佛說觀無量壽佛經 地想

Placement of the passage as a whole. This unit is the third of the sixteen contemplations; the whole passage runs to one hundred and thirty-seven characters and is one of the shortest among the sixteen. The sūtra first distinguishes two layers in the sign that the contemplation is accomplished — 「粗見」 (roughly seen) and 「若得三昧，見彼國地，了了分明」 (if one attains samādhi and sees the ground of that land clear and distinct) — and gathers them up as the image of the ground, the third contemplation; next the Buddha addresses Ānanda apart, charging him to hold the Buddha’s words and to teach this method of contemplating the ground for the ages to come; and last it sets out the benefit of this contemplation (the removal of the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death, birth in the pure land when the body is cast off, and the mind’s attaining freedom from doubt) and judges right from wrong. The weight of this unit within the whole sūtra far exceeds its number of characters: in the Section on the Profound Meaning, Shandao’s Commentary in Four Fascicles takes precisely the two sentences of this passage and matches them, sentence by sentence, to Vaidehī’s request 「教我思惟」 (teach me to reflect) and 「教我正受」 (teach me right reception) — 「粗見」 answering to reflection, and 「若得三昧，見彼國地，了了分明」 answering to right reception — and upon this he judges the bound of the good done in concentration, differing from the other masters. This contemplation is also the first among the sixteen in which a text on the extinction of offences appears, and on its account Zhiyi sets up the judgment 「前水是想，不能滅罪。地觀是實，故能除斷」 (the water before was image and cannot extinguish offences; the contemplation of the ground is actual, and so can cut them off). There are two items of collation; see the ninth topic.

I. Doctrinal-Outline Placement

Shandao’s Commentary in Four Fascicles divides this contemplation into six segments:

「三、就地想觀中，亦先舉，次辨，後結。即有其六。」—“Third, within the contemplation that forms the image of the ground there is likewise first the raising, next the distinguishing, and last the conclusion — there are six in all” 〔T37n1753 0263c06〕.

The difference in the unit boundary (recorded without adjudication) — Shandao’s contemplation that forms the image of the ground begins at 「此想成時」 (when this image is accomplished), so that the text of his first and second segments falls before the unit boundary of this edition (gathered into segment 〔七〕 of the previous unit). The unit boundaries of this edition follow the sections of the Taishō text itself, and so this unit begins below 「佛告阿難及韋提希」 (the Buddha told Ānanda and Vaidehī), at 「水想成已」 (once the image of water is accomplished). The two boundaries differ, and this is recorded verbatim, with no judgment as to which is right; the difference bears upon the first item of variant reading in the ninth topic.

The six matters in distinguishing the sign that the contemplation is accomplished (opened up in the commentary’s second segment; the text of the first four matters lies in the previous unit):

The fifth matter glosses 「粗見」; the sixth glosses 「若得三昧，見彼國地，了了分明，不可具說」 — the sign that the contemplation is accomplished is here divided into two layers: seeing within the imaging mind, and the correspondence of right reception.

Below the sixth matter the commentary goes on to gloss why it is 「不可具說」 (cannot be told in full), and closes by exhorting beings to incline their minds: 「斯乃地廣無邊，寶幢非一，眾珍曜彩，轉變彌多。是以勸物傾心，恒如對目。」—“For the ground is broad and without bound, the jeweled banners are not one alone, the manifold treasures blaze with colour, and their turnings and changes grow ever more numerous. Therefore he exhorts beings to incline their minds, and to keep it constantly as though before their eyes” 〔T37n1753 0263c16〕.

The witness column · Zhiyi’s outline of this passage (recorded without adjudication):

「第三地觀。文有四：一漸想觀。從「若得三昧」下，第二實觀。「佛告」下，明利益。「作是觀」下，顯觀邪正。」—“The third, the contemplation of the ground. The text has four parts: first, the gradual image-contemplation. From ‘if one attains samādhi’ onward is the second, the actual contemplation. From ‘the Buddha told’ onward clarifies the benefit. From ‘makes this contemplation’ onward shows the contemplation to be wrong or right” 〔T37n1750 0192a03〕.

By the two names 「漸想觀」 (the gradual image-contemplation) and 「實觀」 (the actual contemplation) Zhiyi answers to Shandao’s 「想心中見」 (seeing within the imaging mind) and 「正受相應」 (the correspondence of right reception): the two houses set up different names, and the division they point to is the same. Recorded without adjudication.

II. Collation with the Alternate Translations — recorded without adjudication

There is no second Chinese translation of this sūtra — there is no alternate translation against which to collate. Recorded honestly.

Parallel texts in the other sūtras of this same axis (not alternate translations; recorded without adjudication) — the ground of this passage is present in The Amitābha Sūtra, T12n0366, and in The Sūtra on Praising the Pure Land and the Buddha’s Embrace, T12n0367, but the contemplation of it is not:

Neither sūtra has any text on the extinction of offences — the whole of The Amitābha Sūtra, T12n0366, and of The Sūtra on Praising the Pure Land and the Buddha’s Embrace, T12n0367, has been searched: there are no words 「八十億劫」 (eighty koṭis of kalpas), 「生死之罪」 (the offences of birth-and-death), or 「除罪」 (removing offences), nor any text of 「三昧」 (samādhi) or 「粗見」 (roughly seen). The teaching of a number of kalpas of offences removed belongs to this sūtra alone. Recorded honestly.

III. Scriptural and Treatise Grounding (the “eye”)

This passage is where the scriptural warrant for the two senses 「思惟」 and 「正受」 stands — in the Section on the Profound Meaning, distinguishing the differences within the good done in concentration, Shandao takes this passage sentence by sentence as his text:

「言思惟者，即是觀前方便，思想彼國依正二報總別相也。即地觀文中說言『如此想者名為粗見極樂國土』，即合上『教我思惟』一句。」—“As for ‘reflection,’ it is the expedient prior to contemplation: to think out the general and the particular characteristics of the twofold recompense, dependent and direct, of that land. That is, the text of the contemplation of the ground says, ‘one who forms an image in this way is said roughly to have seen the land of Ultimate Bliss,’ and this answers to the sentence above, ‘teach me to reflect’” 〔T37n1753 0247b28〕. 「言正受者，想心都息緣慮並亡，三昧相應名為正受。即地觀文中說言『若得三昧見彼國地了了分明』，即合上『教我正受』一句。」—“As for ‘right reception,’ the imaging mind wholly rests and discursive concerns all vanish; correspondence with samādhi is called right reception. That is, the text of the contemplation of the ground says, ‘if one attains samādhi and sees the ground of that land clear and distinct,’ and this answers to the sentence above, ‘teach me right reception’” 〔T37n1753 0247c02〕.

And upon this he differs from the other masters:

「又向來解者與諸師不同。諸師將思惟一句用合三福九品以為散善；正受一句用通合十六觀以為定善。如斯解者將謂不然。」—“Further, the explanation given here differs from that of the other masters. The other masters take the sentence on reflection and match it with the three kinds of merit and the nine grades as the good done in a scattered mind, and take the sentence on right reception and match it throughout with the sixteen contemplations as the good done in concentration. Such an explanation, I would say, is not so” 〔T37n1753 0247c05〕. 「如《華嚴經》說：『思惟正受者但是三昧之異名』，與此地觀文同。以斯文證，豈得通於散善。」—“As the Flower Ornament Sūtra says, ‘reflection and right reception are but different names for samādhi,’ and this agrees with the present text of the contemplation of the ground. With this text as warrant, how could it be extended to the good done in a scattered mind?” 〔T37n1753 0247c09〕.

The scriptural warrant thus comes from the Flower Ornament Sūtra, and what makes that text usable here is precisely that it 「與此地觀文同」 (agrees with the present text of the contemplation of the ground) — this passage is the textual ground of Shandao’s judgment of the good done in concentration. The bound of that good is likewise set here: 「從日觀下至十三觀已來名為定善。三福九品名為散善。」—“From the contemplation of the sun down to the thirteenth contemplation is called the good done in concentration. The three kinds of merit and the nine grades are called the good done in a scattered mind” 〔T37n1753 0247b23〕.

Two scriptural warrants cited where transmission is exhorted — below 「說是觀地法」 (teach this method of contemplating the ground) the commentary sifts capacities and cites The Sūtra of Pure Awakening as its witness:

「如《清淨覺經》云：「若有人聞說淨土法門，聞如不聞，見如不見，當知此等始從三惡道來，罪障未盡，為此無信向耳。佛言：『我說此人未可得解脫也。』」」—“As The Sūtra of Pure Awakening says: ‘If there be one who hears the gate of the Pure Land taught, and hears as though he had not heard, sees as though he had not seen, know that such as these have but now come from the three evil destinies, that the obstruction of their offences is not yet exhausted, and that for this reason they have no trust or inclination toward it. The Buddha said: I declare that this person cannot yet gain liberation.’” 〔T37n1753 0264a02〕. 「此經又云：「若人聞說淨土法門，聞即悲喜交流身毛為竪者，當知此人過去已曾修習此法。今得重聞即生歡喜，正念修行必得生也。」」—“This sūtra says further: ‘If a person hears the gate of the Pure Land taught, and on hearing it sorrow and joy course through him together and the hair of his body stands up, know that this person has in the past already cultivated this Dharma. Hearing it again now, he at once gives rise to joy; and practising in right mindfulness he will surely be born there.’” 〔T37n1753 0264a05〕.

What Zhiyi attaches to this contemplation is his judgment on the extinction of offences: 「前水是想，不能滅罪。地觀是實，故能除斷也。」—“The water before was image and cannot extinguish offences. The contemplation of the ground is actual, and so can cut them off” 〔T37n1750 0192a05〕. The ground on which this judgment rests differs from that of Shandao’s 「二明因觀無漏之寶地，能除有漏多劫罪也」—“the second clarifies that, because what is contemplated is a jeweled ground free of outflows, it can remove the offences of many kalpas that are with outflows” 〔T37n1753 0264a11〕: Zhiyi attaches it to the difference between image and actuality, Shandao to the difference between what is free of outflows and what is with outflows. Recorded without adjudication.

IV. Essentials of the Commentary on This Passage (the Commentary in Four Fascicles, line by line)

The two layers in the sign of accomplishment (see the fifth and sixth matters in the first topic).

The four matters in exhorting and rousing to transmission:

「一明告命。二明勸持佛語，廣為未來大眾說前觀地之益。」—“The first clarifies the calling and the charge. The second clarifies the exhortation to hold the Buddha’s words and to teach widely, for the great assembly of the ages to come, the benefit of the contemplation of the ground taught above” 〔T37n1753 0263c20〕. 「三明簡機，堪受堪信欲得捨此娑婆生死之身八苦、五苦、三惡道苦等，聞即信行者，不惜身命急為說之。」—“The third clarifies the sifting of capacities: those able to receive and able to trust, who wish to cast off this body of birth-and-death in the Sahā world with its eight sufferings, its five sufferings, and the sufferings of the three evil destinies, and who trust and practise as soon as they hear — for such, without sparing body or life, teach it to them at once” 〔T37n1753 0263c21〕. 「若得一人捨苦出生死者，是名真報佛恩。」—“If a single person can cast off suffering and come out of birth-and-death, this is called truly repaying the Buddha’s kindness” 〔T37n1753 0263c24〕.

Here the commentary states further what the buddhas’ appearing in the world is really for:

「何以故？諸佛出世種種方便勸化眾生者，不欲直令制惡修福受人天樂也。」—“Why so? When the buddhas appear in the world and by manifold expedients exhort and transform sentient beings, it is not that they wish merely to have them restrain evil and cultivate merit so as to enjoy the pleasures of gods and men” 〔T37n1753 0263c25〕. 「人天之樂猶如電光，須臾即捨，還入三惡長時受苦」—“The pleasure of gods and men is like a flash of lightning: in a moment it is cast off, and one enters again the three evil destinies to undergo suffering for a long time” 〔T37n1753 0263c27〕.

The four matters in showing the benefit of the contemplation:

Below the fourth matter the commentary goes on to make clear that the obstruction of doubt is in the end removed: 「或因大悲菩薩入開華三昧，疑障乃除，宮華開發身相顯然，法侶携將遊於佛會。」—“Or, through a bodhisattva of great compassion entering the samādhi that opens the flowers, the obstruction of doubt is then removed, the palace-flowers open, his bodily form stands plain, and companions in the Dharma take him by the hand to go to the assembly of the Buddha” 〔T37n1753 0264a15〕; and it gathers up the sense:

「斯乃注心見於寶地，即滅宿障罪僣。願行之業已圓，命盡無疑不往。」—“Thus, pouring the mind into the seeing of the jeweled ground, one extinguishes the obstructions of old and the offences that overstep. The work of vow and practice being already complete, when life ends there is no doubt of going there” 〔T37n1753 0264a17〕.

The judgment of wrong and right is not glossed again: 「邪正義者，前日觀中已說。」—“The meaning of wrong and right has already been stated in the contemplation of the sun above” 〔T37n1753 0264a20〕.

V. Divergent Readings of the Commentators (in parallel columns — recorded without adjudication)

The two houses judge the reason for the extinction of offences plainly differently: Shandao holds that because the object contemplated is free of outflows it can remove offences that are with outflows, and so establishes it upon the substance of the object; Zhiyi holds that the image of water is image while the contemplation of the ground is actual, and so establishes it upon whether the contemplation is empty or actual. Both readings are recorded, and no reconciliation is imposed.

VI. Terms (first occurrences — all glosses drawn from the two mirrors)

The graph 「粗」 — the base text writes 「粗」 〔T12n0365 0342a23〕, and the Taishō collation notes record that the Ming witness writes a variant form (see the ninth topic). Shandao’s commentary likewise writes 「粗」 〔T37n1753 0247a02〕. Each belongs to its own witness, and each is recorded verbatim.

Of the transcribed names in this passage (samādhi, Ānanda, Vaidehī and the rest), the two commentaries here give neither rendered name nor Sanskrit form, and this edition does not supply one in their stead.

VII. Similes and Rhetoric

Similes the sūtra uses of itself: this passage has none. The whole passage teaches directly and judges directly, without a single simile. Recorded honestly.

Similes set up by the mirror commentaries (not present in the sūtra, recorded here for reference and not to be confounded with the sūtra’s own similes):

Two things may be recorded as rhetoric. First, the passage sets two degrees of 「見」 (seeing) over against each other — 「粗見」 (roughly seen) and 「了了分明」 (clear and distinct) — with 「若得三昧」 (if one attains samādhi) standing between them, so that within a single sentence the bound between settled and unsettled is drawn. Second, the whole passage changes its subject three times: first the Buddha addresses Ānanda and Vaidehī, next he addresses Ānanda alone, and last he judges wrong and right without naming anyone; from the method contemplated it turns into entrustment, and then turns back to the criterion — a sentence-pattern seen again and again in this sūtra from here onward.

VIII. Citation and Carrying Forward

• The sentence on the extinction of offences here, and the other such sentences in this sūtra — 「除八十億劫生死之罪」 (removing the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death) occurs three times in this sūtra, and this unit holds the first of them 〔T12n0365 0342a27〕. Kuiji’s Comprehensive Praise Commentary on the Amitābha Sūtra cites the sūtra’s text on the extinction of offences as 「又《觀經》云：於念念中滅除八十億劫生死之罪。」—“Again the Contemplation Sūtra says: in thought after thought he extinguishes the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death” 〔T37n1758 0343c25〕 — its words 「於念念中」 (in thought after thought) belong to the contemplation of birth in the lowest grade in this sūtra 〔T12n0365 0346a20〕, and not to the text of this unit. Distinguished verbatim, recorded without adjudication. The point of cross-reading within this axis: the apparatus layer of the Amitābha Sūtra volume.
• This passage is cited by Shandao himself in two places in the Section on the Profound Meaning 〔T37n1753 0247b29〕 〔T37n1753 0247c03〕, making it one of the passages of this sūtra most densely cited by his own commentary.
• The judgment of wrong and right in this contemplation carries on from the one before: 「邪正義者，前日觀中已說。」—“The meaning of wrong and right has already been stated in the contemplation of the sun above” 〔T37n1753 0264a20〕.
• Nothing in the remaining editions of this corpus cites this passage. The whole tree has been searched for 「粗見極樂國地」 (roughly seeing the ground of the land of Ultimate Bliss), 「除八十億劫生死之罪」 (removing the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death), and 「說是觀地法」 (teaching this method of contemplating the ground): apart from the source layer of this edition, the line-by-line mirror files, and the citation in the Comprehensive Praise Commentary in the Amitābha Sūtra volume on this same axis, no other edition yields a single hit. Recorded honestly.

IX. Placement Among the Recensions

The Taishō collation notes within the domain of this unit come to two in all (as now current):

The first item, together with the last sixteen characters of the previous unit, makes up the single item of twenty-eight characters in the Taishō’s original form — that is, the three witnesses and the current-circulation printing read here four characters, giving neither the sixteen characters of judgment that close the previous unit nor the twelve characters of address that open this one. The collation notes as now current divide this into two items, of sixteen characters and of twelve, and this edition records the boundary according to the current division. Not one character of the base text is altered on that account, and no judgment is made in their stead as to which is the original text.

The second item — the base text writes 「粗」, and the Ming witness a variant form. Here the base text’s 「粗」 is recorded, and the variant form is not carried into the text.

The sixteen characters 「作是觀者，名為正觀。若他觀者，名為邪觀。」 at the close of this unit carry no Taishō collation note — unlike the sixteen characters of the same form at the close of the previous unit and of the fourth and fifth units, which are recorded as absent from the three witnesses. Each place is recorded as it stands, and it is not summed up as 「皆作」 (all read thus) or 「皆無」 (all are absent).

Two matters bearing on these variants are recorded alongside them (recorded without adjudication):

① Shandao’s commentary, citing the first sentence of this passage verbatim in the Section on the Profound Meaning, cites what is the reading of the three witnesses — 「即地觀文中說言『如此想者名為粗見極樂國土』」—“that is, the text of the contemplation of the ground says, ‘one who forms an image in this way is said roughly to have seen the land of Ultimate Bliss’” 〔T37n1753 0247b29〕. The base text reads 「水想成已，名為粗見極樂國地」—“once the image of water is accomplished, this is called roughly seeing the ground of the land of Ultimate Bliss” 〔T12n0365 0342a22〕. Both 「如此想者」 as against 「水想成已」, and 「國土」 as against 「國地」, differ in the two places. His outline, moreover, takes 「此想成時」 (when this image is accomplished) as the beginning of this contemplation 〔T37n1753 0263c07〕, and does not begin it at 「佛告阿難及韋提希」 (the Buddha told Ānanda and Vaidehī). Recorded verbatim: the sūtra is not altered by the commentary, nor the commentary by the sūtra.

② Both commentaries do set up a topic for showing the contemplation to be wrong or right at the close of this contemplation — Shandao: 「六、從作是觀已下，正明辨觀邪正」—“sixth, from ‘makes this contemplation’ onward directly clarifies the distinguishing of the contemplation as wrong or right” 〔T37n1753 0264a19〕; Zhiyi: 「「作是觀」下，顯觀邪正」—“from ‘makes this contemplation’ onward shows the contemplation to be wrong or right” 〔T37n1750 0192a04〕. This is set side by side with the fact that the sixteen characters at the close of this unit carry no collation note, recorded without adjudication, and no causal inference is drawn between them.

Gaiji: nothing found in the text of this unit (the Ming variant form given in the collation notes is not carried into the text). Inline glosses (place="inline" notes): nothing found in this unit. Ideographic space (U+3000): nothing found in this unit. Newly added CBETA collation notes: nothing found in this unit.