無量壽經優波提舍 義疏通講Treatise on Birth in That Land: The Upadeśa on the Sūtra of Measureless Life · Exposition Throughout

The Upadeśa on the Sūtra of Measureless Life, with Verses of Aspiration for Birth in That Land, was composed by Vasubandhu on the basis of the Sūtra of Measureless Life. The whole treatise has only two parts: twenty-four five-character verses in front, and a stretch of prose behind. Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges them to be the “general statement” and the “explanation of meaning”: “the verses recite the sūtra, in order to gather it whole; the treatise explains the verses, in order to unfold their meaning.” The verses gather the sūtra into something that can be recited; the prose then opens the verses out. Tanluan also assigns the twenty-four verses to the five gates of mindful practice: “the upper three lines are the gates of worship and praise, the lower line is the gate of making the vow”; the second verse is the author’s own statement of what he relies on; “from the third line to the twenty-fourth is the gate of contemplation. The final line is the gate of dedication and direction.” What follows here is the verses themselves.

One Mind, Taking Refuge

The first line of the whole poem is one person’s avowal: “World-Honored One, with one mind I take refuge in the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light who fills the ten directions, and I aspire to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss.”

Twenty characters, and the first is “World-Honored One.” Whom is he calling? The old reading says: “this intention is directed to the Tathāgata Śākyamuni”—because the next verse says “I rely on the sūtra,” and the author, living in the age of Śākyamuni’s semblance Dharma and following Śākyamuni’s teaching, aspires to be born; so he first addresses Śākyamuni. “If one takes the intention to be addressed to all the buddhas, that too is no fault.”

Then comes an “I.” The Dharma teaches there is no self, yet the author opens by saying “I.” The old reading answers cleanly: there are three ways of saying “I”—the speech of wrong view, the speech of self-conceit, and the speech of common usage; here it is common usage, one person pointing to himself, not a clinging to a self. This “I” has only one thing to do: to be “of one mind.” One mind is not a state attained; it is a condition: “mind following upon mind without interruption, with no other thought mixed in.”

Then, taking refuge. Taking refuge is not a general reverence. The old reading draws a fine distinction here: “worship is merely respect, and need not be taking refuge; taking refuge is necessarily worship.” A filial son returns to his parents, a loyal minister to his sovereign; in movement and rest he is not his own, and in going out and coming in he must have what he depends on. The verse declares the author’s own heart, so it says “take refuge”; the prose explains the verse’s meaning, so it speaks broadly of worship. Thus within this one line, “take refuge” is the gate of worship, “the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light who fills the ten directions” is the gate of praise, and “I aspire to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss” is the gate of making the vow—three gates in a single line.

Why does the gate of praise fall on a name? Because this name is itself the mark of the light that is wisdom. The sūtra says that Buddha’s light is measureless and shines on the lands of the ten directions without obstruction. A very natural question follows: if the light is unobstructed, why are we here not reached by it? If there is a place the light does not reach, is that not an obstruction? You have probably asked this same question.

There is a more fundamental question too: the Mahāyāna says everywhere that beings are ultimately unborn—how can one speak of aspiring to be born? Answer: “unborn” has two senses. The real beings and real birth-and-death that ordinary people see are ultimately nonexistent, like the hair of a tortoise, like empty space; and that dharmas arise from conditions is itself their not arising. The birth the author aspires to is in the sense of conditions: “because it is in the sense of conditions, it is called birth provisionally.” Then on what ground is birth there spoken of? “Among the provisionally named persons of this world one practices the five gates of mindful practice, and the earlier thought serves as cause for the later. The provisionally named person of the defiled land and the provisionally named person of the pure land can be settled neither as one nor as different”—if one, there would be no cause and effect; if different, there would be no continuity.

As for the light, the answer is a single sentence: “the obstruction belongs to the beings; it is not the light that is obstructed.” The sun’s light reaches the four continents, and the blind do not see it—that is not the sun failing to reach them. A dense cloud rains down, and a stubborn stone is not moistened—that is not the rain failing to soak. The light is there; the obstruction is here. This answer places the whole weight of “unobstructed” on the side of the light, and places the whole cause of not being reached back on oneself—not as reproach, but as a pointing of direction.

I Rely on the Sūtra

The second verse no longer speaks of oneself; it speaks of what one relies on: “I rely on the sūtra, on the mark of true merit, and speak these verses of aspiration as a comprehensive holding, in accord with the Buddha’s teaching.”

This line does two things. First, it establishes the name “upadeśa”—only a discussion of a sūtra’s meaning that accords with the sūtra deserves to be called an upadeśa. Second, it links what went before to what follows: the three gates above—on what do they rely, why, and how? They rely on the sūtra, because the Tathāgata is the mark of true merit, and through practicing the five gates in accord with it.

The four characters “true merit” deserve a pause. There are two kinds of merit: one arises from a mind with outflows and does not accord with the nature of things—this is the ordinary good of humans and gods; its cause is inverted and its result is false, so it is called untrue merit. The other arises from the bodhisattva’s wisdom and pure karma, adorns the work of a buddha, and enters the pure mark in accord with the nature of things; it is not inverted and not false, and only this is called true merit. Not inverted, because “in accord with the nature of things it conforms to the two truths”; not false, because “it gathers beings into ultimate purity.” These two sentences fix the character of everything the next twenty-two verses will contemplate: the adornments of the Land of Peace and Bliss are not a beautiful scenery; they are marks born from this kind of merit.

“In accord with the Buddha’s teaching”—what does accord look like? “Accord is like a box and its lid fitting each other.”

How a Land Is Vowed into Being

From the third verse to the fourteenth, with the first two lines of the fifteenth, the verses contemplate the land. The prose later counts them as seventeen adornments: purity, measure, nature, form, the various things, wondrous color, touch, adornment (water, ground, and sky), rain, light, wondrous sound, the lord, the retinue, enjoyment, absence of all hardship, the gate of the great meaning, and the fulfillment of all that is sought.

And the old reading explains each one with the same formula: “Why did the Buddha originally raise this adornment?”—and then answers: seeing that there were lands where . . . therefore he vowed . . .

The formula itself is a way of teaching. It says: every adornment of the Land of Peace and Bliss answers to one sickness of this world.

“Contemplate the aspect of that world: it surpasses the paths of the three realms”—purity. Why is purity set first? Because the Buddha “saw that the three realms are a mark of falsity, a mark of turning, a mark of endlessness,” like an inchworm looping, like a silkworm binding itself in its cocoon; so he wished to place beings where there is no falsity, no turning, no endlessness. What are the three realms? “These three realms are the dark house in which ordinary beings in birth and death keep turning”—their pleasures and pains differ a little, their spans are briefly unequal, but seen together there is nothing in them without outflows.

“Ultimate like empty space, vast and without bound”—measure. Seeing that the three realms are cramped, their palaces hemmed in, their fields pinched, he vowed a land like empty space. What does “like empty space” mean? “It means that though those who come to be born there are many, it is as if there were none.” Those born there from the ten directions are without measure or limit, yet in the end it is always like space, never full. Someone asks: Vimalakīrti’s room of ten feet held a multitude with room to spare—must a land be boundless to be called vast? The answer: the room’s capacity is “vast within narrowness”; weighed as a result of karma, how could it compare with “vast within vastness”?

“Born from the right path and great compassion, from supramundane roots of good”—nature. Nature is the root: the pure land accords with the nature of things and does not depart from its root. It is also the nature of the holy lineage: the bodhisattva Dharmākara, before the Buddha World-Sovereign King, awakened to the patience of non-arising, and from within that nature made the forty-eight vows. And it means what is necessary and does not change: “like the nature of the sea, one taste—every stream that enters it must become that one taste.” Those born there have no impure form and no impure mind, and all in the end attain the pure, equal, unconditioned dharma-body, because the nature of the land is pure. And where is the root of this nature? “Great compassion is itself supramundane good. Since the Land of Peace and Bliss is born from this great compassion, this great compassion is said to be the root of the pure land; hence ‘born from supramundane roots of good.’”

The form, the various things, the wondrous color, and the touch that follow each answer to a lack of this world: light that does not reach all three sides, so there is pure light full like the orb of sun and moon in a mirror; palaces of mud and towers of wood and stone, so there are jewels that arise of themselves; lands of unequal quality, so that right and wrong arise, so he vowed a blaze of light second to none—the commentator sets out here a whole row of gold: the gold of this age vanishes beside the gold of the Buddha’s time, and so on up through the heavens, until “the gold of the Heaven of Mastery over Others’ Transformations vanishes beside the light in the Land of Peace and Bliss.” Touch is still closer to the body: in this world, though gold and jade are prized, they cannot be made into clothing; though a bright mirror is a treasure, it cannot be a mat—what pleases the eye does not suit the body, so he vowed “seven jewels soft and yielding, pleasing to the eye and suited to the body.” What is Jiazhanlintuo? “A soft grass of India; touching it produces a feeling of pleasure, hence it is used as a simile.” Touching it produces a pleasure of attachment; touching those soft jewels produces the joy of the Dharma—two pleasures not on the same level. One sentence from the adornment of the various things will be of use through the whole poem: “Since what gives birth is already pure, how could what is born be impure? Hence the sūtra says, ‘as the mind is pure, so the buddha-land is pure.’”

The three adornments of water, ground, and sky speak of this world’s raging waves and hard ice, its steep ridges and withered trees, its smoke and dust that darken the sky—things that leave one “with no feeling of ease before and a dread of danger behind”; there, they are all exchanged for springs flowing in order, ground level as a palm, and nets of jewels whose bells proclaim the Dharma. Why does the adornment of raining flowers and robes say “rain”? Because one fears the objection: if flowers and robes rained constantly, would they not choke the sky? Rain that comes in season brings no flood. The light that dispels the world’s dark ignorance is “the light of the Land of Peace and Bliss, which arises as the reward of the Tathāgata’s wisdom, and so can dispel the darkness of the world.”

Then sound. “Brahmā sounds, words profound and far, subtle, heard in the ten directions”—the old reading takes it thus: “sound means name; name means the name of the Land of Peace and Bliss.” In this world there is good without a name that travels far; there are names that travel far but are not subtle; there are names subtle and far that cannot awaken anyone. The name of that land awakens, and so it is called wondrous; it is being that has gone beyond being, and so it is called subtle. A land’s name, by itself, can awaken a person.

The lord, the retinue, enjoyment, and the absence of hardship speak of the people in that land: there is a Dharma-king who sustains it well—“to abide and sustain is like the yellow crane keeping its young safe, so that after a thousand years they rise again”; all are born from the Tathāgata’s pure flower, a retinue equal, with no road for favoring or slighting; they take the Dharma, meditation, and samādhi as food, forever free of the labor of other nourishment; the afflictions of body and mind are forever gone, and their pleasure is constant and unbroken.

The Seed of the Two Vehicles Does Not Arise

The hardest of the seventeen takes four lines in the verse: “a realm of Mahāyāna roots of good, equal, with no name of reproach; women and the deficient in faculties, and the seed of the two vehicles, do not arise there.”

The gate of the great meaning is the gate that opens on the great meaning. “As when someone builds a city: find the gate, and you enter. If a person attains birth in Peace and Bliss, that is the accomplishment of the gate of the Mahāyāna.” The Buddha saw lands where, though there were buddhas and sages, the land was turbid and so the one was divided and taught as three; therefore he vowed a land “wholly of one taste, the Mahāyāna, of one taste, equality, where rotten seeds never arise and even the names of women and the deficient are cut off.”

But a question rises at once. Among the forty-eight vows in the Sūtra of Measureless Life is: “if the śrāvakas in my land could be counted and their number known, may I not take right awakening.” Nāgārjuna’s Praise of Amitābha says “the assembly of śrāvakas is measureless.” And the Mahāyāna treatises say there are buddha-lands where bodhisattvas and śrāvakas together form the saṃgha, “such as Amitābha’s Land of Peace and Bliss.” Three places in sūtra and treatise say that land has śrāvakas; the verse says there is not even the name of the two vehicles—how are these reconciled?

The answer is by reason: “where there is sickness there is medicine—this is the constant pattern of things.” Śākyamuni divided the one into three because he appeared in a world of five turbidities; the pure land is not of the five turbidities, so of course it has no three vehicles. Since an arhat has not yet attained complete liberation, he must have a birth; outside the three realms there is no place of birth other than the pure land, so he can only be born in the pure land; once born there he is still called a śrāvaka “because he keeps his former name,” as Indra, born among men with the clan name Kauśika, was still called Kauśika by the Buddha after he became lord of the gods. One step further: the verse says only that “the seed of the two vehicles does not arise”—that the Land of Peace and Bliss does not give rise to the seed of the two vehicles; what prevents those of the two vehicles from coming to be born there? “Orange saplings do not grow north of the Yangzi, yet the fruit stalls of the capital have oranges.” Seed and fruit are not one thing.

If there is not even the thing, why say there is not the name? Because a “name” is also a kind of reproach: a soft-minded bodhisattva who is not very brave is derided as a śrāvaka; a flattering or feeble person is derided as a woman; one with clear eyes who does not recognize things is derided as blind. Though the faculties are complete, there are names of reproach—and in that land such names, too, are cut off.

Why then do Dharmākara’s vow and Nāgārjuna’s praise seem to treat the many śrāvakas of that land as a marvel? Because a śrāvaka takes the ultimate limit as his realization and by rights should not again sprout the root of the buddha-path; yet the Buddha, by the inconceivable power of his original vow, gathers him in to be born there, and must then by that same power give rise in him to the aspiration for the unsurpassed path—“what should not arise arises; that is why it is marvelous.” Among the five inconceivable things the Dharma of the buddhas is the most inconceivable, and this is its utmost.

This set of questions and answers makes one thing clear: the verse is vowing a place where there is no “dividing the one and teaching three”; it is not excluding anyone—including those among us who have judged their own capacity insufficient.

The last two lines of the fourteenth verse are the seventeenth thing: “what beings wish for and delight in, all can be fulfilled.” People of this world may be high in name and rank yet have no way to withdraw, or common and lowly in nature yet have no road out, or have lives long or short bound by karma and not their own—“blown by the wind of karma, they are not free”; so he vowed a land where “each is satisfied in what he seeks, his wishes fulfilled.” With this the seventeen things close—beginning from purity, ending where all that is sought is fulfilled.

Then Look at the Buddha, and Then at the Bodhisattvas

“Therefore I aspire to be born in Amitābha’s land”—these two lines gather up the seventeen; hence the aspiration to be born. The contemplation of the vessel world is complete; next comes the world of sentient beings.

Someone asks: are buddhas and bodhisattvas also called “beings”? The old answer: that is the Hīnayāna reading of “beings” within the three realms. What the Mahāyāna means by beings is as the Sūtra of Neither Increase nor Decrease says: “‘beings’ means neither arising nor ceasing.”

The eight contemplations of the Buddha begin with the seat: “a king of measureless great jewels, a wondrous pure flower-dais.” Why adorn the seat first? Because there were bodhisattvas who in their final body sat on spread grass and attained awakening, and those who saw them did not give rise to heightened faith. For the body, “the light of his marks and signs is one fathom,” and here the commentator does not spare the translator either: six feet make a fathom; if, as the Sūtra on Contemplating the Buddha of Measureless Life says, the Buddha’s body is sixty myriads of koṭis of nayutas of yojanas high, as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, then “to say ‘a fathom’ in translation—how obscure!” If the fathom is taken as the span of the Buddha’s own outstretched arms, then his halo too should measure as many yojanas across as the sands of the Gaṅgā, sixty myriads of koṭis of nayutas of them. Beneath the adornment of the body lies a great question: the Sūtra on Contemplating says “the buddhas, the tathāgatas, are the body of the dharma-realm and enter the thought of every being’s mind,” and “this mind makes the Buddha; this mind is the Buddha”—what does this mean? Answer: “the dharma-realm is the mind-dharma of beings”; because the mind can give rise to all dharmas, worldly and supramundane, the mind is called the dharma-realm; the dharma-realm can give rise to the Tathāgata’s body of marks and signs, as form gives rise to eye-consciousness, so the Buddha’s body is called the body of the dharma-realm. When the mind forms the image of the Buddha, the Buddha’s body with its marks and signs appears within the mind: “as when water is clear the image appears; the water and the image are neither one nor different.” This mind makes the Buddha: the mind can make a buddha; this mind is the Buddha: outside the mind there is no buddha—“as fire comes from wood and cannot leave the wood.” The speech: Brahmā tones heard in the ten directions; the mind: “like earth, water, fire, wind, and space, without discrimination”—as earth bears without distinguishing light from heavy, as water nourishes without distinguishing weeds from auspicious herbs, as fire ripens without distinguishing fragrant from foul, as wind rises without distinguishing the sleeping from the awake, as space holds without any thought of open or shut. The assembly is born from the sea of pure wisdom, unmoving; the leader is like Mount Sumeru, the one Dharma-king with no worldly king beside him; the lord is surrounded and gazed upon in reverence by the assembly of gods and great men.

The eighth is a key to the whole treatise: “Contemplate the power of the Buddha’s original vow: none who meet it pass in vain; it can swiftly bring to fullness the great jewel-sea of merit.” The Buddha saw tathāgatas whom some met yet still fell into the three evil paths, or set out and then slipped back into the two vehicles—those who passed in vain, those who sank back; so he vowed that “all who meet me shall swiftly be filled with the unsurpassed great jewel.” This is called abiding and sustaining that is not in vain: to have met is never to have met for nothing.

Four contemplations of the bodhisattvas. First, “the Land of Peace and Bliss is pure; it ever turns the stainless wheel; the bodhisattvas, manifested buddhas, are suns, sustaining like Sumeru”—not moving from their own place yet reaching everywhere in the ten directions: “as the sun in the sky casts its image in a hundred rivers—does the sun come, or does it not?” Second, “in one thought and at one time”—to reach without moving might still allow a before and after; one thought at one time has neither, and the two complete each other. Third, to reach the ten directions with offerings and praise “without a discriminating mind”—praising a tathāgata of a defiled land without seeing defilement, praising a tathāgata of a pure land without seeing purity: “if one raises a mind of better and worse toward buddha-lands, then even in making offerings to a tathāgata, it is not an offering according to the Dharma.” Fourth, “whatever world lacks the jewel of the Buddha’s Dharma and merit, I vow to be born there and show the Dharma as a buddha does”—soft-minded bodhisattvas delight only in practicing in lands where there is a buddha and lack a firm mind of compassion, so he vowed that the bodhisattvas of his land would be willing to leave the pure land and go where there are no three jewels, to sustain them there, to show as if a buddha were present, so that the seed of buddhahood is nowhere cut off.

These four turn the direction of the preceding nineteen verses around: before, the aspiration was to be born there; here, having been born there, the aspiration is to return.

Together with All Beings

The final line: “I have composed this treatise and spoken these verses, aspiring to see the Buddha Amitābha and, together with all beings, to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss.”

This is the gate of dedication and direction. “To dedicate and direct is to turn one’s own merit and give it to all beings, so that together they may see the Tathāgata Amitābha and be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss.”

Who are “all beings”? The old reading cites the Sūtra of Measureless Life spoken at Rājagṛha: those who hear the name, rejoice in faith, and with even a single thought dedicate and direct toward birth there, are born at once and abide in non-retrogression, “excepting only those who commit the five heinous acts and slander the right Dharma”; and then the Sūtra on Contemplating, lowest birth of the lowest grade: one who has committed the five heinous acts and the ten evils, at the end of life meets a good friend who teaches him to call the Buddha’s name, completes ten thoughts, and is born at once. “Judging from this, every ordinary person outside the path can attain birth.”

One sūtra excludes, the other admits—how are they reconciled? The one sūtra speaks of two grave sins together—the five heinous acts and slander of the right Dharma—and so excludes; the other speaks only of the five heinous acts and ten evils, not of slander, and so admits. And one who only slanders the right Dharma without the five heinous acts? “If one merely slanders the right Dharma, though one has no other sin, one certainly cannot be born there.” Because the right Dharma is the Dharma of the buddhas; having slandered it, how could one have any reason to aspire to a buddha-land? “It is like seeking ice that is not water, or fire without smoke—how could it be had?” And what counts as slandering the right Dharma? “To say there is no buddha and no buddha-dharma, no bodhisattva and no bodhisattva-dharma,” whether one arrives at it oneself or receives it from another, once the mind is settled in it. Why is this heavier than the five heinous acts? Because without buddhas and bodhisattvas teaching the good paths of the world and beyond it, one would not even know humaneness, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and good faith; the five heinous acts themselves arise from the absence of right Dharma.

The last question is the most personal: the path of karma is like a scale—the heavier pulls first; after kalpas of sin, how can ten thoughts of the Buddha carry one out of the three realms? The answer is a single sentence: “the weight depends on the mind, on the condition, and on the decisiveness; it does not depend on the length of time or on how many or few.” On the mind: sin arises from a false and inverted view, the ten thoughts arise from hearing the Dharma of true reality through the skillful means and comfort of a good friend—“like a room dark for a thousand years: when light comes even for a moment, it is bright.” On the condition: sin arises from a deluded mind and the false retribution of beings, the ten thoughts arise from unsurpassed faith and the Tathāgata’s true, pure name—like a poisoned arrow in the body: at the sound of the drum smeared with the dispelling medicine, the arrow comes out and the poison is gone. On decisiveness: sin arises from a mind with an afterward and with gaps, the ten thoughts from a mind with no afterward and no gap. Weighed by these three, the ten thoughts are heavier.

Two last questions are technical: how long is one thought? “A hundred and one arisings and ceasings make one instant; sixty instants make one thought”—but the thought here does not take this measure of time: “it means only recollecting the Buddha Amitābha, whether in his general mark or his particular marks; following the object contemplated, the mind without other thought, ten thoughts in succession are called ten thoughts. Calling the name is likewise.” And when the mind is fixed in contemplation, how does one know how many thoughts there have been? “When the sūtra speaks of ten thoughts, it only makes clear that the karmic deed is accomplished; one need not know the count.” Let the thoughts accumulate without turning to anything else, and that is enough—what leisure is there to count them?

So the “together” of the final verse is not a courtesy. It points precisely to those who think themselves unqualified—and if you have ever thought that of yourself, this line is addressed to you.

Carrying Forward — One Poem, Two Roads

What came above is the meaning of these twenty-four verses in themselves. Below, they are seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the verses; it is the same matter, seen through the eyes of a monk of the northern lands.

Tanluan opens by citing Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Ten Abodes: “a bodhisattva seeking non-retrogression has two kinds of path: the path of difficult practice and the path of easy practice.” The difficult path is “in a world of five turbidities, in a time without a buddha, to seek non-retrogression,” and its difficulties are five: the semblance of good in outside paths, the self-benefit of śrāvakas, evil people who ruin others, the inversion of good results, and reliance on one’s own power alone without the sustaining of another’s power—“like traveling on foot by land: painful.” The easy path is “merely through the condition of faith in the Buddha to aspire to birth in the pure land, and riding the power of the Buddha’s vow to attain birth in that pure land”; sustained by the Buddha’s power one enters the group of right fixity, and right fixity is non-retrogression—“like traveling by water in a boat: pleasant.” And this treatise, in his view, is “the utmost of the great vehicle, the wind-borne boat of non-retrogression.”

This judgment of two paths is not in the treatise; Tanluan brought it over from Nāgārjuna and set it at the head of his commentary. He makes it the door to his whole commentary, so that in explaining the verses he asks of each adornment “why did the Buddha originally raise it,” and each answer first sees the suffering of this world—only those on the road by land know why one should board the boat.

The assignment of the twenty-four verses to the gates is also his: three gates in the first line, the name established in the second, contemplation from the third to the twenty-fourth, dedication in the last. The sequence of seventeen, eight, and four adornments, and their one-to-one matching to the verse-lines, are in the treatise’s own prose; naming the sickness each one answers is what the commentary adds. The long chain of questions at the end—whether there are śrāvakas, name and thing, the five heinous acts and slander, the weight of ten thoughts—are all questions he asked first on behalf of those who read the verses.

And the verse itself says only one thing: “together with all beings, to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss.”

When the verses are finished, the prose opens: “The treatise says: what meaning does this verse of aspiration make clear?” From here begins what Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges to be the “explanation of meaning.” He divides this prose into ten sections; the present passage is the first two: “the general intent of the verse of aspiration” and “raising contemplation and giving rise to faith.” The general intent is a single sentence; raising contemplation and giving rise to faith has two layers—first showing the power of the five practices, then setting out the five gates. What follows here is the treatise’s own words.

The Verse Means to Say Only One Thing

“What meaning does this verse of aspiration make clear? To contemplate the world of Peace and Bliss, to see the Buddha Amitābha, and to aspire to be born in that land.”

“The treatise says”—even these two words have a gloss: “‘treatise’ means to discuss, that is, to discuss why the verse says what it says. ‘Says’ means the words—it points to the sentences below, which discuss and explain the words of the verse.” To treat is to discuss why the verse speaks as it does; to say is to point at the sentences that follow.

Twenty-four verses, and their intent is one sentence: contemplate that world, see that Buddha, aspire to be born in that land. Three things in one breath—first contemplation, then seeing, then aspiration. Without contemplation, seeing is daydream; without seeing, aspiration is blind.

The treatise then asks itself: “How does one contemplate? How does one give rise to faith?” How to contemplate; where faith comes from. These two questions are the starting point of the whole prose. And the answer is unexpectedly concrete: “If a good man or good woman practices the five gates of mindful practice to accomplishment, he will in the end attain birth in the Land of Peace and Bliss and see that Buddha Amitābha.”

It is not that one first has faith and then practices; one practices the five gates, and faith is born out of the practice. This sentence places “in the end” in front—when the five gates are accomplished, birth there is not a perhaps, but a certainty.

Gates

“What are the five gates of mindful practice? The first is the gate of worship; the second, the gate of praise; the third, the gate of making the vow; the fourth, the gate of contemplation; the fifth, the gate of dedication and direction.”

Why are they called gates? The old reading gives the plainest explanation: “‘gate’ means entering and exiting; as when a person finds the gate, he goes in and out without obstruction.” A gate is for going in and out. Find the gate, and going in and out is unobstructed. And these five gates do not all face the same way: “the first four are gates for entering the pure land of Peace and Bliss; the last one is the gate for going out in compassionate teaching.” Four gates go inward, into that land; one gate goes outward, back among beings.

This judgment turns the five gates from five items of practice into the two halves of a single road. Reading each gate below, remember whether it is an entering or an exiting.

And because they are gates, there is no ranking of higher and lower. Worship is not lower than contemplation, dedication and direction not higher than making the vow—gates have no high and low, only inside and outside. From which gate a person begins, the treatise does not prescribe; what it prescribes is that all five be passed, hence “practices the five gates of mindful practice to accomplishment.” We are used to arranging practice as a staircase; here it is arranged as a city with five gates.

Worship: An Act of the Body, for One Intention

“How does one worship? With the body one worships the Tathāgata Amitābha, the Worthy of Offerings, the Perfectly and Universally Knowing, because of the intention to be born in that land.”

Worship is an act of the body. Who is worshipped? The treatise gives three titles: Tathāgata, Worthy of Offerings, Perfectly and Universally Knowing. The buddhas’ virtues are measureless and their titles likewise; to speak of them fully, “paper and brush could not carry it,” so the sūtras cite ten names or lift up three, keeping only the essential. Each of the three has its gloss: Tathāgata is “one who understands according to the mark of things and speaks according to the mark of things, who comes as all the buddhas come by the path of peace, and this Buddha comes likewise”; Worthy of Offerings means that, the bonds all exhausted and omniscience attained, he is worthy to receive the offerings of all; Perfectly and Universally Knowing is “to know the truly indestructible mark of all dharmas, neither increasing nor decreasing.”

But the weight of this gate falls on the last six characters: “because of the intention to be born in that land.”

The bodhisattva’s way is already to worship all the buddhas of the ten directions three times by day and three by night, without necessarily carrying the intention to be born; what is wanted here is to worship the Tathāgata Amitābha carrying that intention. The same bodily act, with a different intention, is a different gate. To worship without aspiring to be born is still reverence; to worship aspiring to be born is to enter the gate.

Praise: Calling One Name, Like Its Light

“How does one praise? With the mouth one praises, calling the name of that Tathāgata—according to the mark of that Tathāgata’s light, which is wisdom, and according to the meaning of that name, wishing to practice in accordance with reality and in correspondence.”

Praise is an act of the mouth. Call what? The name of the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light. Call how? “According to the mark of that Tathāgata’s light, which is wisdom, and according to the meaning of that name”—call it in the manner of that mark of light, in the manner of the meaning of that name. The Buddha’s light is the mark of wisdom; it shines on the worlds of the ten directions without obstruction and can dispel the dark ignorance of beings everywhere, not like the light of sun, moon, or pearl, which only breaks the darkness inside a hollow. And this name “can break all the ignorance of beings and can fill all their aspirations.”

Then a very honest question: some people call the name and keep it in mind, and their ignorance remains and their aspirations are not filled—how is that?

The answer does not hedge: “because they do not practice in accordance with reality, and do not correspond to the meaning of the name.” What is not in accordance with reality? First, not knowing that the Tathāgata is a body of true reality and a body for the sake of beings. Second, three kinds of non-correspondence: “first, faith is not pure, now present and now absent; second, faith is not single, lacking decisiveness; third, faith is not continuous, interrupted by other thoughts.” The three are linked—because faith is not pure, there is no decisiveness; because there is no decisiveness, recollection is not continuous. And in reverse: because recollection is not continuous, decisive faith is not attained; because decisive faith is not attained, the mind is not pure. To go against these is to practice in accordance with reality and in correspondence. The old reading here turns back to point at the first line of the verse: “therefore the author of the treatise declared, ‘with one mind.’” The “with one mind” of the opening verse, it turns out, was spoken against these three non-correspondences.

A deeper question: a name is only a pointer, as a finger points at the moon. If calling the Buddha’s name can fill one’s aspirations, then the finger that points at the moon should be able to break the darkness too?

Answer: dharmas differ in ten thousand ways and cannot be treated as one; “there are names that are the thing, and names that differ from the thing.” Some names are one with their dharma—the names of buddhas and bodhisattvas, prajñāpāramitā, the phrases of dhāraṇīs, the sounds of spells: speak them and the thing is done; some names are another matter from their dharma—like the finger that points at the moon. The old reading’s examples are homely: a man with cramp is cured by pressing a quince warmed at the fire, and some are cured just by calling out the word “quince”—“I have had this effect in my own body.” If such near, worldly things are so, how much more the inconceivable realm.

This answer is not a defense of calling the name; it is a statement of what kind of thing the name is. We ordinarily take a name as a label; here it is said that there is a class of names that are themselves the dharma.

Making the Vow: Single-Minded Recollection, for the Sake of Stilling

“How does one make the vow? The mind constantly makes the vow, single-mindedly recollecting, to be born in the end in the Land of Peace and Bliss, wishing to practice śamatha in accordance with reality.”

Making the vow is an act of the mind. The mind constantly vows, single-mindedly recollects, in the end is born there—why? “Wishing to practice śamatha in accordance with reality.”

Śamatha is translated as “stilling.” The old reading finds this rendering “not contrary to the general sense, but insufficient in meaning.” Why? Because “stilling” is too broad: to still the mind at the tip of the nose is also called stilling; the contemplation of impurity stilling greed, of compassion stilling anger, of conditions stilling delusion are also called stilling; a person about to go who does not go is also called stilling. “So one knows that the word ‘stilling’ is loose and floating, and does not properly capture the name śamatha.” As cedar, mulberry, elm, and willow are all called wood—if one says only “wood,” how does one get elm and willow?

What stilling, then, is śamatha here? Three meanings: “first, single-mindedly recollecting the Tathāgata Amitābha and aspiring to be born in that land—this Tathāgata’s name and the name of that land can still all evil; second, that Land of Peace and Bliss surpasses the paths of the three realms, and if a person is born in that land, the evils of body, speech, and mind are stilled of themselves; third, the power of the Tathāgata Amitābha’s right awakening abiding and sustaining stills of itself the mind that seeks to be a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha.” The first stilling is here, by the name; the second is there, by the land; the third is by the Buddha’s power, stilling even the mind that seeks a lesser fruit. The three stillings “arise from the Tathāgata’s merit in accordance with reality,” and so it is called practicing śamatha in accordance with reality.

If you have ever thought stilling meant holding the mind down so that it does not move, these three meanings will change that impression: the stilling here is being stilled by a name, by a land, by the sustaining power of a buddha.

Contemplation: Contemplating That Land with Wisdom, for the Sake of Seeing

“How does one contemplate? With wisdom one contemplates, in right recollection contemplating that land, wishing to practice vipaśyanā in accordance with reality.”

Vipaśyanā is translated as “contemplation,” and likewise “the meaning is insufficient”—to contemplate the body as impermanent, suffering, empty, and without self, the nine marks, and so on, are all called contemplation. The contemplation here has two meanings: “first, forming here the image of those three kinds of adornment of merit, which are real; hence the practitioner too attains real merit, and one who attains real merit is certain to be born in that land; second, having attained birth in that pure land one at once sees the Buddha Amitābha, and the bodhisattva who has not yet realized the pure mind in the end realizes the dharma-body of equality, and together with the bodhisattvas of pure mind and the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds in the end equally attains the equality of quiescence.”

The first meaning is contemplation here: the merit contemplated is real, so the one who contemplates gains real merit, and one who gains real merit is certain to be born. The second is the result there: born there, one sees the Buddha at once, and even a bodhisattva who has not yet realized the pure mind in the end realizes the dharma-body of equality, attaining the equality of quiescence together with the bodhisattvas of pure mind and the upper grounds.

Contemplate what? “That contemplation has three kinds. What are the three? First, contemplating the adornment of merit of that buddha-land; second, contemplating the adornment of merit of the Buddha Amitābha; third, contemplating the adornment of merit of the bodhisattvas there.” Land, Buddha, bodhisattvas—exactly the seventeen, eight, and four kinds the verses contemplated. The two words “contemplate” and “examine” the old reading keeps distinct: “for the mind to take the matter as its object is to contemplate; for the contemplating mind to be clear is to examine.”

Dedication and Direction: Not Abandoning a Single One

“How does one dedicate and direct? Not abandoning any suffering, afflicted being, the mind constantly makes the vow, with dedication and direction foremost, because of accomplishing the mind of great compassion.”

This is the fifth gate, the gate of exiting. Dedication foremost, accomplishing great compassion—dedication is placed first, and the mind of great compassion is what it accomplishes.

Here the old reading makes a judgment that became central to later Pure Land teaching: “dedication and direction has two aspects: the aspect of going, and the aspect of returning.” The aspect of going is “to turn one’s own merit and give it to all beings, making the vow to be born together in the Land of Peace and Bliss of the Tathāgata Amitābha”; the aspect of returning is “having been born in that land, having accomplished the power of skillful means of śamatha and vipaśyanā, to turn back into the dense forest of birth and death and teach all beings to turn together toward the buddha-path.” Going, one takes beings along; returning, one comes back among beings. “Whether going or returning, all is for the sake of drawing beings out of the sea of birth and death”—hence dedication is foremost; hence it accomplishes the mind of great compassion.

This judgment links the first four gates to the fifth: the śamatha practiced in the gate of making the vow, the vipaśyanā practiced in the gate of contemplation, become, in the aspect of returning, the power of skillful means for turning back into birth and death. What is practiced on entering is what is used on exiting.

The treatise says only eight characters here: not abandoning any suffering, afflicted being. The going and returning were read out later; but what was read out is exactly the direction already in those eight characters—one who does not abandon cannot only go and not return.

Carrying Forward — Five Gates, One Road

What came above is the meaning of this passage of prose in itself. Below, it is seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the treatise; it is the same road, walked once more by another.

Tanluan divides the prose into ten sections, of which this passage occupies the first two. “Gate means entering and exiting” are his words; “the first four are gates for entering the pure land of Peace and Bliss; the last one is the gate for going out in compassionate teaching” are also his—the treatise itself, at the five gates of entering and exiting, already judges that “the first four accomplish the merit of entering, and the fifth accomplishes the merit of exiting”; it is he who reads the five gates of mindful practice, too, as four entering and one exiting. The glosses on the three titles, the distinction of names that are the thing and names that differ from it, the three non-correspondences of faith, the three meanings of śamatha, the two of vipaśyanā, the going and returning of dedication, all come from him. Of these, the three non-correspondences, turned back to point at “with one mind” in the first verse, are a bridge he built between the verses and the prose; the going and returning aspects unfold an eight-character gate of dedication and direction into the skeleton of a whole later school.

He said at the opening of his commentary that this treatise is “the utmost of the great vehicle, the wind-borne boat of non-retrogression.” Under his brush the five gates become the five tasks aboard that boat: worship, praise, making the vow, and contemplation are boarding; dedication is turning back to fetch others.

And the treatise itself says only: one who practices the five gates to accomplishment “will in the end attain birth in the Land of Peace and Bliss and see that Buddha Amitābha.”

When the prose reaches the gate of contemplation it slows down and counts again what the verses had looked at line by line: seventeen adornments of the land, eight of the Buddha, four of the bodhisattvas—twenty-nine in all. Then it says that these twenty-nine, “briefly stated, enter one dharma-phrase.” Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges this long passage to be the third and fourth sections of the explanation of meaning, “the substance and marks of the practice of contemplation” and “purity entering the mind of the vow,” and under each of the seventeen adornments of the land (including the three branches of water, ground, and sky) he asks the same question: “In what way is this inconceivable?”—a question the treatise does not ask, which he asks on behalf of the reader; the eight adornments of the Buddha and the four of the bodhisattvas he carries with glosses and questions of another kind. What follows here is the treatise.

Inconceivable, Like a Wish-Fulfilling Jewel

The treatise first gives the land a general character: “The adornment of merit of that buddha-land is the accomplishment of inconceivable power. It is like the nature of the wish-fulfilling maṇi jewel—a dharma of resemblance and correspondence.”

What power is inconceivable power? The old reading first lists the five inconceivable things—the number of beings, the power of karma, the power of dragons, the power of meditation, the power of the Buddha-Dharma—and then says this land has two powers: “first, the power of karma, namely what was accomplished by the great vow and karma of the bodhisattva Dharmākara’s supramundane roots of good; second, what is held by the power of the Dharma-king Amitābha, the right awakening, abiding and sustaining it well.” One is the vow-karma of the causal stage; the other is the sustaining power of the result.

Why compare it to a maṇi jewel? Because when the buddhas enter nirvāṇa they leave relics to benefit beings; when the beings’ merit is exhausted, the relics become wish-fulfilling maṇi jewels; a wheel-turning king who obtains one sets it on a tall pole and makes a vow, and from the sky rain down whatever is needed, “filling the wishes of all people under heaven.” The Land of Peace and Bliss, “because of the accomplishment of the various natures of Peace and Bliss,” is like this.

But the treatise says “resemblance and correspondence,” not sameness. Where is the resemblance? The jewel rains only when someone asks; that land, “because its nature is accomplished in fullness, lacks nothing.” The jewel can give wishes for clothing and food, not the wish for the unsurpassed path or for measureless bodies. “A part of its nature is taken as a simile; hence ‘resemblance and correspondence.’” A simile first says where it resembles, then says where it does not.

Seventeen Things, and a Question Asked of Each

The treatise then counts: “In contemplating the adornment of merit of that buddha-land, there are seventeen things that should be known.” And one by one it returns to the verse: the accomplishment of such-and-such merit, “because the verse says . . .” Seventeen times.

And the old reading, each time, presses further: in what way is this inconceivable?

Purity. “There are ordinary people whose afflictions are complete who nonetheless attain birth in that pure land, and the binding karma of the three realms in the end does not drag them back—this is to attain a share in nirvāṇa without cutting off the afflictions. How could it be conceived?” This is the first inconceivable thing in the passage, and the most important: the afflictions not yet cut off, and yet one is not dragged back by the karma of the three realms.

Measure. The gods and humans of that land, if they want palaces and towers a yojana wide or a thousand, “have them formed according to their minds, each person so”; those born there from the ten directions in a single moment of a single day cannot be numbered, “and yet that world is always like empty space, with no mark of being hemmed in.” “The measure of that land can accomplish the measure of beings’ mental conduct—how could it be conceived?”

Nature. “It is like the Jialuoqiuluo insect, whose form is tiny, but which, when it meets a great wind, becomes as large as a mountain, taking the size of the wind as its own body.” So it is with those born in Peace and Bliss: born into that world of the right path, they at once accomplish supramundane roots of good and enter the group of right fixity—“like that wind, which is not a body and yet becomes one.”

Form. “Patience brings a fair appearance—my own mind casts its reflection.” In this world a fair appearance must be earned by patience; there, once born, “there is no difference of angry and patient; the forms of gods and humans are equal and wondrously perfect—this is the power of the pure light.” The light is not mental conduct, yet does what mental conduct does.

The various things. One jewel, ten, a hundred thousand kinds, “according to the mind, as one wishes, nothing lacking; if one wishes them gone, in a flash they vanish.” The mind obtains a mastery beyond supernormal power.

Wondrous color. “Where its light shines on things, it penetrates them inside and out; where it shines on the mind, it ends ignorance completely. Light doing the Buddha’s work—how could it be conceived?”

Touch. “Jewels are by rule hard, yet these are soft; the pleasure of touch ought to produce attachment, yet this increases the path.” The pleasure of touch should breed attachment; here it furthers the way instead. The old reading names a bodhisattva called Aizuo, of fair appearance, to whom people became attached, and the sūtra says “those who were attached to him were either born in the heavens or gave rise to the aspiration for awakening.”

Three kinds: water, ground, and sky. Why are these three said together? Because of the six elements, consciousness belongs to the world of sentient beings, fire is absent there, wind cannot be seen and has no dwelling; what remains visible and adornable is these three. Why is the water inconceivable? The gods and humans there have no bodies of water and grain, their purity is accomplished, there are no four seasons of heat and cold—water has no use—“not needed, yet there; there must be a reason.” The sūtra says of that water, “if they wish the water to cover the foot, it covers the foot; if they wish it to reach the knee, it reaches the knee,” warm or cool as they please, and it sounds forth the Buddha, the Dharma, the Saṃgha, the sound of stillness, of emptiness and no-self, “there is no name of the sufferings of the three evil paths, but only the sound of natural happiness, and therefore that land is called Peace and Bliss.” A land’s name comes from the sound of its water. “This water does the Buddha’s work—how could it be conceived?” And the ground? “These adornments are like a clear bright mirror; the pure and defiled marks of the lands of the ten directions, the conditions of good and evil karma, all appear in it,” and the gods and humans there, seeing this, “naturally accomplish the feeling of one who draws back from boiling water”—no one need exhort them; one look and they dare not do evil. And the sky? Jeweled nets and virtuous winds: “those who hear it find that the dust of toil and the habits of defilement do not arise; the wind touching their bodies, all attain happiness.” Sound does the Buddha’s work.

Rain. Wind scatters flowers over the whole land six times a day and night; from each jeweled flower come thirty-six hundred thousand koṭis of lights, and in each light thirty-six hundred thousand koṭis of buddhas, “speaking the subtle Dharma everywhere for the ten directions.” Flowers do the Buddha’s work.

Light. “Light is not wisdom, yet can do wisdom’s work—how could it be conceived?”

Wondrous sound. The sūtra says, “if a person only hears that that land is pure and blissful and keeps the aspiration to be born there, he too attains birth there and enters the group of right fixity”—“this is the name of a land doing the Buddha’s work.”

The lord. “To abide means not to differ and not to perish; to sustain means not to scatter and not to be lost—like smearing a seed with an incorruptible medicine, so that in water it does not rot and in fire it does not char, and when conditions are met it sprouts.” One born in the pure land of Peace and Bliss who later wishes to be born into the three realms to teach beings, “though born into the three realms, amid the water and fire of mixed births, the seed of unsurpassed awakening in the end does not rot”—because it has passed through the good sustaining of Amitābha, the right awakening.

The retinue. That land “is wholly born by transformation from the pure flower of the right awakening of the Tathāgata Amitābha, by one and the same recollection of the Buddha with no other path, so that, reaching far, all within the four seas are brothers.”

Enjoyment. “To ride the Buddha’s vow as one’s life—how could it be conceived?”

Absence of hardship. “The sūtra says, ‘the body is a vessel of suffering, the mind the source of affliction,’ yet there they have body and mind and enjoy unbroken pleasure—how could it be conceived?”

The gate of the great meaning. Here the treatise says a few words more: “It should be known that the reward of the pure land is free of two kinds of fault of reproach: one in substance, one in name.” Three in substance—persons of the two vehicles, women, and the deficient in faculties; three in name—even these three names are not heard. “‘Equal’ means of one equal mark.” The old reading adds a layer: those who aspire to be born there are “originally of nine ranks, have now no difference of first and second, like the rivers Zi and Sheng becoming one taste.” People who come from nine grades have no first or second once there.

The fulfillment of all that is sought. “And if they wish to give up their life there and be born in another land, long or short is at their disposal, and whatever they wish they obtain. Not yet at the stage of mastery, yet with the use of mastery—how could it be conceived?”

When the seventeen questions are done, one answer can be seen through them: every single thing in this land is doing the Buddha’s work—water, reflection, sound, flowers, even the name.

“Briefly Stated,” and an Order of Looking

After the seventeen, the treatise says: “Briefly stated, the seventeen kinds of merit that adorn Amitābha’s buddha-land show the great power of the Tathāgata’s merit in benefiting himself, and the accomplishment of merit in benefiting others.”

Why “briefly”? “To say ‘briefly’ makes clear that the merit of that pure land is measureless, not only seventeen.”

And this sentence says one more thing: though the adornment of the land is for the benefit of others, the meaning of self-benefit is in it too. “Sumeru entering a mustard seed, a pore taking in the great sea—is this the marvel of the mountain and the sea? the power of the pore and the seed? It is the one who can work marvels who works them.”

The treatise goes on: “The adornment of the land of the Buddha of Measureless Life is the wondrous object of the supreme truth; it should be known that the sixteen phrases and the one phrase are spoken in sequence.” What is the supreme truth? “The supreme truth is the Buddha’s dharma of causes and conditions.” One phrase is the general, sixteen are the particular. The old reading explains here why the seventeen are arranged as they are. It begins from a doubt: the opening verse says “I take refuge in the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light and aspire to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss,” and someone will doubt—birth is the root of existence, the source of every burden; to give up birth and aspire to birth, when will birth ever end? The answer: that land is “the birth that is no birth of the Tathāgata Amitābha’s pure original vow, not like the false birth of the three kinds of existence.” The nature of things is pure and ultimately unborn; to speak of birth is to speak from the feeling of the one born. Once this doubt is settled, the order of the seventeen phrases stands: the first phrase is the general mark—purity, surpassing the three realms; then each phrase asks forth the next: knowing purity, what mark does surpassing the three realms have? So contemplate measure. Knowing measure, what is measure rooted in? So contemplate nature. And on, through touch, through freedom from defilement, through who is lord and who is retinue, until the last question—is the gate of the great meaning full or not?—so contemplate the fulfillment of all that is sought.

The seventeen things are not a list; they are a road that is questioned into being. The Buddha’s eight phrases were later arranged in the same way: knowing the land, one should know its lord; where does the lord sit, so first contemplate the seat; and on until “what increase has the lord?”—so last contemplate the sustaining that is not in vain.

And the end of this road the old reading states plainly: “Contemplating these seventeen accomplished adornments can give rise to true pure faith, and one certainly attains birth in that buddha-land of Peace and Bliss.” We usually assume faith comes before contemplation; here faith is born from contemplation.

One more question is worth keeping. It was said above that one “knows birth to be no birth”—that is the business of those of the highest grade; one of the lowest grade who is born by ten thoughts, does he not grasp a real birth? Grasping a real birth, he falls into two attachments—fear of not attaining birth, fear of the delusion of birth arising again. The answer: “It is like a pure maṇi jewel placed in muddy water: the water at once becomes clear.” Though a person has the mud of measureless sins of birth and death, “hearing the name of the Tathāgata Amitābha, the utterly unborn, pure jewel, and casting it into the muddy mind, thought by thought his sins are extinguished and his mind purified, and he at once attains birth.” And as fire burning on ice—when the fire is fierce the ice melts, and when the ice melts the fire goes out—one of the lower grade, though he does not know that the nature of things is unborn, by the power of calling the Buddha’s name makes the intention to be born and aspires to that land; “that land is the realm of no birth, and the fire of seeing birth goes out of itself.”

The Eight Things to See in the Buddha

“How does one contemplate the accomplishment of the Buddha’s adornment of merit? In contemplating it, there are eight kinds that should be known.” Seat, body, speech, mind, assembly, leader, lord, and sustaining that is not in vain.

For seat and body the treatise only cites the verse, and the old reading says: “if one wishes to contemplate the seat, one should rely on the Sūtra on Contemplating the Buddha of Measureless Life”; “if one wishes to contemplate the Buddha’s body, one should rely on the Sūtra on Contemplating the Buddha of Measureless Life”—it sets up no separate account.

For the mind, the treatise itself glosses four words: “‘without discrimination’ means without a discriminating mind.” And the old reading unfolds, across body, speech, and mind, a passage that touches very close: ordinary beings make sin with the three karmas of body, speech, and mind and turn in the three realms, so the buddhas and bodhisattvas adorn their three karmas “to cure the false and deceptive three karmas of beings.” How? Beings, through the view of a self, receive bodies in the three evil paths, lowly bodies, ugly bodies; seeing the body of the Tathāgata Amitābha with its marks and its light, “all such bonds of bodily karma are released, and they enter the Tathāgata’s house and in the end attain the equal karma of body.” Beings, through arrogance, slander the right Dharma and revile the sages and deserve the sufferings of a torn-out tongue and of muteness; hearing the Tathāgata Amitābha’s name of utmost virtue and the sound of his speaking the Dharma, their bonds of verbal karma are released and they in the end attain the equal karma of speech. Beings, through wrong view, give rise to discrimination—existent or not, right or wrong, fair or ugly—and “through discrimination sink long in the three existences”; meeting the Tathāgata Amitābha’s equal light, hearing his equal mental karma, their bonds of mental karma are released and they in the end attain the equal karma of mind. How your three karmas bind you, this passage states without omission; and how the Buddha’s three karmas cure them one by one, it states without omission too.

Then three linked questions. The mind has the mark of awareness and knowing; how can it be like earth, water, fire, and wind, without discrimination? Answer: “Though the mind has the mark of knowing, entering true reality it is without knowing. As a snake’s nature is crooked, yet entering a bamboo tube it is straight.” If the mind entering true reality can be made to be without knowing, what of omniscience? Answer: “The ordinary mind, having knowing, has what it does not know; the sage’s mind, without knowing, has nothing it does not know. Knowing without knowing—knowing is precisely not-knowing.” If there is nothing it does not know, does it not know all kinds of dharmas and so have all kinds of discrimination? Answer: “The various marks of dharmas are all like illusion; and yet illusory elephants and horses are not without the differences of long necks, trunks, hands, and feet—but would the wise, looking on them, say there is really an elephant and a horse to be distinguished?”

The assembly, the leader, and the lord—for these three the treatise only cites the verse. The adornment of the assembly, “the assembly of gods and humans, unmoving, born from the sea of pure wisdom”—the old reading says that sea is the Buddha’s omniscience, which “does not lodge the two vehicles, mixed good, or the corpses of the middling and the low,” and that unmoving means “having accomplished the Mahāyāna root, they cannot be shaken.” The adornment of the leader, “like the king of Mount Sumeru, surpassing and wondrous, with none above him”—seeing that in some tathāgatas’ assemblies there were the overbearing, or kings who ruled alongside the Buddha, he vowed “a single Dharma-king and no worldly king.” The adornment of the lord, “the assembly of gods and great men reverently surrounds and gazes up at him”—seeing assemblies not wholly reverent, a monk who pressed the Buddha with the fourteen difficult questions, outsiders who entered the assembly only to spy for faults, he vowed that gods and humans would revere him without weariness; only gods and humans are named, because “in the pure land there are no women and no spirits of the eight classes.”

The eighth thing: the sustaining that is not in vain. “The accomplishment of the merit of abiding and sustaining that is not in vain is the power of the Tathāgata Amitābha’s original vow.” What is “in vain”? “There are men who deny themselves meals to support retainers, or heap up ships, or fill their storehouses with gold and yet cannot avoid starving to death—such things are everywhere before one’s eyes. What is obtained is not obtained by one’s doing, what is kept is not kept by one’s guarding; all is wrought by false karma, and cannot be sustained.” What is “not in vain”? “Relying on the forty-eight vows of the bodhisattva Dharmākara of old, and the free spiritual power of the Tathāgata Amitābha today: the vow becomes power, the power fulfills the vow; the vow is not idle, the power is not set up for nothing; power and vow match and in the end do not differ—hence ‘accomplishment.’”

After these eight the treatise adds an extremely weighty sentence: “On seeing that Buddha, the bodhisattva who has not yet realized the pure mind in the end attains the dharma-body of equality, no different from the bodhisattvas of pure mind; and the bodhisattvas of pure mind and the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds in the end equally attain the equality of quiescence.” The old reading quotes this sentence slightly differently—“the bodhisattva who has not yet realized the pure mind in the end realizes the dharma-body of equality, and together with the bodhisattvas of pure mind and the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds in the end equally attains the equality of quiescence”—lacking the six characters “no different from . . . the bodhisattvas of pure mind” (the mirror reads “together with the bodhisattvas of pure mind and the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds”), and with one more word, “realizes”; both readings stand, and their meaning does not conflict. Who has the dharma-body of equality? “Bodhisattvas of the eighth ground and above, born from the nature of things.” Such a bodhisattva attains the samādhi of reward-birth and by its power can, from one place, in one thought, at one time, reach the worlds of the ten directions, make offerings to all the buddhas and their great assemblies, and in measureless worlds where there are no three jewels manifest and teach in every way, “from the first without any thought of coming or going, of offering, of delivering.” Who are the bodhisattvas who have not yet realized the pure mind? “Bodhisattvas from the first ground up to the seventh.” They too can manifest bodies in buddhaless lands and do the Buddha’s work, but “they must set the mind to enter samādhi before they can; it is not without setting the mind”—they must raise an intention to enter, and so are called not yet pure in mind. Such bodhisattvas, aspiring to be born in the pure land of Peace and Bliss and seeing the Buddha Amitābha, “are in the end equal in body and equal in dharma with the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds.” The old reading adds a sentence here: “That the bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, the bodhisattva Vasubandhu, and their like aspired to be born there was for this.” The one who composed this treatise did so for this very thing.

Someone asks: the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds says bodhisattvas advance ground by ground; how can they be equal in body and dharma with the bodhisattvas of the upper grounds the moment they see the Buddha? Answer: “To say ‘in the end’ is not to say ‘immediately.’ It is because in the end they do not lose this equality that it is called equality.” Then why say it at all? Answer: a bodhisattva in the seventh ground attains great quiescence, “sees above no buddhas to be sought and below no beings to be delivered, and wishes to abandon the buddha-path and realize the ultimate limit”; if at that time he does not receive the encouragement of the spiritual power of the buddhas of the ten directions, he at once passes into cessation, no different from the two vehicles—“if a bodhisattva is born in Peace and Bliss and sees the Buddha Amitābha, he has no such danger; therefore it must be said: in the end, equality.” And the original vow is cited: “surpassing the practice of the ordinary grounds, manifesting before them the cultivation of the virtues of Samantabhadra”—the bodhisattvas of other pure lands may well not go from one ground to the next. There is a tree called Haojian; it grows underground for a hundred years, and then in one day rises a hundred fathoms—one who has seen a pine grow less than an inch a day, hearing of it, how could he not doubt? “Uncommon words do not enter common ears; that they are thought untrue is only to be expected.”

The Four Things to See in the Bodhisattvas

“How does one contemplate the accomplishment of the bodhisattvas’ adornment of merit? In contemplating it, it should be known that those bodhisattvas have four kinds of accomplishment of merit in right practice.”

Why “right practice”? “True suchness is the right substance of all dharmas; to act as suchness is to be without acting, and acting without acting is called practice in accordance with reality. The substance is only one suchness, but its meaning is divided into four; therefore the four practices are governed by one rightness.” The four things are four faces of one thing.

First, “in one buddha-land the body does not move, yet it reaches everywhere in the ten directions in every kind of response and transformation, practicing in accordance with reality and ever doing the Buddha’s work.” What is the stainless wheel? “The merit of the Buddha-ground.” The dharma-body is like the sun, the lights of the transformation-bodies spread through all worlds; “to say ‘sun’ is not enough to show immobility, so it also says ‘sustaining like Sumeru.’” The treatise adds a clause—“because they open the lotus of beings in the mud”—and the sūtra says, “on high plateaus and dry land the lotus does not grow; in low, wet mud the lotus grows”: ordinary beings in the mud of the afflictions, guided by the bodhisattvas, can bring forth the flower of a buddha’s right awakening.

Second, “at all times, neither before nor after, in one mind and one thought they send out great light and can reach everywhere in the worlds of the ten directions to teach beings.” The previous says reaching without moving, which might still allow a before and after; this says one thought at one time, with no before or after.

Third, “in all worlds without remainder, shining on the assemblies of all the buddhas without remainder, with vast, measureless offerings, reverence, and praise they serve the buddhas, the tathāgatas.” Without remainder means there is no world and no buddha-assembly they do not reach. The old reading cites a line of Sengzhao: “The dharma-body has no image, yet in differing forms it responds to all; the utmost tone has no words, yet the profound scriptures spread abroad; the hidden power has no scheme, yet in its movement it meets each matter.”

Fourth, “in all worlds of the ten directions where there are no three jewels, they sustain and adorn the great sea of the merit of the jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha, showing it everywhere so that all understand and practice in accordance with reality.” The first three, though they speak of reaching everywhere, speak of lands where there is a buddha; “without this phrase, the dharma-body would have somewhere it is not the Dharma, and the highest good somewhere it is not good.”

Gathered into a Single Phrase

When the twenty-nine are done the treatise turns back: “Moreover, the accomplishment of the adornment of merit of the buddha-land spoken of above, the accomplishment of the Buddha’s adornment of merit, and the accomplishment of the bodhisattvas’ merit—these three accomplishments are the adornment of the mind of the vow; briefly stated, they enter one dharma-phrase.”

The adornment of the mind of the vow—these three accomplishments are adorned by the pure mind of the forty-eight vows of old. “Because the cause is pure the result is pure; it is not without a cause, nor from another cause.”

Entering one dharma-phrase—the broad is the twenty-nine phrases; the brief is one. Why show the broad and the brief entering each other? “The buddhas and bodhisattvas have two kinds of dharma-body: the dharma-body of the nature of things, and the dharma-body of skillful means. From the dharma-body of the nature of things arises the dharma-body of skillful means; from the dharma-body of skillful means issues the dharma-body of the nature of things. These two dharma-bodies are different yet cannot be divided, one yet cannot be made the same; therefore the broad and the brief enter each other and are governed under the name ‘dharma.’ If a bodhisattva does not know that the broad and the brief enter each other, he cannot benefit himself or others.”

What is the one dharma-phrase? The treatise says: “The one dharma-phrase is the phrase of purity. The phrase of purity is the unconditioned dharma-body of true wisdom.” The three phrases enter one another in turn—by what meaning is it called dharma? By purity. By what meaning is it called purity? By the unconditioned dharma-body of true wisdom. True wisdom is the wisdom of true reality: “true reality has no mark, hence true wisdom has no knowing”; the unconditioned dharma-body is the body of the nature of things: “the nature of things is quiescent, hence the dharma-body has no mark.” Then the two deepest sentences of the passage: “Because it has no mark it can be without any mark lacking; therefore the adornment of marks and signs is precisely the dharma-body. Because it has no knowing it can be without anything unknown; therefore omniscience is precisely true wisdom.” The twenty-nine adornments are here all gathered into the dharma-body—not that there is a dharma-body apart from the adornments, but that the adornment of marks and signs is the dharma-body.

Finally the treatise divides purity again into two: “first, the purity of the vessel world; second, the purity of the world of sentient beings.” The seventeen adornments of the land are the purity of the vessel world; the eight of the Buddha and four of the bodhisattvas are the purity of the world of sentient beings. “Thus the one dharma-phrase gathers the two kinds of purity; this should be known.” Why divide? “Beings are the substance of individual reward, the land is the function of shared reward; substance and function are not one, and therefore this should be known.” Why not different? “Yet all dharmas are made by the mind, and there is no other realm; beings and vessel, again, can be neither different nor one.” What is a vessel? “That pure land is what those pure beings receive and use; hence it is called a vessel.” “Only when both are clean can it be called pure; therefore the one name ‘purity’ must gather both kinds.”

A last question: the purity of sentient beings means buddhas and bodhisattvas—do the gods and humans there count? Answer: “They are called pure, not actually pure.” As a crown prince at birth has the thirty-two marks and, though he cannot yet do the work of a wheel-turning king, is called a wheel-turning king, “because he will certainly become one.” So too the gods and humans there: “all have entered the group of right fixity of the Mahāyāna and will in the end attain the pure dharma-body; because they will attain it, they are called pure.”

Reading to here, we can probably see the shape of this passage: first a land is taken apart into twenty-nine things, then the twenty-nine are gathered back into one phrase, and finally even that phrase is divided into two faces, substance and function—taking apart, in order to see clearly; gathering, in order not to take it for twenty-nine pieces of scenery.

Carrying Forward — Nineteen Times, “In What Way Is This Inconceivable?”

What came above is the meaning of this passage of the treatise in itself. Below, it is seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the treatise; it is the same land, questioned by another.

Tanluan’s asking “in what way is this inconceivable?” under the seventeen adornments of the land—once each for water, ground, and sky, nineteen times in all—is the most recognizable stroke in this fascicle of the commentary. The treatise says only “the accomplishment of such-and-such merit, because the verse says . . .” and does not say why; Tanluan supplies the why nineteen times; for the eight adornments of the Buddha and the four of the bodhisattvas he turns instead to glosses, questions and answers, and sequence. “To attain a share in nirvāṇa without cutting off the afflictions,” “light is not wisdom, yet can do wisdom’s work,” “to ride the Buddha’s vow as one’s life,” “the name of a land doing the Buddha’s work”—these are his words, not the treatise’s. The order of the seventeen phrases—“knowing this, so next contemplate that”—he arranged.

In the section on purity entering the mind of the vow, the two dharma-bodies—of the nature of things and of skillful means—are names he established; “because it has no mark it can be without any mark lacking,” “because it has no knowing it can be without anything unknown,” are his inference; the similes of the clean food and the clean vessel and of the crown prince are his. The passage on the three karmas curing beings’ three false karmas, the three questions and answers on the mind’s knowing without knowing, the danger of great quiescence in the seventh ground and the Haojian tree—all these too he wrote into the blank spaces of the treatise.

And the treatise itself says only: “Thus the one dharma-phrase gathers the two kinds of purity; this should be known.”

When the gate of contemplation has spoken of the broad and the brief, the treatise continues: “Such a bodhisattva, practicing śamatha and vipaśyanā in the broad and the brief, accomplishes a soft and pliant mind.” Then it speaks of dedication and direction—not dedication in general, but “dedication and direction by skillful means.” Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges this passage to be the fifth through eighth sections of the explanation of meaning: skillful gathering and teaching, leaving behind the obstacles to awakening, the gates that accord with awakening, and the matching of names and meanings. The four sections speak of four faces of one thing: how a person who has practiced stilling and contemplation turns the mind toward beings, and how, in turning, he does not lose himself. What follows here is the treatise.

The Soft and Pliant Mind

When stilling and contemplation have been practiced to the point where broad and brief enter each other, what is accomplished, the treatise says, is “a soft and pliant mind.” What is softness? The old reading answers: “The soft and pliant mind means that broad and brief, stilling and contemplation, are practiced in mutual accord, and the non-dual mind is accomplished. It is like taking a reflection from water: clearness and stillness help each other, and it is accomplished.” The water must be clear and must also be still for the reflection to appear; stilling is stillness, contemplation is clearness; the two assist each other, and only then is there a non-dual mind.

Then “knowing in accordance with reality the dharmas of the broad and the brief”—“to know in accordance with reality is to know according to the mark of reality. The twenty-nine phrases of the broad and the one phrase of the brief are all nothing but the mark of reality.” The twenty-nine phrases are reality; the one phrase is reality too. Only when this is known can one “accomplish dedication and direction by skillful means.”

Why does knowing reality make dedication possible? “Because one knows the mark of reality, one knows the false mark of the beings of the three realms; knowing the falseness of beings, one gives rise to true compassion; knowing the true dharma-body, one gives rise to true refuge.” Knowing reality does not stop at emptiness; from within emptiness one sees beings bound by suffering that is false, and compassion arises; one sees the true dharma-body, and refuge arises. Compassion and refuge are the skillful means spoken of next.

Dedication and Direction by Skillful Means

The treatise defines it itself: “The bodhisattva’s dedication and direction by skillful means means that all the merit and roots of good gathered by the five kinds of practice, worship and the rest, he does not seek for the pleasure of his own abiding and sustaining, but, wishing to draw all beings out of suffering, makes the vow to gather in all beings and be born together with them in that buddha-land of Peace and Bliss.”

Set the word “sustaining” here first: in the contemplation of the land it was said that the Dharma-king sustains it well, that the sustaining is not in vain—sustaining was always the Buddha’s side; here, “not seeking the pleasure of his own abiding and sustaining” is the human side. The Buddha sustains that land by his original vow so that its pleasure is unbroken, and the one born there does not take that sustained pleasure as what he seeks. If you set the earlier sustaining beside this one, you see the same word pass from the one who gives to the one who receives.

The sentence has three layers. What is dedicated? All the merit and roots of good gathered by the five gates of mindful practice. What is not dedicated toward? “Not seeking the pleasure of his own abiding and sustaining”—the pleasure of sustaining is “the pure land of Peace and Bliss sustained by the power of the Tathāgata Amitābha’s original vow, enjoying pleasure without interruption”; not even the pleasure of that land is sought for oneself. Toward what, then? Making the vow to gather in all beings and be born together with them.

The old reading here cites the three grades of birth in the Sūtra of Measureless Life and makes a weighty judgment: though the practice of the three grades differs in quality, “none fails to give rise to the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening. This aspiration for unsurpassed awakening is the mind that vows to become a buddha; the mind that vows to become a buddha is the mind to deliver beings; the mind to deliver beings is the mind to gather beings into a land where there is a buddha.” Therefore one who aspires to be born in the pure land of Peace and Bliss “must give rise to the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening.” Then comes a sentence many readers stop at: “If a person does not give rise to the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening, but only hears that in that land pleasure is enjoyed without interruption and aspires to be born there for the sake of pleasure, he too will not attain birth.” To aspire to birth for the sake of pleasure is not to attain birth. If the aspiring mind only seeks pleasure, it does not match the nature of that land—which is born from great compassion.

The two words “dedication and direction” themselves are glossed: “In explaining the name and meaning of dedication and direction in general: to take all the merit one has gathered and give it to all beings, turning together toward the buddha-path.” To give one’s gathered merit to all beings and turn together toward the buddha-path—this is dedication; dedication by skillful means adds one layer more.

Why, then, “skillful means”? “Skillful means means that the bodhisattva vows to burn up the grass and trees of all beings’ afflictions with the fire of his own wisdom—if a single being does not become a buddha, I will not become a buddha; and yet, before beings have all become buddhas, the bodhisattva has himself already become one.” This is a paradox: he vows not to become a buddha until all beings have, and the outcome is that, before they have, he already has. “It is like a torch that means to reach every blade of grass and tree and burn them to nothing. Before the grass and trees are gone, the torch itself is gone. Because he puts his own body last and his body comes first, it is called skillful means.” The torch means to burn all the grass; before the grass is finished, the torch is finished—put yourself behind, and you arrive first. The one who made the vow has not broken his word; the direction of the vow itself carried him to the front. This is the skill.

And what is the means? “The means spoken of here is making the vow to gather in all beings and be born together with them in that buddha-land of Peace and Bliss. That buddha-land is the unsurpassed means on the road to becoming a buddha in the end.” That land itself is the unsurpassed means on the road to buddhahood.

Leaving Behind the Three Contrary Dharmas

The treatise goes on: “The bodhisattva, knowing well the accomplishment of dedication and direction in this way, leaves behind the three dharmas contrary to the gate of awakening.” What are the three?

“First, relying on the gate of wisdom, he does not seek his own pleasure, because he leaves behind the mind of self that is attached to his own person.” The old reading takes the two characters of “wisdom” apart: “To know when to advance and hold back is knowing; to know emptiness and no-self is wisdom. Relying on knowing, he does not seek his own pleasure; relying on wisdom, he leaves behind the mind of self attached to his own person.”

“Second, relying on the gate of compassion, he draws all beings out of suffering, because he leaves behind the mind that gives beings no peace.” Compassion too is taken apart: “To draw out suffering is kindness; to give pleasure is compassion. Relying on kindness he draws all beings out of suffering; relying on compassion he leaves behind the mind that gives beings no peace.”

“Third, relying on the gate of skillful means, with a mind that pities all beings, he leaves behind the mind that would have his own person given offerings and respect.” Skillful means too: “To be straight is skill; to put oneself outside is means. Relying on straightness he gives rise to the mind that pities all beings; relying on putting himself outside he leaves behind the mind that would have his own person given offerings and respect.”

Each of the three gates leaves one thing behind: attachment to one’s own person, giving beings no peace, seeking offerings for oneself. The point of taking the characters apart is not philology; it is to bring an abstract name down to conduct that can be checked—“knowing” governs advance and retreat, “wisdom” governs the view of self; “kindness” is to draw out, “compassion” is to give; “skill” is straightness toward others, “means” is putting oneself outside. Six characters, six things that can be seen. All three are “dharmas contrary to the gate of awakening”—dharmas that run against the gate leading to awakening. Note the treatise’s wording: it does not say they are evil; it says they run contrary to the gate. A person can practice and carry these three along with him, and that is exactly how the gate gets shut.

The Three That Accord

Having left the contrary behind, one gains what accords: “The bodhisattva, leaving behind these three dharmas contrary to the gate of awakening, obtains in fullness the three dharmas that accord with the gate of awakening.”

“First, the undefiled pure mind, because he does not seek pleasures for his own person.” Why does this accord? “Awakening is the undefiled, pure place; if one seeks pleasure for one’s own person, one runs contrary to awakening; therefore the undefiled pure mind accords with the gate of awakening.”

“Second, the peaceful pure mind, because he draws all beings out of suffering.” “Awakening is the pure place that gives peace to all beings; if one does not set one’s mind to draw all beings out of the suffering of birth and death, one at once runs contrary to awakening; therefore drawing all beings out of suffering accords with the gate of awakening.”

“Third, the blissful pure mind, because he brings all beings to great awakening, because he gathers beings into birth in that land.” “Awakening is the place of ultimate constant bliss; if one does not bring all beings to ultimate constant bliss, one runs contrary to awakening.” And on what does this ultimate constant bliss depend? “It depends on the gate of the Mahāyāna. The gate of the Mahāyāna is that buddha-land of Peace and Bliss.” That is why the treatise adds at the end of this item “because he gathers beings into birth in that land”—the blissful pure mind finally comes to rest in gathering beings into birth there.

The three contrary and the three according correspond one to one: attachment to one’s person against undefiled; giving beings no peace against peaceful; seeking offerings against blissful. Leave one behind, and one is gained. We usually imagine practice as adding something to ourselves; what is said here is that when three things are removed, the three pure minds are simply there.

The Matching of Names and Meanings

At the end of this passage the treatise uses three “as was said above” to gather up, setting the names it has used in pairs.

First, “as was said above, the three gates of wisdom, compassion, and skillful means gather prajñā; prajñā gathers skillful means—this should be known.” What is prajñā? “Prajñā is the name of the wisdom that reaches suchness. Skillful means is the designation of the knowing that penetrates the provisional. Reaching suchness, the activity of the mind is quiescent; penetrating the provisional, it fully surveys the capacities of beings.” How do the two gather each other? “Wisdom and skillful means move in dependence on each other and are still in dependence on each other; that in moving one does not lose stillness is the work of wisdom; that in stillness one does not abandon movement is the power of skillful means.” Why say this? “Without wisdom, in working for beings one falls into inversion; without skillful means, in contemplating the nature of things one realizes the ultimate limit.” Without wisdom, one is inverted along with the beings one delivers; without skillful means, one stops in emptiness when contemplating the nature of things and cannot come out. The old reading gives a summary: “wisdom and skillful means are the bodhisattva’s father and mother.”

Second, “as was said above, leaving behind the mind of self and not clinging to one’s own person, leaving behind the mind that gives beings no peace, leaving behind the mind that would have one’s own person given offerings and respect—these three dharmas leave behind what obstructs the mind of awakening; this should be known.” Every dharma has its obstruction—“as wind can obstruct stillness, earth can obstruct water, moisture can obstruct fire, the five dark deeds and ten evils obstruct humans and gods, and the four inversions obstruct the fruit of the śrāvaka.” Obstruction is not a synonym for evil: wind is not evil; only in relation to stillness is it an obstruction. So with these three minds: in relation to the mind of awakening they are obstructions. To be without obstruction, one must leave these three behind.

Third, “as was said above, the undefiled pure mind, the peaceful pure mind, and the blissful pure mind—these three minds, gathered in one place, accomplish the supreme true mind of wondrous bliss; this should be known.” The three pure minds join into one mind, called the supreme true mind of wondrous bliss. Pleasure is of three kinds: outer pleasure, born of the five consciousnesses; inner pleasure, born of mental consciousness in the first, second, and third meditations; and the pleasure of the Dharma, “the pleasure born of wisdom.” “This pleasure born of wisdom arises from love of the Buddha’s merit; it is the leaving behind of the mind of self, of the mind that gives beings no peace, of the mind that seeks offerings for oneself. These three minds, pure and increasing, are briefly called the supreme true mind of wondrous bliss.” Wondrous means good, because this pleasure is born with the Buddha as its object; supreme means surpassing the pleasures of the three realms; true means “not false and not inverted.”

These three “as was said above” gather a passage that looked scattered into one shape: the three gates gather prajñā, prajñā gathers skillful means; leave the three obstructions; gain one mind. If you count through from the beginning, you will find that this passage of the treatise does one thing from start to finish—turn a practitioner’s mind away from himself, and have him, as he turns, keep two things, wisdom and skillful means, firmly in hand.

Carrying Forward — Putting the Body Last, the Body Comes First

What came above is the meaning of this passage of the treatise in itself. Below, it is seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the treatise; it is the same road of dedication, walked by another.

Tanluan’s dividing this passage into four sections is his outline; his gloss of the soft and pliant mind as the non-dual mind, with the simile of taking a reflection from water, is his explanation; the character-by-character glosses of knowing, wisdom, kindness, compassion, skill, and means—“to know when to advance and hold back is knowing; to know emptiness and no-self is wisdom,” “to draw out suffering is kindness; to give pleasure is compassion,” “to be straight is skill; to put oneself outside is means”—are the root he found for each word of the treatise. The judgment that one who aspires to birth for the sake of pleasure will not attain birth is not in the treatise; he drew it from the three grades of the Sūtra of Measureless Life. The torch and “putting his own body last, his body comes first” are his too, as are the three kinds of pleasure and “wisdom and skillful means are the bodhisattva’s father and mother.”

And the treatise itself says only: “because he gathers beings into birth in that land—this is called the fullness of the three dharmas that accord with the gate of awakening; this should be known.”

Here the prose gathers everything said before into a single road. First it says that four kinds of mind can bring about birth in a pure buddha-land; then that what the five gates of mindful practice do is “accomplished freely, as one wishes”; then it sets up five further gates: the gate of approach, the gate of the great assembly, the gate of the residence, the gate of the chamber, the gate of the garden-grove playground—“of these five gates, the first four accomplish the merit of entering, and the fifth accomplishes the merit of exiting.” Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges this passage to be the ninth section of the explanation of meaning, “the accomplishment of the vowed matter,” and the first half of the tenth, “the fullness of the practice of benefiting.” What follows here is the treatise.

Four Minds, One Land

“Such a bodhisattva, with the mind of wisdom, the mind of skillful means, the unobstructed mind, and the supreme true mind, can bring about birth in a pure buddha-land; this should be known.”

The four minds were gathered up at the end of the previous passage: the three gates of wisdom, compassion, and skillful means gathering prajñā are the mind of wisdom and the mind of skillful means; leaving behind the three obstructions is the unobstructed mind; the three pure minds gathered into one place is the supreme true mind. The treatise says these four minds can bring about birth in a pure buddha-land, and the old reading adds: “‘This should be known’ means that one should know that these four kinds of pure merit can bring about birth in that pure buddha-land; it is not through some other condition that one is born.” Birth there is the work of these four minds, and of no other condition.

Then the treatise sums up the five gates of mindful practice: “This is called the bodhisattva-mahāsattva’s accomplishment, free and as he wishes, of what is done in accordance with the five kinds of Dharma-gates. As was said above, the karma of body, of speech, of mind, of knowing, and of the knowing of skillful means accord with the Dharma-gates.” Each of the five karmas is one gate: “the karma of body is worship; the karma of speech is praise; the karma of mind is making the vow; the karma of knowing is contemplation; the karma of the knowing of skillful means is dedication and direction.” What is “free and as he wishes”? “It means that the power of these five kinds of merit can bring about birth in a pure buddha-land, going out and coming in freely.” When the five karmas combine, the gate of birth in the pure land becomes a karma of freedom—one can get in, and one can also get out.

Freedom is not a separate thing gained outside of practice; it is a quality that the five karmas combined naturally have—body, speech, mind, knowing, and the knowing of skillful means each in its place, and going in and out costs no effort. In speaking of śamatha earlier it was said that the three stillings all arise from the Tathāgata’s merit in accordance with reality; the freedom here is the same: it arises from the merit gathered through the five gates, not from elsewhere.

The four words “going out and coming in freely” say in advance what the five gates below are about.

The Five Gates

“Moreover, there are five kinds of gates that gradually accomplish five kinds of merit; this should be known. What are the five gates? The first is the gate of approach; the second, the gate of the great assembly; the third, the gate of the residence; the fourth, the gate of the chamber; the fifth, the gate of the garden-grove playground.”

The five gates of mindful practice before were gates of practice; these five gates are gates of result—one passes through them one by one. The phrase “five kinds of merit” appears twice in this passage with different referents: in the previous sentence “the power of these five kinds of merit can bring about birth in a pure buddha-land” means the power accomplished by the five gates of mindful practice; in this sentence “gradually accomplish five kinds of merit” means the result obtained at each of the five gates. The old reading sets them out as a road into a house: “First arriving in the pure land is the mark of approach, namely entering the group of right fixity of the Mahāyāna and approaching unsurpassed perfect awakening. Having entered the pure land, one then enters the number of the Tathāgata’s great assembly; having entered the assembly, one comes to the residence where the mind is settled in practice; having entered the residence, one comes to the chamber where one dwells in practice; the practice accomplished, one comes to the ground of teaching—and the ground of teaching is the bodhisattva’s own ground of play; therefore the gate of going out is called the gate of the garden-grove playground.”

First to the doorway—approach; through the door to see the people—the great assembly; into the residence where one settles the mind in practice; further into the chamber where one lives; and at last, the practice accomplished, out the door into the garden. The first four are entering; the fifth is exiting. “Of these five gates, the first four accomplish the merit of entering, and the fifth accomplishes the merit of exiting.” “The ground of teaching is the bodhisattva’s own ground of play”—the place where beings are taught is the place where the bodhisattva himself takes his pleasure, and so the step out the door is called the gate of the garden-grove playground. Entering has four depths; exiting has only one step—because what happens after going out is not counted inside this house.

The “approach” of the gate of approach, the old reading says, is “entering the group of right fixity of the Mahāyāna and approaching unsurpassed perfect awakening.” On arrival one is already in the group of right fixity, and does not fall back—the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light taken as refuge in the first verse, the “wind-borne boat of non-retrogression” spoken of at the opening of the commentary, here come to rest as the first gate.

To liken the road to buddhahood to a mansion, going from the doorway to the inner room and then from the inner room out to the garden—the weight of this simile is in the last step. Most people suppose the goal of practice lies in the innermost room; the treatise says the goal is in the garden outside the room.

Entering the First Gate: Worship

“Entering the first gate: because, in worshipping the Buddha Amitābha, one aims to be born in that land, one attains birth in the world of Peace and Bliss; this is called entering the first gate.”

The fruit of the gate of worship is to be born there. The old reading gives each gate a sentence naming its merit; the first is: “Worshipping the Buddha and aspiring to be born in the Buddha’s land is the mark of the first merit.” The first gate is the gate of approach—having arrived, one is in the group of right fixity, near awakening. The first of the five gates of mindful practice answers to the first of the five gates: worship is the cause, birth there the result.

Entering the Second Gate: Praise

“Entering the second gate: because, in praising the Buddha Amitābha, one calls the Tathāgata’s name in accordance with the meaning of the name and practices relying on the thought of the Tathāgata’s light, one attains entry into the number of the great assembly; this is called entering the second gate.”

The fruit of the gate of praise is to enter the Tathāgata’s great assembly. Where the gate of praise earlier spoke of “according to the mark of that Tathāgata’s light, which is wisdom, and according to the meaning of that name,” here it is put another way: “practices relying on the thought of the Tathāgata’s light.” When one calls the name, what the mind holds is that light. “Praising in accordance with the Tathāgata’s name and meaning is the mark of the second merit.”

Entering the Third Gate: Making the Vow

“Entering the third gate: because, single-mindedly recollecting and making the vow to be born there, one practices śamatha, the practice of the samādhi of stillness, one attains entry into the Lotus Treasury world; this is called entering the third gate.”

What the gate of making the vow practices is śamatha; the fruit of śamatha is entry into the Lotus Treasury world. “For the sake of practicing the stilling of stillness, one single-mindedly aspires to be born in that land—this is the mark of the third merit.” When the three meanings of śamatha were explained, the third was that the sustaining power of Amitābha’s right awakening stills of itself the mind that seeks a lesser fruit; here what “the practice of the samādhi of stillness” obtains is a world—stilling is not something that stays inside one’s own mind; when stilling is reached, a world opens. The name “Lotus Treasury world” occurs only here in the treatise; earlier the verses said the assembly is “born by transformation from the flower of right awakening,” and spoke of “a wondrous pure flower-dais”; the world where those flowers and that dais are, is what is spoken of here.

Entering the Fourth Gate: Contemplation

“Entering the fourth gate: because, single-mindedly contemplating those wondrous adornments, one practices vipaśyanā, one reaches that place and enjoys the pleasure of every kind of taste of the Dharma; this is called entering the fourth gate.”

What the gate of contemplation practices is vipaśyanā; the fruit of vipaśyanā is to reach that place and “enjoy the pleasure of every kind of taste of the Dharma.” What are the kinds of taste? The old reading counts four: “Within vipaśyanā there is the taste of contemplating the purity of the buddha-land, the taste of embracing beings in the Mahāyāna, the taste of ultimate sustaining that is not in vain, and the taste of raising practice according to kind and vowing to take up a buddha-land—there are such measureless tastes of the adornment of the buddha-path; hence ‘every kind.’” To contemplate the purity of the land is one taste; to embrace beings in the Mahāyāna is one; sustaining that is not in vain is one; to raise practice according to kind and vow to take up a buddha-land is one. The twenty-nine adornments contemplated in the gate of contemplation become here tastes that can be enjoyed. “This is the mark of the fourth merit.”

When the four gates have been passed, a person has gone from the doorway into the room: born there, entered the assembly, entered the Lotus Treasury world, enjoying the taste of the Dharma. All four steps are “entering.” If you look back at the five gates of mindful practice, you find that the treatise let no gate be practiced in vain: each one’s practice is met here by a word, “attains”—attains birth, attains entry, attains entry, reaches.

Exiting the Fifth Gate

“Exiting the fifth gate: with great compassion contemplating all suffering and afflicted beings, one also, in a body of response and transformation, turns back into the garden of birth and death and the forest of the afflictions, and with the play of supernormal powers reaches the ground of teaching, because one dedicates and directs by the power of the original vow; this is called exiting the fifth gate.”

This is the longest sentence in the passage, and it is where the whole treatise is going. The four gates of entering are self-benefit; the fifth gate of exiting is benefiting others.

Note the two words at the head of this gate: contemplating. The fourth gate is “single-mindedly contemplating those wondrous adornments”; the fifth is “with great compassion contemplating all suffering and afflicted beings”—the same contemplation, with its object changed from adornments to suffering beings. Entering, one contemplates the good of the pure land; exiting, one contemplates the suffering of beings. The eye trained in the gate of contemplation does not close at the step of exiting; it only turns direction.

The manner of exiting is “a body of response and transformation”—“to show a body of response and transformation is of the kind of the universal manifestation in the Lotus Sūtra.” Out to where? “The garden of birth and death and the forest of the afflictions.” Before, the pure land was likened to a mansion; here birth and death is likened to a garden—and the fifth gate’s name is precisely “the gate of the garden-grove playground.” The garden to which the bodhisattva goes out is the birth and death and the afflictions of beings.

Why “play”? The old reading gives two meanings: “First, the meaning of freedom. The bodhisattva delivering beings is like a lion seizing a deer—what he does is not difficult, as if at play. Second, the meaning of delivering without anything delivered. The bodhisattva contemplates beings as ultimately non-existent; though he delivers measureless beings, in reality not a single being attains extinction; so his showing the delivering of beings is as if at play.” Free, and therefore like play; delivering with nothing delivered, and therefore also like play. The two meanings are one: without delivering with nothing delivered, there would be no freedom; without freedom, one would still be circling in the birth and death of those being delivered.

By what can one go out like this? “Because one dedicates and directs by the power of the original vow.” What is the power of the original vow? “It shows that the great bodhisattva, within the dharma-body, is always in samādhi, and that his manifesting every kind of body, every kind of supernormal power, and every kind of teaching all arises from the power of the original vow. It is like the lute of the asuras: though no one plays it, its music sounds of itself.” No one plays the asuras’ lute, and the music plays itself—the bodhisattva’s manifestations without leaving his place are not a mind set to doing; the power of the original vow moves on its own.

“This is the mark of the fifth merit, the ground of teaching.”

One Road

Set the five gates of mindful practice and the five gates side by side: worship, praise, making the vow, contemplation, dedication—against the gate of approach, the gate of the great assembly, the gate of the residence, the gate of the chamber, the gate of the garden-grove playground. The first four pairs are entering; the fifth is exiting. And the exiting of the fifth gate uses exactly what the first four gates accomplished on entering—the tenth section is named “the fullness of the practice of benefiting”; for the practice of benefiting others to be full, the self-benefit before it must first be full.

If you read only the verses, you feel the treatise is about one person who wants to go to a good place; only here does one learn that going is in order to be able to return, and to return freely. What we see in this passage is not the scenery of the pure land but a road that goes in and comes out, each step with a name and each step with its cause and result.

Carrying Forward — Residence, Chamber, Garden

What came above is the meaning of this passage of the treatise in itself. Below, it is seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the treatise; it is the same road, walked by another.

Tanluan’s dividing this passage into the accomplishment of the vowed matter and the fullness of the practice of benefiting is his outline. “It is not through some other condition that one is born” and “going out and coming in freely” are his fillings-in of the treatise’s “this should be known” and “free and as he wishes.” That the five gates are a road into a house—approach, great assembly, residence, chamber, the ground of teaching—“having entered the residence, one comes to the chamber where one dwells in practice; the practice accomplished, one comes to the ground of teaching”—this sequence he laid out; the treatise has only five names. The count of four tastes of the Dharma, the two meanings of play, the simile of the asuras’ lute, the comparison to the universal manifestation—all are his. The matching of the five gates of mindful practice to the five marks of merit, “worshipping the Buddha and aspiring to be born in the Buddha’s land is the mark of the first merit” and the four sentences after it, he too paired gate by gate.

And the treatise itself says only: “Of these five gates, the first four accomplish the merit of entering, and the fifth accomplishes the merit of exiting.”

The whole treatise closes on three sentences: “The bodhisattva entering the four gates accomplishes the practice of self-benefit; this should be known. The bodhisattva exiting the fifth gate accomplishes the practice of dedication and direction that benefits others; this should be known. The bodhisattva, thus practicing the practice of the five gates, benefiting himself and benefiting others, swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed perfect awakening.” Then comes the closing title, and a collation note that later hands appended at the end of the scroll. Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land judges these three sentences to be the second half of the tenth section of the explanation of meaning, “the fullness of the practice of benefiting,” and on the word “swiftly” he writes the last and weightiest passage of his whole commentary—he asks: on what ground is it said to be “swift”? What follows here is the treatise.

Self-Benefit for the Sake of Others; Benefiting Others Becomes Self-Benefit

“The bodhisattva entering the four gates accomplishes the practice of self-benefit; this should be known.”

The first four gates are entering, and entering is self-benefit. The old reading says: “‘Accomplishes’ means the fullness of self-benefit. ‘This should be known’ means one should know that it is through self-benefit that one can benefit others; it is not that one who cannot benefit himself can benefit others.” Self-benefit is not selfishness; it is the precondition of benefiting others—one who has not arrived cannot bring others there.

“The bodhisattva exiting the fifth gate accomplishes the practice of dedication and direction that benefits others; this should be known.”

The fifth gate is exiting, and exiting is benefiting others. “‘Accomplishes’ means that with dedication and direction as cause one realizes the ground of teaching as result, and whether cause or result there is not a single thing that cannot benefit others. ‘This should be known’ means one should know that it is through benefiting others that one can benefit himself; it is not that one who cannot benefit others can benefit himself.” This sentence turns the first around: benefiting others is also the condition of self-benefit—for one who cannot benefit others, self-benefit will not be complete either.

The two “should be knowns” mirror each other: through self-benefit one can benefit others; through benefiting others one can benefit oneself. The treatise names them together in the four characters “benefiting himself and benefiting others,” without before and after; the old reading reads them as a ring: if either side is missing, the other does not stand.

This ring has in fact been turning since the first verse. “World-Honored One, with one mind” is the starting point of self-benefit; “together with all beings” is the endpoint of benefiting others; the five gates of mindful practice enter by four and exit by one; the five gates enter by four and exit by one; here the treatise gathers them all into two sentences, each with its “should be known.” What should be known is not two things but the two faces of one: every step you practice for yourself is so that you can bring others along; every step you go out for others is also accomplishing yourself.

Swiftly Accomplishing Unsurpassed Perfect Awakening

“The bodhisattva, thus practicing the practice of the five gates, benefiting himself and benefiting others, swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed perfect awakening.”

What is unsurpassed perfect awakening? “The dharma attained by a buddha is called unsurpassed perfect awakening; because he attains this awakening he is called a buddha. To say now that one swiftly attains unsurpassed perfect awakening means that one quickly becomes a buddha.” The old reading glosses the Sanskrit syllable by syllable—a means without, nuttarā means above, samyak means right, sam means universal, bodhi means path—“taken together it is translated as the unsurpassed, right, universal path.” Then each word is explained one layer further. Unsurpassed is “this path exhausts principle and completes nature, and nothing surpasses it”—why? “Because it is right.” Right is the sages’ knowing: “to know according to the mark of things is called right knowing; because the nature of things has no mark, the sages’ knowing has no knowing.” Universal has two kinds: “first, the sage’s mind knows all dharmas universally; second, the dharma-body fills the dharma-realm universally; whether body or mind, nothing is not universal.” Path is the unobstructed path—the sūtra says, “the unobstructed ones of the ten directions leave birth and death by one path,” and the one path is the one unobstructed path; “unobstructed means knowing that birth and death are themselves nirvāṇa.”

From “unsurpassed” glossed down to “unobstructed,” a title is taken apart and put back together, and when it is put back together one sentence has been added: knowing that birth and death are themselves nirvāṇa. This is the root of the earlier word “play”: delivering with nothing delivered, because birth and death and nirvāṇa are fundamentally unobstructed.

What the treatise uses here is “swiftly accomplishes.” From beginning to end the treatise never once speaks of difficulty; it speaks of “in the end attains birth,” “in the end attains the dharma-body of equality,” “swiftly attains”—read together, these words make a road with “in the end” placed at its head: not one where you count each step as far as it gets you, but one where at the first step you already know where the end is.

On What Ground Is It Said to Be “Swift”?

The commentary’s last question: “Question: for what cause and condition is it said that one swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed perfect awakening?”

The answer first cites the treatise: “Answer: the treatise says, ‘because one practices the five gates and accomplishes benefiting oneself and benefiting others.’” Then it digs one layer down: “But if one searches out its root, the Tathāgata Amitābha is the dominant condition.”

Up to this point the treatise speaks only of self-benefit and benefiting others, not of the Buddha’s power. Here the old reading says it through: “All who are born in that pure land, and all the practices undertaken by the bodhisattvas, humans, and gods there, are conditioned by the power of the Tathāgata Amitābha’s original vow. How do we know? If it were not the Buddha’s power, the forty-eight vows would be set up for nothing.” Then he “takes three vows in particular to prove the meaning.”

The first vow: “When I attain buddhahood, if the beings of the ten directions, with utmost sincerity, joyful trust, and the wish to be born in my land, down to ten thoughts, are not born there, may I not take right awakening—excepting only those who commit the five heinous acts and slander the right Dharma.” Conditioned by the Buddha’s vow-power, ten thoughts of the Buddha bring birth; birth brings freedom from turning in the three realms; without turning, one is swift.

The second vow: “When I attain buddhahood, if the humans and gods in my land do not dwell in the group of right fixity and surely reach extinction, may I not take right awakening.” Conditioned by the Buddha’s vow-power one dwells in the group of right fixity; dwelling there one surely reaches extinction with no danger of relapse; therefore one is swift.

The third vow: “When I attain buddhahood, the bodhisattvas of other buddha-lands who come to be born in my land shall in the end surely become final-birth bodhisattvas. Excepting those who, by their own original vows, freely transform—who for the sake of beings don the armor of great vows, accumulate roots of virtue, deliver all, travel to the buddha-lands, practice the bodhisattva’s practice, make offerings to the buddhas and tathāgatas of the ten directions, open and transform measureless beings as many as the sands of the Gaṅgā, and establish them in the unsurpassed, right, and true path—surpassing the practice of the ordinary grounds, manifesting before them the cultivation of the virtues of Samantabhadra. If it is not so, may I not take right awakening.” Conditioned by the Buddha’s vow-power one surpasses the practice of the ordinary grounds; therefore one is swift.

Each of the three proofs ends in “therefore one is swift”: no turning, so swift; no relapse, so swift; surpassing the grounds, so swift. What the three remove are exactly the three places where practice in this world is slowest—circling in birth and death, falling back midway, and climbing the grades one ground at a time.

After the three proofs comes a conclusion: “Judging by this, the power of another is the dominant condition. Could it be otherwise?”

One word here must be kept distinct. The old reading says: “‘Benefit from another’ and ‘benefiting others’ are spoken from different sides. Speaking from the Buddha, one should say ‘benefiting others’; speaking from beings, one should say ‘benefit from another.’ Now, since the Buddha’s power is under discussion, it is put as ‘benefiting others’; one should understand this intention.” The treatise’s “benefiting others” is the bodhisattva benefiting other people; seen from the side of beings, to be benefited by the Buddha is “benefit from another.” The same four characters: from the Buddha’s side, benefiting others; from the beings’ side, benefit from another.

Self-Power and Other-Power

Last comes a simile and a sentence.

“Like a man who, fearing the three evil paths, keeps the precepts; because he keeps the precepts he can practice meditation; by meditation he practices supernormal powers; by supernormal powers he can roam the four continents—such things are called self-power.” Step by step, upward, one can get there.

“Or like a feeble man who cannot even mount a donkey, but who, following the progress of a wheel-turning king, rides through the air and roams the four continents without obstruction—such things are called other-power.” A man who cannot even get onto a donkey, following the wheel-turning king, can travel through the sky.

Then the last exhortation of the whole commentary: “Foolish are later students! Hearing that the power of another can be ridden, you should give rise to faith; do not confine yourselves to your own measure.”

This sentence is not the treatise’s; it is the commentary’s. But what it says is exactly what the treatise has been saying from the first verse to the last sentence: “with one mind” is faith; “contemplate the power of the Buddha’s original vow: none who meet it pass in vain” is other-power; “together with all beings” is not confining oneself. If you read from the difficult path and the easy path at the opening of the commentary to this point, you see the two roads meet in this sentence: the road on foot and the boat on the water have become the man who cannot mount a donkey and the man who rides through the air. Most of us are the one who cannot mount the donkey; what the treatise writes is the road that needs no donkey.

The Closing Title, and a Collation Note

“The Treatise on the Sūtra of Measureless Life, in one fascicle”—this is the closing title. The opening title was “The Upadeśa on the Sūtra of Measureless Life, with Verses of Aspiration for Birth,” the closing title “The Treatise on the Sūtra of Measureless Life”; one book, two names, the former keeping the Sanskrit sound, the latter taking the Chinese rendering. The old reading had already explained at the head of the scroll why the Sanskrit sound was kept: “What is called ‘treatise’ here is merely discussion—how could it be a correct translation of that name?”

A short treatise ends here: twenty-four verses, less than three thousand characters of prose, from one person’s “with one mind” to everyone’s “swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed perfect awakening.” It writes no detail of practice—how long to sit, how many times to call the name; it draws only a map: five gates, three kinds of adornment, twenty-nine things, one dharma-phrase, four minds, five gates, entering and exiting. One who has read the map knows where he stands, and where the next step is.

After the closing title the base text has one more line: “A realm of Mahāyāna roots of good—Zhiyi, the Master of Tiantai, said that the character ‘realm’ is an error for the character ‘man’ and should be corrected. But all the commentators read ‘realm,’ and so it is kept here.”

This is not the treatise; it is a collation note later appended at the end of the scroll, concerning the word “realm” in the thirteenth verse, “a realm of Mahāyāna roots of good”—someone thought it should read “man,” but all the commentators read “realm,” so “realm” is kept and not changed. The line tells the reader two things: first, this word was once doubted; second, the base text chose to follow the commentators. As to which is right, the base text does not judge, and neither is it judged here. If “realm of Mahāyāna roots of good” is read as “man of Mahāyāna roots of good,” the thirteenth and fourteenth verses become “men of Mahāyāna roots of good, equal, with no name of reproach; women and the deficient in faculties, and the seed of the two vehicles, do not arise there”—“man” answering to “women,” which reads smoothly; but “realm” has its own meaning: the old reading explains these four lines by “the gate of the great meaning,” “the great meaning is what the Mahāyāna is for; as when someone builds a city: find the gate, and you enter”—a realm is a region one can enter, not a class of persons. Each reading has its ground; the note keeps “realm” following the commentators, not by judging the meaning. That later hands attached this discussion at the end of the scroll without altering the text is itself a kind of honesty: they doubted, they checked, they kept the original word, and they left the doubt to those who came after. It can only be said that the three places where the old commentator cites the line all read “realm,” and that his gloss—“the great meaning is what the Mahāyāna is for; as when someone builds a city: find the gate, and you enter”—reads “realm.”

Carrying Forward — The Power of Another as the Dominant Condition

What came above is the meaning of these three sentences of the treatise in themselves. Below, they are seen once more in the mirror of Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land—a mirror is not the treatise; it is the same ending, brought to a close by another.

“Through self-benefit one can benefit others” and “through benefiting others one can benefit oneself,” the two sentences completing each other, are Tanluan’s reading of the treatise’s two “should be knowns.” The syllable-by-syllable gloss of unsurpassed perfect awakening and the explanation “knowing that birth and death are themselves nirvāṇa” are his. The final question and answer—“for what cause and condition is it said to be swift,” “the Tathāgata Amitābha is the dominant condition”—the treatise does not ask; he asks. The proof from three vows, the distinction of benefit from another and benefiting others, the simile of self-power and other-power, the exhortation “foolish are later students”—all come from him. This passage is the close of the whole commentary, and the one place where Tanluan speaks most directly in his own voice.

At the end of the scroll he left a sentence on form as well: “A sūtra begins with ‘thus,’ showing faith as what enables entry, and ends with ‘received and practiced,’ showing that the matter has been taken to heart. A treatise begins with ‘taking refuge in worship,’ making clear that its purpose has a source, and ends with ‘the meaning is complete,’ showing that what it expounds is finished. The authors differ, and here the pattern is set.” A sūtra begins with “thus” and ends with “received and practiced”; a treatise begins with taking refuge and ends with “the meaning is complete.”

And the treatise itself says only: “The bodhisattva, thus practicing the practice of the five gates, benefiting himself and benefiting others, swiftly accomplishes unsurpassed perfect awakening.”