佛說觀無量壽佛經 心要連讀

The introduction to the Sūtra on Contemplating the Buddha of Measureless Life is long — long enough to take up nearly a third of the whole sūtra. And from beginning to end this long stretch is doing one and the same thing: shutting doors.

Shut

The father the king is “confined within a chamber of seven walls” — seven of them. The ministers are ordered that “not one of them may go to him” — not a single one.

The mother brings food; the gatekeeper sees it and says so; and then she too is “shut within the inner palace and not let out again.”

She wishes to see the Buddha and cannot: “the World-Honored One is majestic and grave, and I have no way to see him.” She wishes to see his disciples, and can only send word by another.

A chamber of seven walls; the inner palace; no one permitted to go; not let out again; no way to see. Five doors, shut one after another.

At the last, even to ask “is my father the king still alive?” one must go round about.

One Sentence Turns

The one shut in to the very end asks first why: “What offence did I commit in a former life, that I should bear so evil a son?”

To this the sūtra gives no direct answer.

What truly follows is the next sentence, and it is hers: “I pray only that the World-Honored One will expound to me at length a place without sorrow or torment. I would be born there, and take no more delight in Jambudvīpa, this turbid and evil world.”

From “why has this happened to me” to “where may I go” — the whole weight of the introduction rests on that turn.

And what she wishes to leave is not only that palace. She speaks of “this turbid and evil place,” and she says, “May I in the future not hear the sounds of evil, nor see evil persons.”

If a son born of one’s own body can turn a murderous mind upon his parents, then who is left to be relied on? She makes no distinction between near and distant kin, and gives up all together.

Opened

When every door has been shut, what opens is not a door.

It is light. “At that time the World-Honored One sent forth the light between his brows.” The light shone everywhere throughout the ten directions, returned to rest upon the Buddha’s crown and turned into a golden terrace, and the lands of the buddhas of the ten directions all appeared within it.

Some were composed of the seven precious substances, some made purely of lotus flowers, some like the palace of Īśvara, some like a mirror of crystal. The Buddha designated not one of them; he only “let Vaidehī see them.”

She chose one herself: “I now delight to be born in the world of Ultimate Bliss, where Amitābha Buddha is.”

And what she then asked for was not that place, but the way to reach it: “Teach me reflection, teach me right reception.”

One Who Has Seen Speaks for Those Who Have Not

The introduction closes upon a question.

The one who asks it has already seen. She says that she “sees that land by the Buddha’s power” — that she can see today is because the Buddha is here.

And so she asks: “If, after the Buddha has passed away, sentient beings are turbid, evil, and not good, and pressed by the five sufferings, how are they to see Amitābha Buddha and the world of Ultimate Bliss?”

The doors were shut to the last upon her; the light appeared before her; she is the one who saw with her own eyes. And she turns back and asks on behalf of those who have not seen.

In the next sentence, the Buddha begins to teach the contemplation of the sun.

In the first of the sixteen contemplations, what is contemplated is not Ultimate Bliss. It is the sun.

First There Must Be a One Place

The Buddha does not first say what to look at. He first says where to put the mind: “You and all sentient beings should make the mind single, bind your thought to one place, and form the image of the west.”

The west does not come first; the one place comes first. If the mind is still wandering over the six dusts, the west can be named and nothing will catch it.

Only One Condition

The sūtra then sets one group aside, and the standard by which it does so is astonishingly low: “Every sentient being who is not blind from birth, everyone who has eyes, sees the sun set.”

Apart from those who have been unable to see since birth, everyone else qualifies.

Nothing is asked about capacity, nothing about accumulated practice, nothing about whether one has the divine eye. In the passage just before, the Buddha had said, “You are an ordinary person; your power of forming images is weak and frail, you have not yet obtained the divine eye, and you cannot see at a distance.” This passage then places the object to be contemplated exactly where the eyes of an ordinary person can just reach it — at something everyone in the world has already done: watching the sun go down.

Eyes Shut, It Is Still There

The method is one sentence: “Sit upright facing the west and look closely at the sun; make the mind stand firm, and hold the image single without letting it shift.”

The test of it is another: “Once the sun has been seen, let it be clear and distinct whether the eyes are closed or open.”

That it can be seen with the eyes open may be no more than the doing of the eyes. That it is still there with the eyes shut — that is the doing of the mind.

As for what that orb looks like, the sūtra gives four words only: its shape like a suspended drum.

A Measuring Rod to Be Used Fifteen More Times

The whole passage closes on a judgment: “To make this contemplation is called right contemplation; to make another contemplation is called wrong contemplation.”

The division between right and wrong does not lie in how high or low the object seen is. It lies in one thing only: whether what was imaged and what appeared are the same.

This rod is set up in the first contemplation, and the fifteen that follow will all be measured by it.

And the place where it is set up is an evening as ordinary as evenings come.

The second contemplation is called the image of water, and what is contemplated is not water.

Borrowing a Levelness

When the water has been seen clearly it must freeze into ice; when the ice has been seen through it must turn into beryl; and only when the beryl stands present is that ground seen: “Once this image has been accomplished, the ground of beryl is seen, shining through within and without.”

The first contemplation borrowed the brightness of the sun; this one borrows the levelness of water. Both are things this world already has, and both withdraw once the borrowing is done. What remains is the ground.

One by One

Once the ground appears, the sūtra is in no hurry to move on. It speaks of that ground from top to bottom and from within to without: “each single side is made of a hundred jewels; each single jewel-pearl has a thousand rays of light; each single ray has eighty-four thousand colours.”

It analyses inward step by step, from the large to the small; and at the finest point it turns back and surges up into a dais of light — “their light is like flowers, and again resembles the stars and the moon; hanging in empty space, it forms a dais of light.”

They are said to be like flowers, like the stars and the moon, because that thing does not exist here, and one can only lean on what is here.

At the End It Is Still Those Four Words

After so long a laying out of beryl, golden banners, jewel-pearls, towers and flower banners, it all comes to rest upon a wind: “eight kinds of pure wind come forth from the light and sound these instruments of music, setting forth the sounds of suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self.”

Adorned to the utmost, what is spoken is still suffering, emptiness, impermanence, non-self.

Not one word in that land is new. It only takes what cannot be heard on this side and says it, over and over, in a way that can be heard.

Seeing It Is Not Enough

The test of the first contemplation was “let it be clear and distinct whether the eyes are closed or open”; the test of this one is “whether the eyes are closed or open, do not let them scatter away and be lost; excepting only the time of eating, recollect this matter constantly.”

That it can be seen does not finish the matter. That it may not be dropped does.

And the judgment of right and wrong stands as before: “To make this contemplation is called right contemplation; to make another contemplation is called wrong contemplation.”

The measuring rod set up in the first contemplation is taken up here unchanged.

The third contemplation is the shortest, and it divides seeing into two layers.

Someone Is Still Doing the Imaging

“Once the image of water is accomplished, this is called roughly seeing the ground of the land of Ultimate Bliss.”

The contemplation before had already seen that ground shining through within and without; here it says only roughly seen.

Rough does not mean not seen. It means that the manner of the seeing is still imaging — within the mind there is still one who looks, and something looked at.

It Cannot Be Told in Full

“If one attains samādhi and sees the ground of that land clear and distinct, it is beyond anything that words can tell in full.”

The difference is not that the object has grown finer; it is that the side which sees has changed: the imaging mind has come to rest, and discursive concerns have vanished.

The two contemplations before laid out description upon description — a koṭi of thousands of suns, a dais of light, eighty-four thousand colours — and here, all at once, description stops.

The sūtra marks the arrival at that layer by saying that it cannot be told to the end.

Two Sentences, Two Requests

In the introduction Vaidehī asked for two things: “teach me to reflect,” “teach me right reception.”

The two sentences of this contemplation take them up one by one, exactly as they were asked. And here the bound of the good done in concentration is drawn.

The Sentence After the Offences Are Removed

“If one contemplates this ground, the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death are removed.”

Not until the third contemplation is the extinction of offences spoken of at all.

And after the number comes one sentence more: “Casting off this body, in another life one will surely be born in the pure land, and the mind attains freedom from doubt.”

The extinction of offences is not where this lands. That the mind should no longer keep by it that question, is it really so? — that is.

The first three contemplations move quickly: the sun, the water, the ground. At the fourth the sūtra suddenly slows, and four hundred and more characters are spent upon a single tree.

Tree by Tree

What the first three contemplations looked at was one whole expanse. This one says, “contemplate them one by one, and form the image of rows of trees in seven layers.”

The method of contemplation passes from the whole expanse into the particular.

And the word “image” is said outright only here: one cannot yet reach that true contemplation which is free and follows the mind, and so borrows a provisional image to settle the mind first.

No Tree Can Be Found in the Act of Growing

“Each tree is eight thousand yojanas high.”

The number is not the point. What matters is that there are no trees there that grow old and die, none that are small, and none that are newly born and grow by degrees — they arise all at once, equal in size throughout.

Because that is a realm without outflows and without arising.

The trees on this side are born and grow old, rising year by year; the trees on that side arise all at one time, with no old age or death to be counted.

The Colours Give Birth to One Another

“From within the colour of beryl comes forth a golden light; from within the colour of crystal comes forth a red light; from within the colour of agate comes forth the light of giant-clam shell; from within the colour of giant-clam shell comes forth the light of green pearl.”

It is not four jewels set side by side; it is the light of one jewel issuing from within the colour of another.

On this side red is red and green is green; on that side the colours give birth to one another.

The Ten Directions Inside One Jeweled Canopy

From tree to net, to palace, to youth, to necklace — each level smaller than the last, and the number at each level larger than the last.

Divided as far as the finest place, it suddenly turns its head: “Within these jeweled canopies are reflected all the buddha-deeds of the three-thousandfold great-thousand world-system; and the buddha-lands of the ten directions appear within them as well.”

One fruit is transformed into one canopy, and that canopy holds the ten directions.

Walk It Again

“Once this tree has been seen, one should also contemplate it one by one in order, seeing the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the flowers and the fruit of the tree, and letting each of them be distinct.”

It has been seen, and still it must be looked at again — and looked at in order.

The first time it came by hearing; the second time one walks it oneself.

And the standard of accomplishment is a single word: distinct. It does not count to see a blaze of splendour; it counts when each single thing can be told apart from the rest.

The second contemplation also forms the image of water, and the fifth forms the image of water again; and the water in the two places is not the same thing.

That earlier sheet of water was borrowed — its levelness was borrowed, and once the loan was made it turned into ice, turned into beryl, and left the stage. This pool of water is that land’s own water, in motion from beginning to end.

The Water Has a Source

“Each pool of water is made of the seven precious substances; and that jewel is soft, and is born from the king of wish-fulfilling pearls.”

It does not well up from underground, nor does it fall from the sky. A pool of water has its source, and that source is a pearl.

Here the jewel is not an ornament set in the water; the jewel is the very body of the water.

What Is Laid on the Bed of the Channels

“Gold makes the channels, and beneath the channels adamant of mingled colours is used for the sand of their bed.”

What can be seen is the golden channel; what cannot be seen is that layer of sand on its bed.

The word adamant was used in the second contemplation of the banners beneath the ground, and is used in this one of the sand beneath the channels. The place has changed; what it points to has not: the foundation of that land does not fall under outflows.

The Sound Is Not Made by Anyone

“The sound of that water is subtle and wondrous, expounding suffering, emptiness, impermanence, non-self, and the perfections; and there are also those sounds that praise the marks and excellences of the buddhas.”

Nobody is holding forth at the edge of the pool. The water flows in among the flowers and follows the trees up and down, and it gives forth sound wherever it touches something; and the sound it gives forth is the Dharma.

The order of what is spoken is worth counting once: the four terms are for breaking, the perfections are for practice, the praise of the marks and excellences is for turning toward. A stretch of water-sound walks the whole three stages.

The Same Pearl, the Other End

“From the king of wish-fulfilling pearls a golden, subtle and wondrous radiance wells up, and that light becomes birds of a hundred jewel-colours, which sing in harmony, their voices plaintive and pure, ever praising the recollection of the Buddha, the recollection of the Dharma, and the recollection of the Saṅgha.”

At this end the pearl gives out water, and the water teaches letting go; at that end it gives out light, the light becomes birds, and the birds teach turning toward.

Letting go and turning toward are two different things, and in this contemplation they come out of the same place.

In the sixth contemplation what is looked at is the towers, and what is accomplished is the trees, the ground, and the pools.

There Are That Many upon Every Tract of Ground

“In the land formed of many jewels, upon each and every tract of ground there are five hundred koṭis of jeweled towers.”

Not five hundred koṭis in that land all told, but five hundred koṭis upon each and every tract of ground — and the tracts of ground extend throughout the land.

The ground of the second contemplation was one single expanse. Here that single expanse is divided again into countless tracts, and upon each tract five hundred koṭis are set.

Not Even the Wind Is Needed Now

“There are also musical instruments hanging in space, like the jewel banners of the heavens, sounding of themselves without being struck.”

For the instruments of the second contemplation to sound, eight kinds of pure wind still had to strike them. The instruments of this contemplation hang in the air, and with no one touching them they sound of themselves.

From having something to depend on, to depending on nothing.

And “among these many sounds, all speak of recollecting the Buddha, recollecting the Dharma, recollecting the saṅgha of bhikṣus” — what speaks the Dharma is not confined to what has feeling. Wind, water, instruments: whatever can sound is speaking.

What Is Hoped For Is One Thing; What Appears Is the Whole

“When this image has been accomplished, it is called having roughly seen the jeweled trees, the jeweled ground, and the jeweled pools of the world of Ultimate Bliss.”

What was hoped to be seen was the towers alone; what appears is the whole array of adornment from the ground upward.

This is what “general” means: not looking through the earlier contemplations a second time, but looking well at this one thing, whereupon everything before it is already there.

And though what is seen has grown, it is still called “roughly seen” — that layer of “clear and distinct,” set up in the third contemplation, the sūtra has left standing up ahead all along.

Where It Lands Is Not the Extinction of Offences

“If one sees these, the gravest evil karma of measureless koṭis of kalpas is removed, and after the end of this life one will surely be born in that land.”

The extinction of offences in the third contemplation had a number; here there is no number, but two more words are added: “the gravest.”

And still the extinction of offences is not where the passage lands. Once the obstruction is removed the vessel of the body is pure, and once it is pure it accords with the Buddha’s fundamental mind — that is where it lands.

What was asked was how to contemplate the Buddha; what the Buddha first teaches is the seat the Buddha sits on.

Halfway Through the Sentence, He Was There

“While he was speaking these words, the Buddha of Measureless Life stood in the air, with Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, those two great beings, attending on his left and right.”

No one asked; no one waited. While the words were being spoken, he was already in the air.

And he was standing.

First She Acknowledges, Then She Asks

Having seen him, she first acknowledges: “It is by the Buddha’s power that I have now been able to see the Buddha of Measureless Life and the two bodhisattvas.”

Only then does she ask: “How are the sentient beings of the future to contemplate the Buddha of Measureless Life and the two bodhisattvas?”

She has already seen. What she asks about is those who cannot see.

Koṭis upon Koṭis of Adornment, Gathered into One Mirror

One leaf has eighty-four thousand veins, one vein eighty-four thousand rays of light; and great leaves such as these are eighty-four thousand. Upon the dais stand four jeweled banners, each like a hundred thousand myriad koṭis of Mount Sumeru.

The numbers turn upward the whole way, and at the last they gather into the smallest of sentences: “all are to be made distinct, as one sees one’s own face in a mirror.”

Holding up a mirror to one’s own face — the whole test is that.

Where a Flower Came From

At the end the Buddha adds a line: “A wondrous flower such as this was accomplished by the power of the vow of the bhikṣu Dharmākara of old.”

Those leaves, that light, those banners did not grow there of their own accord.

Where a flower came from turns out to be where a vow came from.

Before teaching the contemplation of the Buddha, the Buddha first answered a “why.”

Why the Image Can Be Formed at All

“The buddhas, the tathāgatas, are the dharma-realm body, and they enter everywhere into the imaging mind of every sentient being.”

It is not that you go looking for him. He is already inside the mind that is doing the imaging.

Only so can the next sentence follow: “Therefore, when your minds form the image of a buddha, this mind is at that very moment the thirty-two marks and the eighty secondary excellences conforming to the form.”

Eight Characters

“This mind makes the Buddha; this mind is the Buddha.”

In those eight characters one character only has been exchanged — one “makes,” one “is.”

The first sentence says what you are doing; the second says what that doing rests on.

First the Image, Not the True Body

Only when the doctrine is finished does the method come: “One who would form the image of that Buddha should first form the image of his figure.”

“Whether the eyes are closed or open, one sees a jeweled image of the colour of Jambūnada gold, seated upon that flower.”

What it is seated on is the very throne made in the contemplation before.

Out of Concentration, and Still There

After the contemplation is accomplished, what the sūtra writes of is not a larger object but an arriving sound: flowing water, light, jeweled trees, wild ducks and geese, mandarin ducks, all of them speaking the Dharma.

“Whether he has come out of concentration or entered it, he constantly hears the wondrous Dharma.”

And the measuring rod is a single line: “Let it be made to accord with Xiuduoluo.”

If it does not accord, it is called false imagining; if it does, all one is granted is six characters — seeing the world of Ultimate Bliss in a rough image.

Roughly seen, and no more. The sūtra will not grant a fraction more.

In This Body

“To make this contemplation removes the offences of measureless koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death, and in this present body one attains the samādhi of recollecting the Buddha.”

The image was provisionally set up.

The samādhi is gained in this present body.

The contemplation before looked at an image. This one looks at a body.

Numbers the Mind Cannot Hold

“The Buddha’s body is as many yojanas in height as six hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of the sands of the Gaṅgā.”

“The white tuft between his brows curls to the right, winding smoothly, like five Mount Sumerus.”

“The Buddha’s eyes are pure as the water of the four great seas, clear white and distinct.”

The numbers pile upward: eighty-four thousand marks; within each mark, eighty-four thousand excellences; within each excellence, eighty-four thousand rays of light.

The Light Shines Everywhere; What It Gathers In Is Those Who Recollect the Buddha

“Each single ray shines everywhere upon the worlds of the ten directions, gathering in the sentient beings who recollect the Buddha and not forsaking them.”

The light is not partial.

What is partial is whether the hand at the other end is put out.

Looking at the Body, He Sees the Mind

“To make this contemplation is called contemplating the body of every buddha; and because one contemplates the Buddha’s body one also sees the Buddha’s mind.”

And what the Buddha’s mind is, the sūtra says itself, leaving nothing in suspense:

“The mind of the buddhas is great kindness and compassion; with a kindness that is without object he embraces all sentient beings.”

Only One Mark Is Taken

Where there is no telling it all, the sūtra says: they “cannot be told in full.”

And then it gives an entrance: “One who contemplates the Buddha of Measureless Life enters by a single mark or excellence: he contemplates the white tuft between the brows alone, and makes it utterly clear.”

Marks and excellences in koṭis upon koṭis of tiers, and what is handed to you is one point between the brows.

“One who sees the mark of the white tuft between the brows will of himself come to see the eighty-four thousand marks and excellences.”

Of the sixteen contemplations, this is the only one that says outright: the body here contemplated falls short of the Buddha in two places.

In His Light, There Are Sentient Beings

“In the light of his whole body the beings of the five destinies and all their forms appear.”

The light of the contemplations before shone outward.

The light of this sentence gathers inward.

The One upon His Head Is Standing

“Within that heavenly crown there stands a manifested Buddha, twenty-five yojanas high.”

A bodhisattva, bearing a Buddha upon the crown of his head — and that Buddha is standing.

The Numbers Turn Upward and Come Down in a Hand

Eighty-four thousand lines at a finger-tip; eighty-four thousand colours to a line; eighty-four thousand rays to a colour.

And then the place where it comes down: “That light is soft, and it shines everywhere upon all; with these jeweled hands he receives sentient beings and draws them in.”

Adornment heaped up in koṭis upon koṭis, and at the end a single hand held out.

And of the nature of that light, two characters: soft.

“No Different from a Buddha’s,” and Then —

“As for the rest of his bodily marks, the several excellences are complete, no different from a Buddha’s; only the fleshy protuberance on the crown and the mark of the invisible crown do not match the World-Honored One.”

What ought not to reach — not one of them is granted more.

Beginning at the Place Where He Falls Short

“If there is anyone who wishes to contemplate the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, he should first contemplate the fleshy protuberance on the crown, next contemplate the heavenly crown.”

The first place one is taught to begin is exactly the place just said not to reach.

The sūtra does not point it out; it merely goes on speaking in order.

With this contemplation, the bodily marks of the three holy ones have all been seen.

First, What Is the Same

“This bodhisattva’s body is the same in size as Avalokiteśvara’s.”

The first words are “the same as.” What is alike is said out in full, and only then what is not.

The Names Speak for Themselves

Of the sixteen contemplations, this is the only one in which the sūtra explains of its own accord where the names came from.

“Merely to see the light of a single pore of this bodhisattva is at once to see the pure and wondrous light of the measureless buddhas of the ten directions — for this reason this bodhisattva is named Boundless Light.”

“With the light of wisdom he shines everywhere upon all, making them leave the three evil destinies and gain unsurpassed power — for this reason this bodhisattva is named Mahāsthāmaprāpta.”

The one takes its name from the light, the other from the virtue.

The Sign by Which They Are Known

“Upon the fleshy protuberance there is a jeweled vase, holding all manner of lights and showing everywhere the deeds of a Buddha.”

After marks and excellences so many, the sign by which they are known at the last comes to two things only: on one head a standing manifested Buddha, on the other a vase.

Walking and Sitting

“When this bodhisattva walks, all the worlds of the ten directions quake.”

“When this bodhisattva sits, the lands of the seven precious substances shake all at once.”

He rises, and the world rises with him; he sits down, and the lands move with him — not one of his motions falls upon himself alone.

Once he has sat down, from the buddha-field of Golden Light below to the buddha-field of the King of Light above, divided bodies measureless as the motes of dust gather like clouds and fill the sky where they sit — “expounding the wondrous Dharma and delivering suffering sentient beings.”

From the single flower of the seventh contemplation to the divided bodies filling the sky here.

One Conclusion Gathers Two

“When this contemplation has been accomplished, it is called the complete contemplation of Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta.”

The contemplation before gathered up one; this one gathers up two.

And of the fruit it gives one sentence, the most solid there is: “not lodged in the womb, and constantly roaming the pure and wondrous lands of the buddhas.”

What the eleven earlier contemplations looked at were objects. What the twelfth looks at is the person doing the contemplating.

One Sentence Changes Places

“When you see this matter you should raise up thought and image and set your mind upon it, and see for yourself that you are born in the world of Ultimate Bliss in the west.”

Not standing on this shore gazing at that land, but seeing in concentration that one is already sitting there — “seated cross-legged within a lotus.”

At the seventh contemplation that Flower Throne was still empty. At this one there is someone on the seat.

From Closed to Open

The sūtra does not let anyone leap in at one step.

“Form the image of the lotus closing, form the image of the lotus opening.” First closed, then open. Only when it opens is there light — “when the lotus opens, there are rays of five hundred colours that come and shine upon the body — so form the image.” The light shines on the body, and only then do the eyes open; the eyes open, and only then does one “see buddhas and bodhisattvas filling the whole of space.”

One very large matter, cut into a string of very small ones.

What Is Heard Has to Match

Over there the sounds put forth by the water, the birds, the groves of trees, and all the buddhas are all setting forth the Dharma. And the sūtra adds a test: “it accords with the twelve divisions of the scriptures.”

Hearing is not enough. What is heard has to match what the Buddha taught. Then it counts.

The Real Test Is Away from the Seat

“If you come out of concentration, you still remember and hold it and do not lose it.”

Clarity in concentration is not accomplishment. Its being still there after one has come out — that is.

What the first contemplation measured was eyes shut and eyes open; what this one measures is entering and leaving concentration. The same rod, reaching further.

And Then That Side Comes Over

“The manifested bodies of the Buddha of Measureless Life are numberless, and together with Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta they constantly come to the place of this practitioner.”

From the beginning up to here, it has been a person looking over there. In the last sentence, it is that side constantly coming here.

In the ninth contemplation the Buddha’s body was six hundred thousand koṭis of nayutas of yojanas, as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā. In the last contemplation of the good done in concentration, the Buddha says: first contemplate sixteen feet.

The Sūtra Admits First That It Cannot Be Caught

“As was said before, the body of the Buddha of Measureless Life is measureless in its extent, and it is not within reach of the power of an ordinary person’s mind.”

This is not somebody else’s remark. It is the sūtra turning back to gloss what came before: that object is too vast, this mind too small.

The Pivot Is One Word — Yet

“Yet by the power of that Tathāgata’s vow of former lives, whoever remembers and forms the image will necessarily succeed.”

That the object is vast and the mind small is the plain fact; this sentence says on which side accomplishment rests — not on the power of the mind, but on the power of the vow.

The object contemplated may shrink and the contemplating mind may be feeble; the side relied upon has never shrunk.

Small Ones Are True Too

“At times he appears with a great body filling the whole of space; at times he appears with a small body of sixteen feet or of eight.”

Great body and small body are the appearing of one and the same person. And the sūtra adds a verdict: “the forms in which he appears are all of the colour of true gold.”

Great and small may differ; the colour does not change.

Knowing Them by the One Thing on the Head

“The Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, in every place, have bodies the same as those of sentient beings.”

Then how are they to be recognized? “One need only contemplate the mark upon the head to know that this one is Avalokiteśvara and that one is Mahāsthāmaprāpta.”

There is no need to look at the whole body. That one thing on the head is enough.

The Thirteen Contemplations End Here

“This is called the contemplation of mixed images, and it is named the thirteenth contemplation.”

From the setting sun to the image sixteen feet high, the objects contemplated on the seat have all been spoken of. What comes next is what nine kinds of person meet with at the end of life.

What the first thirteen contemplations looked at were objects. From this contemplation on, what is looked at is persons.

The Condition Is Not Practice but Mind

“If there are sentient beings who wish to be born in that land, they give rise to three kinds of mind and are born there at once. What are the three? The first is the mind of utmost sincerity; the second is the profound mind; the third is the mind that dedicates and directs and makes the vow.”

Then the sūtra lays down a very hard sentence: “One who is complete in these three minds will necessarily be born in that land.”

Not may attain birth there. Necessarily born there.

That Other Set of Three

“There are, further, three kinds of sentient beings who are to attain birth there.”

To be kindly of mind and not kill while complete in the various observances of the precepts; to read and recite the Vaipulya scriptures of the Great Vehicle; to cultivate the six recollections and dedicate and direct them with the vow — the three stand side by side, not in three ranks.

One person need not have every one of them. The sūtra asks only that the one he has be real, and that it be dedicated.

The Time Is Startlingly Short

“Complete in merit such as this, in one day or up to seven days one attains birth in that land.”

The days the sūtra gives for the highest birth of the highest grade are one day to seven days.

The Difference Is Written on the Terrace

The highest of the highest mounts the adamantine terrace, the middle of the highest the purple-gold terrace, the lowest of the highest a golden lotus flower.

On arrival there, the speed of the opening is likewise of three ranks: the purple-gold terrace “opens after a single night”; the golden lotus flower waits until “after one day and one night does the lotus flower open,” and once it has opened, “only within seven days does he attain the sight of the Buddha,” and even having seen the Buddha “his mind is not yet clear about the many marks and signs,” so that only “after three sevens of days does he see them clear and distinct.”

The terrace differs, the number of manifested buddhas coming to welcome differs, the time before the seeing is clear differs.

And All Three Positions Went

A whole passage is spent on differences, and yet the closing words of the three positions are one and the same in form: this is what is called one of the highest birth of the highest grade, one of the middle birth of the highest grade, one of the lowest birth of the highest grade.

The difference lies on the side of the practice, not on the side of whether the going succeeds or fails.

What the highest grade relied on was three kinds of mind. What the middle grade relies on is the precepts — and the last of them has not even the precepts.

The Precepts Have to Be Turned in a Direction

“If there are sentient beings who receive and hold the five precepts, who keep the eight-precept fast, who cultivate the various precepts, who commit none of the five heinous acts and are without faults and evils.”

Not one line about forming images, not one line about reciting scriptures. What is listed is all precepts.

The precepts stated, the sūtra at once turns them in a direction: “With roots of good such as these they dedicate and direct them, vowing to seek birth in the world of Ultimate Bliss in the West.”

The precepts are what is cultivated; the dedicating and directing is where it is aimed. Without that second step, the first does not run through to that land.

As Short as One Day and One Night

“If for one day and one night they keep the eight-precept fast, or for one day and one night keep the śrāmaṇera precepts, or for one day and one night keep the full precepts, with no defect in deportment.”

Three ifs side by side; take any one of them. Before each of them stands only one unit of time.

The time may be as short as one day and one night, and within that one day and one night the four words “with no defect in deportment” are not lowered.

The Ones Who Come Are Not the Same

“Amitābha Buddha, with many bhikṣus and with his retinue surrounding him, sends forth a golden light and comes to that person’s place.”

For the highest grade there came the Buddha with the two great beings and countless manifested buddhas; for this grade there comes the Buddha with an assembly of bhikṣus.

Whichever road a person has walked all his life, that is the company that comes at the end to welcome him.

The Last of Them

“If there are good men or good women who are filial and care for father and mother, and who practise the humaneness and rightness of the world.”

No precepts, no scriptures, no contemplation, and not even the thought of wanting to go and be born there.

Only at the end of life does he hear of the matter for the first time — “Having heard of this, he straightway ends his life. As in the time a strong man takes to bend and stretch his arm, he is born in the world of Ultimate Bliss in the West.”

A thing he had never heard in a whole lifetime, he heard through this once at the end.

A Single Lowering of the Head, a Single Stretching of the Arm

“In the very instant before he has raised his head, he attains birth in the world of Ultimate Bliss”; “as in the time a strong man takes to bend and stretch his arm.”

The sūtra says only that Amitābha Buddha is not far from here; and for the time needed to go from here to there it uses a single lowering of the head and a single stretching of the arm.

The three kinds of person spoken of in the last contemplation all rely, at the end of life, on something other than a contemplation brought to completion in a single sitting: on hearing, on recollecting, on uttering the Name.

Three Concessions

The first: there is no time for the good friend to teach him to read the scriptures, and he only “praises for him the title-names at the head of the twelve divisions of the Great Vehicle scriptures” — only the titles.

The second: reading the titles is still not enough, and “one who is wise then teaches him further to join his palms and fold his hands, and to utter Namo Amitābha Buddha.”

The third retreats to the floor: what the good companion teaches is still “teaching him to recollect the Buddha,” and yet —

“That person, pressed by pain, has no leisure to recollect the Buddha.”

It is not that he is unwilling to recollect; the pain is such that it cannot be got out.

And so the sentence gives way another step: “If you cannot recollect that Buddha, you should utter: entrusting my life to the Buddha of Measureless Life.”

From contemplating to hearing, from hearing to recollecting, from recollecting to uttering. It comes down inch by inch, and where there is no further to come down, that door is still open.

A Number That Runs Backwards

“Because he utters the Buddha’s name, in thought after thought the offences of eighty koṭis of kalpas of birth-and-death are removed.”

The two grades above reckon how much is removed at one stroke; this grade reckons how much is removed at a single thought.

The one who owes the most has the most dissolved in the space of one thought. Read as human feeling would have it, the order is inverted; and yet the sūtra set it down exactly so.

The Cost Is Not Wiped Away

“When seven sevens of days have passed, the lotus flower then opens.” “When six kalpas have passed, the lotus flower then opens.” “Within the lotus flower twelve great kalpas are completed, and the lotus flower then opens.”

Birth in that land is one and the same thing; the waiting comes in three lengths.

A Line That Does Not Appear

At the end of each of the first fifteen contemplations there stands a judgment of right and wrong. Fourteen of them read: to make this contemplation is called right contemplation. The second states the same judgment with a different opening character.

The sixteenth has none. The sūtra closes at “this is called the image of birth in the lowest grade, and it is named the sixteenth contemplation,” and there it stops.

The people this contemplation speaks of meet a good friend only at the end of life. Here the sūtra gives no judgment of right and wrong for this grade — and why that should be, the sūtra does not say.

The Moment the Speaking Ended

“At that time, when the World-Honored One had spoken these words, Vaidehī, together with her five hundred attendant women, heard what the Buddha said, and thereupon saw the vast and far-reaching aspect of the world of Ultimate Bliss.”

Thereupon saw. No waiting for a later day and a practice brought to completion, no waiting for a life to come and a recompense repaid: at the moment the speaking ended, she saw.

The person shut up in the depths of the palace in the introduction, who asked, “What offence did I commit in the past, that I should give birth to so evil a son?” — here she is “all at once greatly awakened, and obtains the patience of non-arising.”

Two Names

Ānanda asked two things: what this sūtra is called, and how this Dharma is to be held.

The sūtra has two names: one taken from what is looked at — Contemplating the Land of Ultimate Bliss, the Buddha of Measureless Life, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, and the Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta; one taken from where one goes — Purifying Away the Obstruction of Karma and Being Born Before All Buddhas.

At the Lightest Point, the Sentence Turns Upward Instead

“One who practises this samādhi will in this very body be able to see the Buddha of Measureless Life and the two great beings.” That is the highest layer.

The next sentence comes down at once: “Merely hears the name of the Buddha and the names of the two bodhisattvas, and the offences of measureless kalpas of birth-and-death are removed.” Merely to hear the names, and not to accomplish the samādhi, and the offences of measureless kalpas of birth-and-death are removed.

Having come down to that lightest rung, the sentence does not go further down; it turns upward from the light instead: “How much more one who holds them in mind and recollects them!” — if hearing is already so much, how much more to keep the name in the mind and recollect it.

A course of work as long as the sixteen contemplations is here set into a very wide stair.

One Who Recollects the Buddha

“If there be one who recollects the Buddha, know that this person is the fentuoli flower among men; the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and the Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta are his excellent friends.”

The two on whose description the tenth and eleventh contemplations spent so many words become, here, the friends of the person who recollects the Buddha.

And the Last Sentence Is

“Hold these words well. One who holds these words holds the name of the Buddha of Measureless Life.”

Sixteen gates of contemplation have been taught to the end, and what is handed down is a name.