佛說阿彌陀經 眾鳥法音

Up to this passage, everything in the land of Ultimate Bliss has still been a thing: railings, nets, rows of trees, pool water, lotuses, the golden ground, the flowers from the heavens. All of it can be pictured, and none of it makes a sound.

In this passage that changes. The land begins to sound.

And what sounds is not the Buddha but a flock of birds; no one strikes an instrument — the wind passes through the trees and the nets.

The Seen and the Unseen, Ranged Together

The white swan, the peacock, the parrot, and the śāri are to be seen among humans; the kalaviṅka is the bird of wondrous sound, and the life-sharing bird has one body with two heads — these two are not to be seen.

The sūtra ranges them together and sets no high above low, just as the introduction ranged Śāriputra and Cūḍapanthaka on one and the same roster.

There is only one thing they all do in common: “in the six periods of day and night they send forth harmonious and refined sounds.” “Harmonious” is gentle; “refined” is wondrous and fine.

What They Sing

“Their sound sets forth and makes plain the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eight limbs of the noble path, and such dharmas as these.”

This is no special gate of practice belonging to the Pure Land alone; it is the skeleton of the path held in common by the Buddha's Dharma — trust, exertion, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom; discernment of dharmas, exertion, joy, ease, mindfulness, concentration, equanimity; right view through to right concentration.

If one has supposed that birth in that land is a change to an easier road, on which these need no longer be cultivated, this line is waiting here.

What the birds there sing, in the six periods of day and night, is precisely what here, thought after thought, one cannot get up to.

The Buddha Blocks It Before Anyone Asks

Hearing that there are birds in the Pure Land, the mind gives a jolt: are animals not one of the three bad paths? Are there evil conditions there after all?

The Buddha does not wait to be asked, but wards it off first, and then tightens step by step: do not think in that way → why is this so → there are no three bad destinies there → not even the name “the three bad paths” is there, how much less the thing itself.

Then what are they? “All are made by the transformation of the Buddha Amitābha, who would have the sound of Dharma spread abroad.”

Why Birds and Not Buddhas

This is the deepest question in the passage.

The answer: to take a buddha's body would be nothing rare, and what is often seen no longer startles; it is by manifesting as numinous birds, seldom seen and hard to encounter, that the excellent thought this is hard to come upon can arise at all. Moreover, that land sets forth the Dharma everywhere in any case — the jade groves and jewelled nets all set forth the sound of Dharma, the flowing streams and the clear breeze all speak the true teaching.

In that place it is not only the Buddha who sets forth the Dharma. The trees speak, the nets speak, the water speaks, the wind speaks, the birds speak. One who practises, walking there, is not for a moment away from the Dharma — because there is not one thing that is not the Dharma.

The Two Words That Are Added

Within one passage the same landing-point appears twice: hearing the sound of the birds, “all of them recollect the Buddha, recollect the Dharma, recollect the saṅgha”; hearing the sound of the wind, “in all of them there naturally arises the mind that recollects the Buddha, recollects the Dharma, recollects the saṅgha.”

The second time has the word “naturally” added.

It is not deciding to recollect after hearing, nor reminding oneself that one ought to recollect — it arises of itself.

At this point it becomes plain that all those earlier words on the jewelled trees, the pool water, the golden ground, and the drifting flowers were not boasting of how beautiful a place is. They were describing what surroundings look like in which a thought is not dragged away.

We recollect the Buddha here, and after three phrases it scatters; the surroundings do not help, the surroundings pull. There it is otherwise: what the eye sees is jewelled trees, what the ear hears is the sound of Dharma, what the nose smells is heavenly flowers, what the foot treads is a golden ground — of everything the six sense-faculties touch, there is nothing that does not lead toward the Buddha, the Dharma, and the saṅgha.

What makes a Pure Land a Pure Land is not the worth of precious things, but its being a place where a thought is not dragged away.

So There; Of Here the Sūtra Says Nothing

This passage leaves two expressions behind: the look of the sound of Dharma is “harmonious and refined,” and the fruit of the sound of Dharma is that “in all of them there naturally arises the mind that recollects the Buddha, recollects the Dharma, recollects the saṅgha.”

The one is that the sound itself is gentle and wondrously fine; the other is that it arises of itself in the hearer's mind, with nothing forced.

So it is in that land. What the sounds of this land are like, and where the mind goes after hearing them, the sūtra does not say; and nothing is said here in its place.

Kumārajīva’s translation, T12n0366, from “and again, Śāriputra, in that land there are always birds of many wondrous kinds, of mingled colours” to “brought to completion in adornments of such excellent quality.” The bracketed figures at the head of each segment give the Taishō page, register, and line.

〔1 · The birds set forth in general, and their several names〕（0347a12）And a further matter, Śāriputra: in that land there are always birds of many wondrous kinds, their plumage of mingled colours — the white swan (a crane-like bird, crimson upon the crown, its feathers like frost and snow), the peacock, the parrot, the śāri (Sanskrit; that is, the egret-heron), the kalaviṅka (Sanskrit, meaning “the bird of wondrous sound,” its voice beautiful and its body unlike the ordinary), and the life-sharing birds (also called the mingming birds: a human face on a bird’s form, one body with two heads).

〔2 · The harmonious and refined sound, and the Dharma it sets forth〕（0347a14）These many birds, in the six periods of day and night, send forth sounds gentle and refined; their sound sets forth and makes plain the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eight limbs of the noble path, and such dharmas as these. (Trust, exertion, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom — these five, spoken of as able to give rise to wholesome dharmas, are called the five faculties; spoken of as able to crush the afflictions, they are called the five powers. The seven factors of awakening are the seven limbs of awakening: discernment of dharmas, exertion, joy, ease, mindfulness, concentration, and equanimity. The eight limbs of the noble path are right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right exertion, right mindfulness, and right concentration.)

〔3 · Hearing the sound, the three recollections arise〕（0347a16）The beings of that land, having heard these sounds, all of them recollect the Buddha, recollect the Dharma, recollect the saṅgha.

〔4 · Warding off doubt — there are no three bad destinies〕（0347a17）Śāriputra, do not suppose that these birds are in truth born of the recompense of transgression. Why is this so? In that Buddha’s land there are no three bad destinies (hell, hungry ghosts, and animals). Śāriputra, in that buddha-land there is not even the name “the three bad paths” — how much less could they be there in reality!

〔5 · Directly showing the manifestation by transformation〕（0347a19）These many birds are all made by the transformation of the Buddha Amitābha, who would have the sound of Dharma spread abroad.

〔6 · The light breeze in the jewelled trees, a hundred thousand kinds of music〕（0347a21）Śāriputra, in that Buddha’s land, when a light breeze stirs, the rows of trees made of the many precious substances and the jewelled nets send forth subtle and wondrous sounds, as though a hundred thousand kinds of music were sounding all at once; and in those who hear these sounds there arises, naturally and of itself, the mind that recollects the Buddha, recollects the Dharma, recollects the saṅgha.

〔7 · The conclusion: thus is Ultimate Bliss brought to completion〕（0347a24）Śāriputra, that Buddha’s land is in just this way brought to completion in adornments of such excellent quality.

Up to this passage, everything in the land of Ultimate Bliss has still been a thing: railings, nets, rows of trees, pool water, lotuses, the golden ground, the flowers from the heavens. All of it can be pictured, and none of it makes a sound.

In this passage that changes. The land begins to speak.

And the manner of the speaking is strange — it is not the Buddha who sets forth the Dharma but a flock of birds; no one strikes an instrument, the wind passes through the trees and the nets. The whole environment is teaching the Dharma, and not one of the things that teach is a person.

This is the first place in the Amitābha Sūtra where the surroundings and practice are joined head-on. The judgment of the Cien line calls it “the birds intone the wondrous Dharma,” and divides it in two: first the numinous birds are set forth, then doubt is dispelled. That division matters — for the sūtra itself knows that the first response to hearing that birds set forth the Dharma is, more often than not, not to be moved but to doubt.

Six Kinds of Bird

First, who they are.

The white swan: a touch of crimson on the crown, the plumage of the whole body like frost and snow; when it calls, the sound carries far beyond the remotest marshes, and when it dances, its bearing keeps to the beat. The peacock is a numinous bird by birth, wearing a green crown upon its head, its body all over in colours. The parrot's feathers are like kingfisher jade, with a stroke of vermilion on the beak; its wings are light and swift, so that it can fly, and its tongue slender and long, so that it can learn human speech. “Śāri” is Sanskrit; it is the egret-heron — young in years and quick, quick and also clever, having only to stretch its neck to fly ten thousand miles, only to open its mouth for a thousand modulations to come.

Then two that are not to be seen among humans. The kalaviṅka, rendered in Chinese the bird of wondrous sound — “its voice beautiful and wondrous and its body unlike the ordinary”; those who hear it incline an ear and incline the mind along with it, and those who see it grow easy in expression and untroubled in thought. The life-sharing bird, also called the mingming bird: “a human face on a bird's form, one body with two heads” — one body, two heads, two faces.

This roster is worth pausing over. The first four are birds that truly exist among humans; the last two are not. The sūtra ranges them together and draws no distinction — just as the introduction ranged Śāriputra, whose wisdom stood out, together with Cūḍapanthaka, who was born beside a road. The rosters of Ultimate Bliss are never arranged by the grades of the human world.

And there is only one thing they all do in common: “in the six periods of day and night they send forth harmonious and refined sounds.” “Harmonious” is gentle; “refined” is wondrous and fine. Not a startling sound, not an overbearing sound — a sound gentle and wondrously fine.

Of what the sound of Dharma is like, the sūtra sets a measure here first.

What They Sing Is Half of the Thirty-Seven Factors of Awakening

“Their sound sets forth and makes plain the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, the eight limbs of the noble path, and such dharmas as these.”

This line is often read too quickly. The five faculties and the five powers are these five: trust, exertion, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom — spoken of as able to give rise to wholesome dharmas, they are called “faculties”; spoken of as able to crush the afflictions, they are called “powers.” The same five, viewed from another angle, take another name. The seven factors of awakening are the seven limbs on the road of awakening: discernment of dharmas, exertion, joy, ease, mindfulness, concentration, and equanimity. The eight limbs of the noble path are right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right exertion, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

None of these terms is peculiar to the Pure Land. They are the skeleton of the path held in common by the whole of the Buddha's Dharma — from the Āgamas to the Great Vehicle, whoever speaks of the stages of the path cannot get around them.

So this line discloses something: the birds of the land of Ultimate Bliss do not sing some special gate of practice that only the Pure Land has; they sing the Buddha's Dharma itself. If one has supposed that birth in the Pure Land is a change to an easier road, on which the five faculties and the five powers need no longer be cultivated, this line is waiting here.

The birds there, in the six periods of day and night, sing precisely those things that here, thought after thought, one cannot get up to.

“Do Not Suppose That These Birds Are in Truth Born of the Recompense of Transgression”

Then the Buddha turns suddenly to Śāriputra and says: do not suppose that these birds are in truth born of the recompense of karmic transgression.

Why should this be said at all?

Because in ordinary human sense, to be born an animal is one of the three bad paths, drawn on by evil karma. Hearing that there are birds in the land of Ultimate Bliss, a hearer's mind gives a jolt: are there animals there after all? Does that not mean that evil conditions are not yet exhausted? The reading handed down states this concern with precision — “hearing the numinous birds spoken of, one may come to be caught in perplexity, supposing that the evil conditions of the Pure Land are not yet stilled”; and by that single doubt the mind of a whole Dharma assembly can fail to rise.

So the Buddha does not wait to be asked, but wards it off first. This is the consistent manner of this sūtra: in the introduction no one asked, and the Buddha spoke of himself; here no one objects, and the Buddha resolves the doubt himself.

The resolution falls into four steps, each tighter than the one before: First, the warding off: do not think in that way. Second, the counter-question: why is this so? Third, the answer: that buddha-land has no three bad destinies. Fourth, the matter put beyond reopening: not even the name “the three bad paths” is there — how much less the thing itself? “Even the name is absent — how much less could there be in reality the substance of a bird-kind!”

Why can it be affirmed so absolutely? The answer handed down goes back to causes: those born in the Pure Land are deep in the causes and conditions of wholesome karma and have long since left the bodies of other kinds behind forever; all in that assembly are beings of one and the same kind. Even so excellent a place as the palaces of the gods must be summoned by wholesome karma; how much more Ultimate Bliss — what evil cause could ever reach there? And that Buddha, when he made his vow on the ground of causes, had already said: “If, when I attain buddhahood, there should be the three bad destinies in my land, may I not take up perfect awakening.”

That vow stands first among the forty-eight vows of the bhikṣu Fazang in the Sūtra of Measureless Life. For a flock of birds in a small sūtra, the evidence is to be sought in the first vow of the larger one — an instance of the sūtras of this axis explaining one another, and the reason that reading the Pure Land teaching cannot stop at a single sūtra.

Then What Are They?

“These many birds are all made by the transformation of the Buddha Amitābha, who would have the sound of Dharma spread abroad.”

Not born of the recompense of karma: transformed into being by that Buddha.

There is a deeper doubt still at this point, which commentators of old put on the reader's behalf: the divine power of the Buddha Amitābha being so great, would it not have been enough to conjure countless buddha-bodies? To see the marks and signs can rouse the aspiration; to hear a Brahmā voice can bring awakening — why become birds at all?

The answer given is excellent, and the whole of it is restated here:

To transform and take a buddha's body is nothing rare; instead he manifests as numinous birds, so that beings meet with what is seldom seen and hard to encounter, and thereby the excellent thought “this is hard to come upon” arises in them, and a faith of a particular kind. Moreover, transforming in accord with the kinds of beings is spoken of everywhere — the jade groves and jewelled nets all set forth the sound of Dharma, the flowing streams and the clear breeze all speak the true teaching; for such reasons he manifests as numinous birds.

That line is worth a second reading: “the jade groves and jewelled nets all set forth the sound of Dharma; the flowing streams and the clear breeze all speak the true teaching.”

This is what the passage is really teaching. In the land of Ultimate Bliss it is not only the Buddha who sets forth the Dharma. The trees speak, the nets speak, the water speaks, the wind speaks, the birds speak. One who practises, walking there, is not for a single moment away from the Dharma — because there is not one thing there that is not the Dharma.

And the reason that a bird's body rather than a buddha's body is manifested is no display of powers either, but a considerateness in teaching: a buddha's body comes to be seen often, and what is often seen no longer startles; a bird that can speak the seven limbs of awakening will make a person stop and listen.

The Word “Naturally”

The same landing-point appears twice in this passage.

The birds send forth harmonious and refined sounds: “the beings of that land, having heard these sounds, all of them recollect the Buddha, recollect the Dharma, recollect the saṅgha.” A light breeze stirs the jewelled trees and the jewelled nets, which send forth subtle and wondrous sounds like a hundred thousand instruments played at once: “in those who hear these sounds there naturally arises the mind that recollects the Buddha, recollects the Dharma, recollects the saṅgha.”

Once it is the birds, once the wind; once “all of them,” once “all of them naturally.”

Notice this “naturally.” It is not deciding to recollect after hearing, nor reminding oneself that one ought to recollect — it arises of itself. In those surroundings, recollecting the Buddha, the Dharma, and the saṅgha is not something that has to be held up by will; it is carried along by the surroundings as breathing is.

And this is exactly why this whole passage, and several before it, are written out in such detail. The sūtra spends so many words on railings, on the pool water, on the lotuses, on the golden ground, on the drifting flowers not to boast of how beautiful a place is, but to describe what surroundings look like in which a thought is not dragged away.

We recollect the Buddha here, and after three phrases it scatters; the surroundings do not help, the surroundings pull. In the place the sūtra describes, the surroundings are themselves the supporting condition: what the eye sees is jewelled trees, what the ear hears is the sound of Dharma, what the nose smells is heavenly flowers, what the foot treads is a golden ground — of everything the six sense-faculties touch, there is nothing that does not lead toward the Buddha, the Dharma, and the saṅgha.

What makes a Pure Land a Pure Land does not turn on the worth of precious things, but on its being a place where a thought is not dragged away.

Harmonious and Refined, and Naturally

This passage leaves two expressions behind: the look of the sound of Dharma is “harmonious and refined,” and the fruit of the sound of Dharma is that “in all of them there naturally arises the mind that recollects the Buddha, recollects the Dharma, recollects the saṅgha.”

The one is that the sound itself is gentle and wondrously fine; the other is that it arises of itself in the hearer's mind, with nothing forced.

So it is in that land. What the sounds of this land are like, and where the mind goes after hearing them, the sūtra does not say; and nothing is said here in its place.

Carrying Forward — One Line Dispels Doubt, One Recites It Onward, and One Manuscript Keeps Its Own Graphs

Above is the meaning of this flock of birds itself. Below, two Tang eyes cast their light from the side — the mirror is not the sūtra; only the same flock of birds, seen through two ways of reading.

The Cien line is the reading of Kuiji's Comprehensive Praise Commentary. He judges this passage to be “the seventh: the birds intone the wondrous Dharma,” dividing the setting forth of the numinous birds into five sections (the general setting forth, the several naming, the conveying of harmonious and refined tones, the setting out of the sound of Dharma, and wholesome recollection arising upon hearing), and the dispelling of doubt into five (warding off a real recompense, putting the question of the cause, answering that there is no name of the three destinies, carrying through that there is not the character for the bad paths, and directly setting out the circumstance of manifestation by transformation). The shape and plumage of the six birds, their Sanskrit names and Chinese senses, he accounts for one by one; the doubt “the Pure Land is surpassing and holds not even ordinary persons — why then are flying birds also born in that land?” he raises himself and then answers himself; and to the deeper question “why make the various bird-kinds the means of setting forth the gate of teaching?” he answers, “to transform and take a buddha's body would be nothing rare; instead he manifests as numinous birds.” The reasoning set out above has its frame from this.

Worth recording is the direction in which he cites. In explaining “there are no three bad destinies” he does not stop at the terms, but goes back to the original vow of the bhikṣu Fazang in the Sūtra of Measureless Life for his ground. To read the smaller sūtra and take the witness from the larger — the mutual attestation among the sūtras of this axis was already the practice of Tang commentators.

The Shandao line goes on reciting this passage in the Liturgical Hymns: “White swans, peacocks. Parrots, śāri birds. Kalaviṅkas. The life-sharing birds.” No doubt is raised and no attachment dispelled; the phrases are simply strung together with full stops and recited through.

The third reading is again the manuscript speaking for itself — and this time the two Tang readers part ways. The base text reads “white swan”; the Song, Yuan, and Ming read “crane”; Kuiji's citation of the sūtra reads “white crane,” agreeing with the Song, Yuan, and Ming; Shandao's recited text reads “white swan,” agreeing with the base text. In the introduction, and in the passage on the music of the heavens, the two mirrors once stood together on the side of the variant column; here they separate.

This shows that more than one manuscript of the Amitābha Sūtra circulated in the seventh century, and that the matter is not simply a “Tang text” against a “Song text.” Not one character of the base text is altered, and each item is recorded — to acknowledge honestly that the sūtra in one's hands has a history of transmission is itself a form of respect for it.

The three do different work; recorded without adjudication, each in its own place.