

Why is it wrong? Return to the suture: "Were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain." The logical direction of this line is the exact reverse of transaction. The logic of transaction is "practice first, result after, result exchanged for practice"—I pay first, then receive in exchange. But what Tanluan says is "the Buddha's power is prior, and founds practice"—the original vow-power precedes practice and upholds practice; practice is not a chip used to "exchange for" a result, but the act of aligning with a vow already given. Entrusting aligns with a vow "already accomplished"; it does not "purchase" a result "still to be produced."

This volume, in its gate of repentance, laid down a parallel discipline: acceptance is not absolution, because there is no "pardoner" seated there keeping accounts and issuing certificates of pardon—repentance is not a transaction with karma.⁷ That discipline can be carried over here: entrusting is not transaction, because there is no "vending machine" sitting there taking coins and dispensing tickets. In other-power there is no vending machine. The imagination that treats the Name as a coin and rebirth as a commodity misplaces, at the root, the very standing of the original vow-power—it demotes a "founding, prior vow-power" into a "purchasable service."

Taking the three mirrors together, the distinctive character of other-power is isolated: it is a special case in the grammar of entrusting—a type of vow in which the "direction" of the will is handed over (neither abandoned nor exchanged) into a prior, already-accomplished vow; the entruster and the entrusted-to mesh both ways. No ready-made Western frame reads "other-power" as just this kind of "directional transfer of the vow," rather than as dependence, heteronomy, or transaction.

V. Corrections of the Middle Way

At this point four boundary-stakes must be set, to fence off the four misreadings most easily slipped into.

❌ Other-power is not a transaction. As argued at the third mirror of Section IV: entrusting aligns with an already-accomplished vow; it does not purchase a result still to be redeemed. The original vow-power precedes and founds practice; it is not exchanged for by practice. Every imagining that reads the Name as a coin and rebirth as a commodity crosses this line. In other-power there is no vending machine (carrying over the non-transactional discipline of the gate of repentance, "acceptance is not absolution").

❌ Other-power is not indolence. What follows "other-power can be ridden" is "give rise to faith"; faith is something to be actively "given rise to," and the gate of making the vow further requires the practitioner to "constantly make the vow, single-mindedly and wholly intent"—the entruster's end is never blank. More importantly, entrusting oneself to the original vow-power does not terminate in "I am saved, and from here all is done." Tanluan, discussing the two aspects of dedication, places beside the "going aspect" a "returning aspect": having been born in that land, one must still return into birth-and-death to teach and liberate beings (see Section VI). Were other-power indolence, there would be no turn of the returning aspect at all. Everyone who reads other-power as "lie back, be fetched, and have done with this life" crosses this line.

⚠️ This paper renders no verdict on the relative merits of self and other. The "other-power" of the Pure Land gate and the "self-power" of the common path are set side by side throughout this paper in neutral terms, with no judgment passed on which is superior. Historically, the Japanese Pure Land tradition (Hōnen's "selected original vow," Shinran's "absolute other-power") pushed the thought of other-power to an unprecedented peak; on this the present paper offers only acknowledgment, without development, and certainly does not invoke it to argue that other-power is superior to self-power.⁸ Anyone who reads in this paper a claim that "other-power is superior to self-power" has misread it—this paper argues only what other-power is (a type of vow), not what it is "better than."

⚠️ The mechanism of the dominant condition is not re-expounded here. The doctrinal ground for "why other-power does not cancel self-power, but can be not-two with it" lies in the placement "other-power is a dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya), not a causal condition (hetu-pratyaya)," together with Tanluan's related lexical inquiry. This mechanism has a dedicated study; the present paper borrows only its conclusion (other-power = the re-routing of self-power; self and other not two) and does not restate its argument.⁶ Likewise, Shandao's faith-structure of "the ordinary person's entry into the recompense-land" and the "twofold deep faith of being and Dharma" is taken here only on its "giving and receiving of the vow" side, as background; its doctrinal-classificatory details are not re-expounded.⁹

VI. Conclusion: After Entrusting, the Returning Aspect

To gather the whole paper into a sentence: other-power is not the dispensing with vowing, but the practitioner's vow (the gate of making the vow; the entruster) finding an already-accomplished vow (Dharmākara's original vow; the entrusted-to) it can mesh with; what is handed over is not responsibility but direction.

Yet before closing, one last turn must be accounted for—otherwise "entrusting" is all too easily read as "escape": having handed over the direction, is one then done once and for all, gone out of birth-and-death never to return? Tanluan's discussion of the two aspects of dedication blocks just this reading. Beyond the "going aspect" (dedicating one's own merit, aspiring to be born in that land) there is also the "returning aspect":¹⁰

"As for the returning aspect: having been born in that land … one returns into the dense forest of birth-and-death, teaching all beings to turn together toward the Buddha way."

This line turns the endpoint of "entrusting" inside out. To ride the original vow-power and be born in that land is not the terminus of the voyage—having been born there, the practitioner is to "return into the dense forest of birth-and-death" once more, back to the very place he had meant to leave, to teach beings and turn together toward the Buddha way. Entrusting oneself to the original vow-power, therefore, does not terminate in one's own deliverance. Were other-power read as "once I reach the shore I no longer care for others," it is negated by exactly this turn of the returning aspect: the one who reaches the shore is precisely the one who is to go back into the water. (Dedication as the "turning" mechanism of the vow has its full doctrine treated in a dedicated study within the part on Samantabhadra's vows of conduct; the present paper takes only the returning aspect's non-terminal face—"other-power does not terminate in one's own deliverance"—as a signpost laid down for what follows, and does not unfold the workings of dedication.)

With this, this part—the "vow"-face of Amitābha's primal vows—can be brought to rest. The previous paper established "vow → land": how vow-power accomplishes a land; the present paper establishes "land ← practitioner": how that vow is ridden. Taken together, the two papers carry Amitābha's primal vows from "one monk made one great vow" to "one being hands his own vow over into that great vow," so that the "power" of the vow is rounded out in both directions: it can accomplish (the previous paper), and it can be ridden (this paper).

And yet, at this point, the vow is, after all, still a "vow."

The gate of making the vow asks the practitioner to "constantly make the vow"; the returning aspect asks the practitioner to "return into birth-and-death to liberate beings"—both of these are already more than a single "point of initiation"; they begin to call for a "continuous line" and a "concrete conduct." If the vow halts at the moment of entrusting, it remains an orientation that has not yet touched ground; only when it settles into "conduct"—moment-by-moment, unbroken—are vow and conduct truly not two. Tanluan's other-power frees a person from the lone strength of "confinement to one's own portion" and hands him over to a greater vow; but what this freed person is next to do is not rest, but to live that vow out as conduct.

How, then, does the vow become not merely a single initiation but a conduct continuous to the very end of the future? How, in the end, are vow and conduct "not two"? That question waits for the next part of this volume—Samantabhadra's vows of conduct—to treat in detail.

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References

I. Primary Buddhist Sources 佛教原典

• Foshuo wuliangshou jing (Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha), trans. Saṃghavarman (Kang Sengkai), Cao Wei dynasty, Taishō vol. 12, No. 360.
• Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng jie (the Treatise on Rebirth, Wangsheng lun), composed by Bodhisattva Vasubandhu, trans. Bodhiruci, Northern Wei, Taishō vol. 26, No. 1524.
• Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng jie zhu (the Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth, Wangsheng lun zhu), commentary by Tanluan, Taishō vol. 40, No. 1819.

II. Modern Scholarship 現代學術著作

• Baier, Annette. "Trust and Antitrust." Ethics 96, no. 2 (1986): 231–260. (Trust as accepted vulnerability.)
• Kant, Immanuel. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Riga: Hartknoch, 1785. (The autonomy and heteronomy of the will.)

III. Sūtra & Śāstra Index 經論索引

Short title	Full title	Taishō no.	Author / Translator
Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha	Foshuo wuliangshou jing	T0360《佛說無量壽經》(大經)Larger Sukhāvatī-vyūhaT12, No. 360Saṃghavarman / Kang Sengkai (Three Kingdoms, ca. 252 CE — attributed; modern scholarship debates)View on CBETA online reader ↗ (vol. 12)	trans. Saṃghavarman
Treatise on Rebirth	Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng jie	T1524《無量壽經優波提舍願生偈》(往生論)Sukhāvatī-vyūha-upadeśa (Vasubandhu)T26, No. 1524Bodhiruci (Northern Wei, 529–543 CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗ (vol. 26)	Vasubandhu, trans. Bodhiruci
Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth	Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng jie zhu	T1819《梵網經菩薩戒本疏》(義寂)T40, No. 1819Yijaek (Silla, ca. 7th c. CE)View on CBETA online reader ↗ (vol. 40)	commentary by Tanluan

Cross-References

This paper continues the previous paper, Vow-Power as the Architecture of a Pure Land (P11), turning from "vow-power accomplishes a land" (vow → land) to "how the vow is ridden" (land ← practitioner). Taking the "vow"-face of other-power in Tanluan and Vasubandhu, it joins P11 as the paired "vow"-face papers of Amitābha's primal vows, sealing Part V (The Primal Vows of Amitābha). The mechanism of other-power as a dominant condition, Shandao's faith-structure, and the classification of the difficult and easy paths are treated in dedicated studies in the volume on mindful recollection (NIAN); the present paper refers to these throughout rather than restating them. The full mechanism of the two aspects of dedication (the going and returning aspects) and the tenth great vow, "universal dedication," belong to a dedicated study within the part on Samantabhadra's vows of conduct (Part VI); the present paper takes only the returning aspect's non-terminal face, "other-power does not terminate in one's own deliverance," as a signpost. The question of "making the vow with a mind of no-attainment" has its own dedicated essay later in this volume. The paper closes by handing the thread to Part VI (Samantabhadra's vows of conduct; conduct and vow not two): the question of "how the vow turns from a single initiation into a conduct continuous moment by moment" is left for that part to treat in detail.

Footnotes

1. See the previous paper in this series, Vow-Power as the Architecture of a Pure Land (PRAṆIDHĀNA-P11). The fulfilment passage—"The Bodhisattva Dharmākara has now become a buddha and dwells in the West … ten aeons have elapsed since his awakening"—is found in the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha (Foshuo wuliangshou jing), fascicle one, Taishō vol. 12, No. 360, p. 270a. The present paper's tense-judgment that "the vow entrusted-to is already accomplished" rests on this. ↩ ↩²

2. Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth (Wangsheng lun zhu), fascicle two, Tanluan's commentary, Taishō vol. 40, No. 1819, p. 844a. Original: "It is because of the original vow-power. How so? Were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain. Here we take precisely the three vows to verify the import." The doctrinal placement of "other-power as a dominant condition" (same page, 844a) belongs to the dedicated study of the dominant-condition mechanism and is not re-cited here (see note 5). ↩

3. Ibid., Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth, fascicle two, Taishō vol. 40, No. 1819, p. 844a. Original: "How foolish! Let later students, hearing that other-power can be ridden, give rise to faith, and not confine themselves to their own portion." ↩

4. Treatise on Rebirth (Wuliangshou jing youpotishe yuansheng jie, the Wangsheng lun), composed by Vasubandhu, translated by Bodhiruci of the Northern Wei, Taishō vol. 26, No. 1524, p. 231b. Original: "What is making the vow? To constantly make the vow with the mind, single-mindedly and wholly intent, to be reborn at last in the Land of Peace and Bliss—for one wishes to cultivate śamatha in accordance with reality." This is the third of the five gates of mindfulness (worship, praise, making the vow, contemplation, dedication). The mechanism of the fifth, the gate of dedication, belongs to the dedicated study within the part on Samantabhadra's vows of conduct and is not unfolded here. ↩

5. Baier, Annette. "Trust and Antitrust." Ethics 96, no. 2 (1986): 231–260. On trust as "accepted vulnerability" (a reliance on another's competence and goodwill that bears the risk of being let down). The present paper borrows its form of entrusting and, on the single point that "the vow entrusted-to is already accomplished," presses back to the "alignment" (rather than vulnerability) character of other-power's faithful entrusting. ↩

6. The placement of other-power as a dominant condition (adhipati-pratyaya) rather than a causal condition (hetu-pratyaya), together with Tanluan's related lexical inquiry, has its dedicated treatment elsewhere in this project (in the volume on mindful recollection, in its chapter on the dominant-condition mechanism of other-power and the difficult and easy paths). The present paper invokes only its conclusion (self and other not two; other-power = the re-routing of self-power) and does not restate the argument. ↩ ↩²

7. For the parallel discipline, see this series' volume on repentance (KṢAMĀ) on the non-transactional structure of "acceptance is not absolution; there is no pardoner keeping accounts." The present paper carries this over as "entrusting is not transaction; there is no vending machine taking coins." ↩

8. The thought of other-power in the Japanese Pure Land tradition (Hōnen's "selected original vow" in the Senchaku hongan nembutsu shū; Shinran's "absolute other-power") marks the historical peak of other-power's thematization. Following the discipline of this whole volume, the present paper renders no verdict on the relative merits of Pure Land other-power and the common path of self-power, and on the various Japanese positions offers only acknowledgment without development; their Kamakura-period doctrinal lens should not be read retrospectively into the original textual contexts of Tanluan and Vasubandhu (on the problem of this retrojected lens, see the relevant dedicated study in the volume on mindful recollection). ↩

9. Shandao's faith-structure of the ordinary person's entry into the recompense-land and the twofold deep faith of being and Dharma is treated in the dedicated study in the volume on mindful recollection (NIAN). The present paper takes only its "giving and receiving of the vow" side as background; its doctrinal classification and its verb-analysis of load-bearing recitation are not restated. ↩

10. Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth, fascicle one, Tanluan's commentary, Taishō vol. 40, No. 1819, p. 836a. Original: "As for the returning aspect: having been born in that land … one returns into the dense forest of birth-and-death, teaching all beings to turn together toward the Buddha way." The full mechanism of the two aspects of dedication (the going aspect and the returning aspect) belongs to the dedicated study within the part on Samantabhadra's vows of conduct (the tenth great vow, "universal dedication"); the present paper takes only the returning aspect's non-terminal face, "other-power does not terminate in one's own deliverance." ↩