Pāli RootsThe Vow in the ĀgamasThe Vow as PerfectionThe Four Great VowsThe Original Vows of AmitābhaSamantabhadra's Conduct-VowsThe Vow and EmptinessAttaining Bodhi
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Part 5 · The Original Vows of Amitābha
Vow · 2 papers
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[ from the book's part intro ]
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11Vow-Power as the Architecture of a Pure LandA Pure Land is not a place that merely happens to exist somewhere; it is a place congealed out of a vow. Drawing primarily on the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha (trans. Saṃghavarman) and supported by Vasubandhu's Treatise on Rebirth (Wangsheng lun), this paper argues that the Forty-Eight Vows are not an inventory of features of the Land of Bliss but the generative grammar by which vow-power mortgages buddhahood to the benefit of sentient beings and then, through eons of accumulated merit, burns that vow into an actual land. The grammatical backbone is the self-binding conditional that runs uniformly through all forty-eight: "If, when I attain buddhahood, [the conditions in my land] are not [thus], may I not take the perfect awakening" — each vow binds "my becoming a buddha" to "beings' benefit," the maker staking his own awakening as collateral; the verse restatement ("I have founded a vow surpassing the worlds… should this vow not be fulfilled, may I not become a fully awakened one") pushes that staking to its limit. The paper then traces vow-power's vertical generative chain: Dharmākara's vow (causal stage) → five eons of contemplation and immeasurable eons of cultivated merit → the vow "accomplished" as the realized Land of Bliss, now in the West, ten eons since its buddha attained awakening. Vasubandhu's verse — "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" — names "original vow-power" as the active generative cause of land and merit. Vow-power, then, is the vertical force that burns a blueprint into real ground. The paper closes by setting a signpost — whether a land none can board remains merely one bodhisattva's private vow — to be handed to the following paper on Other-Power.12Other-Power and the Grammar of EntrustingThe phrase "other-power" (tariki) is most often read in one of two ways: as indolence (the Buddha will come for me, so I need do nothing) or as transaction (recite enough of the Name and cash in a ticket to rebirth). Both readings cast other-power as the opposite of self-power. Drawing primarily on Tanluan's Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth and Vasubandhu's Treatise on Rebirth, this paper argues that other-power is neither a second engine that replaces self-power nor a bargain struck with the Buddha, but a type of vow: the practitioner hands the direction of his life—the aspiration to be born—over into, and meshes it with, the Buddha's already-accomplished original vow-power. The previous paper established how vow-power accomplishes a land (vow → land); this paper takes up the reverse face: vow-power is not self-fulfilling the moment it is made—it requires an end that can be "ridden," for otherwise "were it not for the Buddha's power, the Forty-Eight Vows would be set up in vain." The key to entrusting lies in Tanluan's line, "other-power can be ridden; give rise to faith, and do not confine yourself to your own portion"—"can be ridden" means handing one's direction over, while "give rise to faith" shows that entrusting is itself an active initiative, not a passive reception. The paper then recovers an often-overlooked entrusting end within other-power: the third of Vasubandhu's five gates of mindfulness, the gate of making the vow, requires the practitioner to "constantly make the vow, single-mindedly and wholly intent, to be reborn at last in the Land of Peace and Bliss"—this is the practitioner's own vow. The entruster (beings' aspiration to be born) and the entrusted-to (Dharmākara's original vow) mesh into a two-way vow-structure. The paper closes by using the "returning aspect of dedication" to correct the misreading of other-power as escape—entrusting oneself to vow-power does not terminate in one's own deliverance; having been born in that land, one must still return into birth-and-death to liberate beings—and hands the thread to Samantabhadra's vows of conduct: at this point the vow is still only a "vow"; only when it settles into the moment-by-moment continuity of "conduct" are conduct and vow truly not two.Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.