佛說無量壽經 勸善
留不住的身外之物
人費盡一生添置、守護，心裡總以為再多一點便能安穩。可是有了田便憂田，有了宅便憂宅；沒有時怕匱乏，擁有後又怕消散。憂愁沒有因財物增加而結束，只是換了名字。
死亡來時，這些東西終究「棄捐之去莫誰隨者」〔T12n0360 0274c06〕。它們不是毫無用途，卻不能替生命回答去處。看清帶不走，不必等於輕賤日用；只是讓物回到資養之位，不再替它交出整顆心。
門沒有關，心仍要轉向
安養國不逆願生者，經卻歎「易往而無人」〔T12n0360 0274b23〕。易，是門不拒人；無人，是世事仍把心牽住。所以「宜各勤精進，努力自求之」〔T12n0360 0274b21〕不是等待自然被送走，而是在每一個無人可代的選擇上，真把此身轉向彼國。
業果沒有替身
親人可以陪伴、勸慰、照料，卻無法代作一念，也不能代受所作的結果。經以一句「身自當之無有代者」〔T12n0360 0274c25〕，讓每個人回到自己的身口意前。
這份獨自承當不是孤獨宣言。它只是說，最深的選擇不能外包。責任既無法轉交，轉變也同樣從此身開始；不必等待別人先改，善惡的方向已在當下一念裡分開。
承當並不封閉關係
同一段經在說各自受業以前，先教親屬「當相敬愛，無相憎嫉；有無相通，無得貪惜」〔T12n0360 0274c18〕。不能代受，並不等於不能相助。正因各人都要承擔，彼此此刻的言色、給予與勸勉才格外真實。
微細恨意若被長久保存，會使再相逢成為報復；一點敬愛若肯落在有無相通，也會改變下一步的因緣。關係不能替人走路，卻能成為一段路上的助緣。相救的分寸，就在不替代對方，也不放棄對方。
把善從此身傳出去
經的轉軸很短：「人能自度，轉相拯濟」〔T12n0360 0275c08〕。先能端正自己，才不會以援助之名增加混亂；但若只守住自己，善也尚未充分展開。自度之後還有轉相，表示清明會在人與人之間傳遞。
轉相拯濟不必從宏大的事開始。表裏相應，使人可以信賴；言語忠實，不再種下疑怨；有無相通，讓困乏者得到支持。每一項都很近，卻都把只為自己的生命向外打開。
此世正是起步之處
清淨國土容易行善，劇苦世界則處處有相反牽引。因此能在此地「端心正意，不作眾惡」〔T12n0360 0275c17〕，才顯得特別難得。困難沒有使善失去可能，反而顯出每次不隨惡轉的重量。
沒有人能替誰承受，並不使眾生彼此隔絕；它使援手不再是假裝代替，而是幫助另一個生命站回自己的選擇上。可帶走的不是財物，也不是別人的功過，而是此刻所成的心行。正因人人各自上路，才更需要在尚能相遇時彼此照亮。
What Lies Outside the Body Cannot Be Kept
People spend a lifetime acquiring and guarding things, always imagining that a little more will finally bring security. Yet those with fields worry over fields, those with houses over houses. Before gaining something they fear lack; after gaining it they fear loss. Anxiety does not end as possessions increase. It merely changes its name.
At death, all these things are abandoned, and none follows. They are not useless, but they cannot answer where life will go. Seeing that they cannot be carried away does not require contempt for ordinary needs. It returns possessions to the work of supporting life instead of surrendering the entire mind to them.
The Gate Is Not Closed, but the Mind Must Still Turn
The land of Peace and Sustenance does not oppose those who aspire for birth, yet the sūtra laments that it is easy to reach and few go. Easy means that the gate does not reject; few go means that worldly affairs still pull the mind away. The exhortation to practice diligently and strive to seek for oneself is not a call to wait passively to be carried there. In every choice no one else can make, this life must truly turn toward that land.
Karmic Results Have No Substitute
Relatives can accompany, comfort, and care for one another, but they cannot produce a thought in another’s place or undergo the results of another’s actions. The sūtra returns each person to their own body, speech, and mind by saying that one must bear it oneself and no one can substitute.
This solitary bearing is not a proclamation of isolation. It simply means that the deepest choice cannot be outsourced. Because responsibility cannot be transferred, transformation likewise begins with this body. There is no need to wait for someone else to change first; the directions of good and evil already divide within the present thought.
Bearing One’s Own Karma Does Not Seal Off Relationship
Before saying that each person undergoes their own karma, the same passage tells relatives to honor and love one another, refrain from hatred and jealousy, share between those who have and those who lack, and avoid stinginess. Inability to undergo another’s karma does not mean inability to help. Precisely because each person must bear the result, the words, expressions, giving, and encouragement exchanged now possess real weight.
A slight resentment preserved for a long time can make a future meeting become retaliation. A small act of respect placed within mutual support can change the conditions of the next step. Relationship cannot walk the road in another’s place, but it can become a supporting condition along that road. Mutual rescue lies in neither replacing the other nor abandoning the other.
Let Good Move Outward from This Body
The sūtra’s turning point is brief: people should be able to deliver themselves and then rescue one another. First making oneself upright keeps assistance from producing further confusion. Yet if goodness stops at self-protection, it has not fully unfolded. One another means that clarity can pass between lives.
Mutual rescue need not begin with something grand. Correspondence between inner and outer makes one trustworthy. Truthful speech ceases to plant doubt and resentment. Sharing what one has gives support to those in need. Every act is close at hand, yet each opens a life beyond concern for itself alone.
This World Is Precisely Where the First Step Occurs
In pure lands, doing good is easy. In this world of severe suffering, opposing forces arise everywhere. For this reason, making the mind upright, the intention correct, and refraining from evil here is especially rare. Difficulty does not make goodness impossible; it reveals the weight of each moment that does not turn with evil.
No one can undergo another’s result, but this does not isolate sentient beings from one another. It keeps a helping hand from pretending to replace someone and enables it instead to help another life stand again within its own choice. What can be carried away is neither property nor the merit and wrongdoing of others, but the conduct of mind formed now. Precisely because each person must set out for themselves, lives need all the more to illuminate one another while they can still meet.
大正藏 T12n0360〔起 T12 0274b18〕。段／行首〔T12 …〕＝大正藏頁·欄·行錨。
〔T12 0274b18〕佛告彌勒菩薩、諸天、人等：「無量壽國聲聞、菩薩功德智慧不可稱說，又其國土微妙安樂清淨若此，何不力為善，念道之自然，著於無上下，洞達無邊際？宜各勤精進，努力自求之，必得超絕去，往生安養國。橫截五惡趣，惡趣自然閉；昇道無窮極，易往而無人。其國不逆違，自然之所牽，何不棄世事，勤行求道德，可獲極長生，壽樂無有極？ 「然世人薄俗，共諍不急之事。於此劇惡極苦之中，勤身營務以自給濟。無尊、無卑，無貧、無富，少、長、男、女共憂錢財，有無同然，憂思適等。屏營愁苦，累念積慮，為心走使，無有安時——有田憂田、有宅憂宅，牛、馬、六畜、奴婢、錢財、衣、食、什物，復共憂之——重思累息，憂念愁怖，橫為非常、水、火、盜賊、怨家、債主焚漂劫奪，消散磨滅，憂毒忪忪，無有解時。結憤心中不離憂惱，心堅意固適無縱捨，或坐摧碎身亡命終，棄捐之去莫誰隨者。 「尊貴、豪富亦有斯患，憂懼萬端，勤苦若此，結眾寒熱與痛共俱。貧窮下劣困乏常無，無田亦憂欲有田、無宅亦憂欲有宅，無牛、馬、六畜、奴婢、錢財、衣、食、什物亦憂欲有之。適有一復少一、有是少是，思有齊等；適欲具有便復糜散。如是憂苦當復求索，不能時得思想無益，身心俱勞，坐起不安，憂念相隨，勤苦若此，亦結眾寒熱與痛共俱。或時坐之終身夭命，不肯為善、行道、進德，壽終身死當獨遠去，有所趣向善惡之道，莫能知者。 「世間人民，父子、兄弟、夫婦、家室、中外親屬，當相敬愛，無相憎嫉；有無相通，無得貪惜；言色常和，莫相違戾。或時心諍有所恚怒，今世恨意微相憎嫉，後世轉劇至成大怨。所以者何？世間之事更相患害，雖不即時應急相破，然含毒畜怒結憤精神，自然剋識不得相離，皆當對生更相報復。人在世間愛欲之中，獨生、獨死，獨去、獨來，當行至趣苦樂之地，身自當之無有代者。善惡變化、殃福異處，宿豫嚴待，當獨趣入。遠到他所莫能見者，善惡自然追行所生。窈窈冥冥別離久長，道路不同會見無期，甚難甚難復得相值。何不棄眾事，各曼強健時，努力勤修善，精進願度世，可得極長生？如何不求道，安所須待，欲何樂乎？ 〔T12 0275a03〕「如是，世人不信作善得善、為道得道，不信人死更生、惠施得福，善惡之事都不信之，謂之不然終無有是。但坐此故，且自見之，更相瞻視，先後同然。轉相承受父餘教令，先人祖父素不為善、不識道德，身愚神闇，心塞意閉。死生之趣、善惡之道，自不能見，無有語者；吉凶禍福，競各作之，無一怪也。生死常道轉相嗣立，或父哭子、或子哭父，兄弟、夫婦更相哭泣，顛倒上下無常根本，皆當過去不可常保。教語開導，信之者少，是以生死流轉無有休止。 「如此之人，曚冥抵突，不信經法，心無遠慮，各欲快意；癡惑於愛欲，不達於道德；迷沒於瞋怒，貪狼於財色。坐之不得道，當更惡趣苦，生死無窮已，哀哉甚可傷。或時室家，父子、兄弟、夫婦，一死一生更相哀愍，恩愛、思慕、憂念結縛，心意痛著迭相顧戀，窮日卒歲無有解已。教語道德心不開明，思想恩好不離情欲。惛曚閉塞，愚惑所覆，不能深思熟計、心自端政、專精行道、決斷世事，便旋至竟年壽終盡不能得道，無可奈何。 「總猥憒擾皆貪愛欲，惑道者眾、悟之者寡，世間怱怱，無可聊賴。尊卑、上下、貧富、貴賤，勤苦怱務各懷殺毒，惡氣窈冥為妄興事，違逆天地不從人心，自然非惡先隨與之。恣聽所為待其罪極，其壽未盡便頓奪之。下入惡道，累世懟苦展轉其中，數千億劫無有出期。痛不可言，甚可哀愍。」 佛告彌勒菩薩、諸天人等：「我今語汝世間之事，人用是故，坐不得道。當熟思計遠離眾惡，擇其善者勤而行之。愛欲榮華不可常保，皆當別離無可樂者。曼佛在世當勤精進，其有至願生安樂國者，可得智慧明達、功德殊勝；勿得隨心所欲，虧負經戒在人後也。儻有疑意不解經者，可具問佛，當為說之。」 彌勒菩薩長跪白言：「佛威神尊重，所說快善，聽佛經者貫心思之。世人實爾如佛所言，今佛慈愍顯示大道，耳目開明長得度脫，聞佛所說莫不歡喜。諸天、人民、蠕動之類，皆蒙慈恩解脫憂苦。佛語教誡甚深甚善，智慧明見八方、上下、去來今事，莫不究暢。今我眾等所以蒙得度脫，皆佛前世求道之時謙苦所致。恩德普覆，福祿巍巍，光明徹照達空無極；開入泥洹，教授典攬威制消化，感動十方無窮無極。佛為法王尊超眾聖，普為一切天人之師，隨心所願皆令得道。今得值佛，復聞無量壽聲，靡不歡喜，心得開明。」 佛告彌勒：「汝言是也。若有慈敬於佛者，實為大善。天下久久乃復有佛，今我於此世作佛，演說經法，宣布道教，斷諸疑網；拔愛欲之本，杜眾惡之源。遊步三界無所拘閡，典攬智慧眾道之要，執持綱維昭然分明，開示五趣度未度者，決正生死泥洹之道。 「彌勒當知，汝從無數劫來修菩薩行，欲度眾生，其已久遠，從汝得道至于泥洹不可稱數。汝及十方諸天、人民一切四眾，永劫已來展轉五道，憂畏勤苦不可具言，乃至今世生死不絕，與佛相值聽受經法，又復得聞無量壽佛。快哉甚善，吾助爾喜。 「汝今亦可自厭生、死、老、病、痛苦、惡露、不淨、無可樂者，宜自決斷。端身正行，益作諸善；修己潔體，洗除心垢；言行忠信，表裏相應；人能自度，轉相拯濟；精明求願，積累善本。雖一世勤苦須臾之間，後生無量壽佛國快樂無極，長與道德合明，永拔生死根本，無復貪恚、愚癡、苦惱之患。欲壽一劫、百劫、千億萬劫，自在隨意皆可得之，無為自然次於泥洹之道。汝等宜各精進求心所願，無得疑惑中悔自為過咎，生彼邊地七寶宮殿，五百歲中受諸厄也。」 彌勒白佛：「受佛重誨，專精修學，如教奉行，不敢有疑。」 佛告彌勒：「汝等能於此世端心正意，不作眾惡，甚為至德，十方世界最無倫匹。所以者何？諸佛國土天人之類自然作善，不大為惡，易可開化。今我於此世間作佛，處於五惡、五痛、五燒之中，為最劇苦。教化群生令捨五惡、令去五痛、令離五燒；降化其意令持五善，獲其福德度世長壽泥洹之道。」
The canonical text stands in Chinese only. This edition renders the essence, the plain reading, the exposition and the apparatus into English — never the sūtra itself. Switch to 漢讀本 or 並行雙語 above to read it.
底本範圍：大正藏 T12n0360
0274b18–0275c24。依原典十四段次序逐段譯寫。
〔一·為什麼不盡力行善〕（0274b18）
佛告訴彌勒菩薩以及諸天、人眾：無量壽國的聲聞與菩薩，功德智慧多得無法稱說；那個國土又是如此微妙、安樂而清淨。大家為什麼不盡力行善，念念趣向修道所成的自然果德，不因身分高下而有差別，並通達無邊的境界？每個人都應勤奮精進，努力親自求取，便能超越生死，往生安養國；橫截五種惡趣，使惡趣之門自然關閉，向上進入沒有窮盡的佛道。
這個國土容易前往，卻少有人真正前往。安養國不違逆願生者；然而世人仍自然受世事牽引而不肯前往。大家為什麼不放下牽纏世心之事，勤修求得道德？如此便能得到極長的壽命，所受安樂沒有窮盡。
〔二·有財與無財同樣憂苦〕（0274b26）
然而世間風俗衰薄，人們共同爭奪並不急迫的事情。在這個惡苦深重的世界裡，大家勞動身體、經營事務，只為維持自身生計。無論尊貴或卑下、貧窮或富有，少年、長者、男人、女人，都同樣為錢財憂慮；有財者怕失去，無財者想得到，兩邊的憂思沒有差別。人心被重重念慮塞滿，憂愁困苦，反被自己的心驅使奔走，沒有一刻安寧。
有田地便憂心田地，有住宅便憂心住宅；牛馬牲畜、奴婢、錢財、衣服、飲食和各種器物，樣樣都令人憂慮。人反覆思量、長聲歎息，憂懼不安；又可能忽然遭遇無常、水災、火災、盜賊、仇家或債主，財物被燒毀、漂走、劫奪，消散磨滅。心中憂毒驚動，長久不能解脫；憤恨結在心裡，意念堅固執著，不能放下。有時更因這些事身敗命終，死時全部拋下離去，沒有一樣東西跟隨自己。
〔三·富貴貧窮，各有一副重擔〕（0274c07）
尊貴豪富的人也有同樣憂患，萬般恐懼，勤苦不安，寒冷、炎熱與痛苦一同逼身。貧窮卑下的人長久困乏：沒有田便憂心想有田，沒有住宅便想有住宅；沒有牛馬牲畜、奴婢、錢財、衣食器物，也都憂心想要得到。
有了一樣，又缺另一樣；有了這些，還少那些，總想與富有者齊等。剛想把一切備齊，已有之物又敗壞散失；於是再次受苦追求。求不到時，空想沒有利益，身心全都疲勞，坐立不安，憂念時刻跟隨，同樣受寒熱疼痛逼迫。有時甚至因此早早死去，一生不肯行善、修道、增長德行；壽命終了時獨自遠去，將要投向善道或惡道，自己卻不知道。
〔四·親屬應相敬愛，不使微恨成大怨〕（0274c17）
世間的人，父子、兄弟、夫婦、家庭內外的親屬，應當彼此尊敬愛護，不可互相憎恨嫉妒；有無應彼此接濟，不可貪惜；言語和臉色應常保和順，不要彼此違逆衝突。
有時心中發生爭執而生怒氣，今生只是一點恨意和憎嫉，後世卻可能逐漸加深，最後成為大怨。為什麼？世間人彼此傷害，雖然不一定立刻急迫地報復，含藏的毒與積蓄的怒意卻結在識心中，留下印記而不相離；因緣相遇時，仍會彼此酬報。
人在世間愛欲之中，各自出生、各自死亡，各自離去、各自再來；各人將依自己的行業到達受苦或受樂之處，必須親身承受，沒有人可以代替。善惡行為轉成不同的災殃或福報，早已依宿業預備，各人終須獨自前往；走到遙遠他處，親屬便不能再見。善惡業自然跟隨受生，幽冥中長久離別，各走不同道路，再相會沒有日期，要重新相遇實在非常困難。
大家為什麼不放下紛雜事務，趁身體還強健時，努力修善，精進發願度越世間，以得極長壽命？為什麼不求道？還要停下來等待什麼，又想求什麼短暫快樂？
〔五·不信因果，生死仍然相續〕（0275a03）
世間人不信行善會得善果、修道會成就道果，不信人死後還會受生，也不信布施能得福；對一切善惡因果都不相信，認定並沒有這些事。因為這樣，他們只相信眼前所見，彼此觀望，前後世代都採取同樣態度。父親承受祖父留下的教令，再傳給後人；先人本來不修善、不識道德，身心愚闇閉塞，自己看不見死生去處與善惡道路，也沒有人向他們說明。吉凶禍福不斷發生，人人競相造作，卻沒有一人覺得奇怪。
生死相續成為世間常態，眾人一代代交替：有時父親哭兒子，有時兒子哭父親，兄弟夫婦彼此哭泣；死亡不依長幼上下次序，無常沒有固定根本，一切人都會過去，不能永久保存。雖有人教導開示，相信者卻很少，因此生死流轉沒有停止。
〔六·愛欲、瞋怒與哀戀覆住了心〕（0275a13）
這些人昏暗而剛愎衝撞，不信經法，心中沒有長遠思量，只想使眼前稱心快意；他們迷惑在愛欲中，不能通達道德；沉沒在瞋怒裡，貪求財物與美色。因此不能得道，未來更受惡趣之苦，生死沒有窮盡，實在可悲可傷。
有時一個家庭裡，父子、兄弟、夫婦有人死亡、有人活著，彼此悲痛憐念；恩愛、思念與憂愁把心綁住，痛苦執著，反覆眷戀，終日終年不能解開。即使有人教以道德，心仍不開明；只想念昔日情愛，不能離開情欲。內心昏暗閉塞，被愚惑覆蓋，不能深思熟慮，不能端正自己的心、專精修道、決斷牽纏世事；轉眼便到壽命終了，仍未得道，已無可奈何。
〔七·惡念發作，苦報長久〕（0275a24）
世間混亂雜沓，人人貪著愛欲；迷失道路的人多，覺悟的人少，大家匆忙奔逐，無所依靠。無論尊卑上下、貧富貴賤，都在勤苦忙亂中暗藏傷害之心；幽暗惡氣使人妄作種種事情，違逆天地正理，也不順人心。由惡業自然招感的非法惡緣，先就隨著他們而來。
人任意作惡，直到罪業深重；有時壽命尚未終了便忽然死去，墮入惡道，累世承受怨苦，在其中輾轉數千億劫，沒有出離之期。那種痛苦無法言說，實在值得悲愍。
〔八·熟思、遠惡、擇善，有疑便問〕（0275b02）
佛告訴彌勒菩薩和天人大眾：祂現在所說的這些世間事，正是人因此不能得道的原因。大家應當深思熟慮，遠離所有惡行，選擇善行而勤奮實踐。愛欲與榮華不能長久保持，最終都要分離，沒有真正可樂之處。
應趁佛仍在世時勤加精進。真正立願往生安樂國的人，能得到明達智慧與殊勝功德；但不可任隨欲心，損害違背經法戒律，落在人後。如果有人對經義存疑而不能理解，可以把問題完整問佛，佛會為他解說。
〔九·彌勒領受佛語〕（0275b09）
彌勒菩薩長跪向佛說：佛的威神尊貴重大，所說的法暢快而善妙；聽聞佛經的人應把教法貫通內心，仔細思惟。世人的情形確實如佛所說。如今佛慈悲憐愍，顯示大道，使眾生耳目開明，長久得到度脫；聽到佛說法的人沒有不歡喜的。諸天、人民乃至一切蠕動生命，都蒙受佛的慈恩，得以解脫憂苦。
佛的教誡極深極善；祂以智慧明見八方、上下與過去現在未來之事，無不窮究通達。彌勒與大眾如今能蒙受度脫，都是佛過去求道時謙下苦行所成。佛恩普遍覆護，福德崇高，光明照徹無邊虛空；祂為眾生開示進入涅槃，掌握教法綱要，以威德制伏、教化剛強眾生，感動十方而無窮盡。佛是法王，尊貴超越一切聖者，普遍作所有天人的老師，依眾生心願引導他們得道。現在大眾能遇見佛，又聽到無量壽佛的名號，沒有一人不歡喜，人人心得開明。
〔十·佛難值，教法能斷疑拔欲〕（0275b22）
佛告訴彌勒，他所說的正是如此。有人對佛具慈愛恭敬，實在是大善；世間要經過極長時間才再有佛出世。如今佛在此世界成佛，演說經法，傳布正道，斷除眾生疑惑之網，拔除愛欲根本，堵塞一切惡行的源頭。
佛自在遊行三界，不受拘礙；祂總持智慧與一切修道綱要，掌握教法綱紀，清楚顯明正邪，為眾生開示五趣，度脫尚未得度者，決定指明出生死、入涅槃的道路。
〔十一·長劫流轉，今日終於聞法〕（0275b28）
佛又告訴彌勒：他從無數劫以來修菩薩行，長久發願度眾生；從他那裡得道直到涅槃的眾生，數量無法計算。彌勒以及十方諸天、人民與一切四眾，也從長劫以來輾轉五道，所受憂愁恐懼與勤苦無法完全說盡；直到今生仍未停止生死。
如今眾生終於遇見佛，聽受經法，又得聽聞無量壽佛。這是暢快而極善的因緣，佛也為彌勒與大眾感到歡喜。
〔十二·端身洗心，自度也彼此救濟〕（0275c05）
佛勸彌勒厭離生、死、老、病、疼痛、污穢與不淨，了知其中沒有真正可樂之處，應當親自下定決心。要端正身行，增加一切善業；修整自己，保持身行清淨，洗除內心垢染；言語與行為忠實可信，使外在表現與內心一致。人應能先度自己，再彼此扶持救濟；以精明專一的心求取所願，持續積累善根。
即使在這一生為修行承受勤苦，也只像片刻那麼短；後來生到無量壽佛國，所得快樂無有窮極，長久與道德和智慧相應，永遠拔除生死根本，不再有貪欲、瞋恚、愚癡與苦惱。想活一劫、百劫乃至千億萬劫，都能自在隨意；所證境界無為自然，次於涅槃之道。
大家都應各自精進，求成內心所願，不可在疑惑中後悔，因而造成自己的過失，生到彼國邊地的七寶宮殿，五百年中受到障礙。
〔十三·彌勒奉行不疑〕（0275c15）
彌勒向佛說：他已領受佛的深重教誨，將專心精進修學，依照教法奉行，不敢再有疑惑。
〔十四·在惡世端心，最為難得〕（0275c17）
佛告訴彌勒：大家能在這個世界端正內心、使意念正直，不造種種惡業，實在是最高的德行，在十方世界中最為難得，沒有可以相比的。為什麼？其他諸佛國土的天人自然行善，不會廣作惡業，容易接受教化。
如今佛在這個世界成佛，處在五惡、五痛、五燒之中，這裡的苦最為劇烈。祂教化眾生，使他們捨棄五惡、去除五痛、遠離五燒；調伏眾生的心，使他們守持五善，獲得相應福德，超越世間，得到長壽，走向涅槃之道。
Taishō canon T12n0360, following the source’s fourteen paragraphs from the exhortation to practice good through the general statement of the five evils, five pains, and five burnings. The figures at the head of each segment give the Taishō page, register, and line.
〔一 · Why Not Exert Oneself in Doing Good?〕（0274b18）
The Buddha told the bodhisattva Maitreya and the assemblies of gods and humans: the merit and wisdom of the śrāvakas and bodhisattvas in the land of the Buddha of Measureless Life are beyond description, and that land is subtle, peaceful, blissful, and pure. Why do you not exert yourselves in doing good, thought by thought facing the naturally attained virtues of cultivating the path, without distinction of higher or lower station, and penetrating its boundless reaches? Each of you should practice diligently and vigorously and strive to seek this for yourselves. You will surely transcend birth and death and be born in the land of Peace and Sustenance. You will cut across the five evil destinies, whose gates will naturally close, and ascend the inexhaustible Buddha-path.
That land is easy to reach, yet few truly go. It does not oppose those who aspire to be born there, but people are still naturally drawn away by worldly affairs. Why not relinquish the matters that bind the worldly mind and diligently cultivate and seek the virtue of the path? You can thereby attain exceedingly long life and experience bliss without end.
〔二 · Possessing Wealth and Lacking Wealth Bring the Same Anxiety〕（0274b26）
Yet worldly customs are shallow and debased. People contend together over matters that are not urgent. Amid the extreme evil and severe suffering of this world, they labor bodily and manage their affairs merely to sustain themselves. Honored or humble, poor or rich, young or old, male or female, all alike worry over money. Those who have it fear losing it; those without it seek to obtain it. The anxiety of both is the same. Burdened with accumulated thoughts, people suffer and grieve, driven about by their own minds without a moment of peace.
Those who have fields worry over their fields; those with houses worry over their houses. Cattle, horses, livestock, servants, money, clothing, food, and every kind of possession all become causes of anxiety. People think repeatedly, sigh at length, and remain worried and afraid. Unexpectedly they may meet impermanence, flood, fire, thieves, enemies, or creditors. Their possessions are burned, swept away, seized, dispersed, and destroyed. Poisonous worry agitates the mind without release. Anger knots itself within; thought becomes rigid and cannot let go. Sometimes these things even shatter the body and end one’s life. At death everything is abandoned, and not one possession follows.
〔三 · Rich and Poor Each Carry a Heavy Load〕（0274c07）
The honored and wealthy undergo these same anxieties. Ten thousand fears beset them, and they labor without peace as cold, heat, and pain press upon the body together. The poor and lowly remain in want: without a field they worry and desire a field; without a house they desire a house; without cattle, horses, livestock, servants, money, clothing, food, or possessions, they likewise worry and desire to have them.
As soon as one thing is obtained, another is lacking; when these are present, those are missing. People always want to equal those with wealth. Just as they hope to have everything, what they already possess decays and disperses. They suffer and seek once more. When they cannot obtain what they seek, imagination brings no benefit. Body and mind both become exhausted; sitting or standing, they find no peace. Anxiety accompanies them at every moment, while cold, heat, and pain press upon them. Some even die prematurely through these pursuits. Throughout life they refuse to do good, practice the path, or increase virtue. At death they depart alone toward a good or evil destiny without knowing where they will go.
〔四 · Relatives Should Honor and Love One Another, Not Let Slight Resentment Become Great Enmity〕（0274c17）
People in the world—parents and children, siblings, spouses, households, and relatives within and beyond the family—should honor and love one another, without hatred or jealousy. Those who have and those who lack should support one another, without stinginess. Speech and expression should remain harmonious and gentle, without mutual opposition or conflict.
At times contention arises in the mind and gives rise to anger. A slight resentment or jealousy in this life may deepen in later lives until it becomes great enmity. Why? People in the world injure one another. Although they do not always retaliate immediately, concealed poison and accumulated anger become knotted in the consciousness and leave an imprint that does not separate from the mind. When conditions bring them together again, they repay each other in turn.
Amid the desires of the world, each person is born alone and dies alone, leaves alone and returns alone. Each reaches a place of suffering or joy in accordance with their own actions and must undergo it personally; no one can take another’s place. Good and evil actions ripen into different calamities and blessings already prepared through past karma, and each person must enter them alone. Having gone far away, relatives can no longer see one another. Good and evil karma naturally follow into birth. In darkness and obscurity, separation lasts long; the roads diverge, there is no date for meeting again, and renewed encounter is exceedingly difficult.
Why not relinquish entangling affairs while the body is still strong, diligently cultivate good, and vigorously aspire to cross beyond the world and attain exceedingly long life? Why not seek the path? What remains to be waited for, and what fleeting pleasure is still sought?
〔五 · Disbelief in Cause and Effect Does Not Stop Birth and Death from Continuing〕（0275a03）
People in the world do not trust that doing good yields good results, that cultivating the path brings attainment of the path, that after death there is further birth, or that giving brings merit. They reject all cause and effect of good and evil, declaring that such things do not exist. For this reason they trust only what they presently see, observe one another, and follow the same attitude from generation to generation. Fathers receive the instructions left by grandfathers and pass them to those who follow. Their ancestors did not practice good or know the virtue of the path. Body and mind were dark, obstructed, and closed. They could not themselves see the destinations of death and birth or the roads of good and evil, nor did anyone explain them. Auspicious and disastrous events continued to occur; everyone competed to create them, yet no one found this strange.
The succession of birth and death becomes ordinary in the world as one generation follows another. Sometimes a father weeps for his child, sometimes a child for a parent, and siblings and spouses weep for one another. Death observes no order of old and young, high and low. Impermanence has no fixed foundation; all must pass and none can be preserved forever. Although some teach and guide, few trust them. Thus the turning of birth and death never rests.
〔六 · Desire, Anger, and Grief Cover the Mind〕（0275a13）
Such people are darkened, obstinate, and reckless. They do not trust the scriptural Dharma and possess no far-reaching reflection, seeking only present gratification. Bewildered within desire, they do not penetrate the virtue of the path. Submerged in anger, they ravenously pursue wealth and sexual attraction. Consequently they cannot attain the path and will again suffer in the evil destinies. Birth and death continue without end—lamentable and grievous indeed.
Within a household, parents and children, siblings, or spouses may be divided between the dead and the living, grieving and pitying one another. Affection, longing, and worry bind the mind. Painful attachment and repeated yearning continue day after day and year after year without release. Even when taught the virtue of the path, the mind does not open. Remembering former affection, it cannot leave desire. Darkened and obstructed, covered by delusion, people cannot reflect deeply and carefully, make their minds upright, cultivate the path with full attention, or resolve their worldly entanglements. In a turn of time the end of life arrives; they have not attained the path, and nothing more can be done.
〔七 · Evil Thoughts Break into Action, and Painful Results Endure〕（0275a24）
The world is chaotic and crowded, and all cling to desire. Those lost from the path are many and those awake are few; everyone rushes about with nowhere to rely. Honored or humble, high or low, poor or rich, people toil in confusion while harboring thoughts of harm. Dark and evil energy causes them to initiate deluded actions that violate right principle and run against human feeling. Unwholesome conditions naturally produced by evil karma arrive first and follow them.
People indulge evil until their offenses become grave. Sometimes life is suddenly taken before its allotted end. They fall into evil destinies and undergo resentful suffering life after life, turning within it for thousands of millions of kalpas without a time of escape. That pain cannot be expressed; it is profoundly worthy of compassion.
〔八 · Reflect Deeply, Leave Evil, Choose Good, and Ask When in Doubt〕（0275b02）
The Buddha told the bodhisattva Maitreya and the assembly of gods and humans: the worldly matters he had just described are the reasons people fail to attain the path. They should reflect deeply and carefully, leave every evil act far behind, choose good, and practice it diligently. Desire and worldly glory cannot be preserved; all must finally separate, and nothing within them is truly delightful.
While the Buddha is still in the world, they should practice diligently and vigorously. Those who sincerely vow to be born in the land of Peace and Bliss can attain lucid wisdom and excellent merit. They must not simply follow their desires, violate the scriptural teaching and precepts, and fall behind others. If anyone doubts or does not understand the meaning of the sūtra, that person may ask the Buddha fully, and the Buddha will explain it.
〔九 · Maitreya Receives the Buddha’s Teaching〕（0275b09）
The bodhisattva Maitreya knelt and said to the Buddha: the Buddha’s majestic spiritual power was exalted and weighty, and what he taught was joyous and good. Those who heard the Buddha’s sūtra should let the teaching penetrate their minds and reflect upon it carefully. The condition of people in the world truly was as the Buddha had said. Now the Buddha, in loving-kindness and compassion, revealed the great path, opened the ears and eyes of sentient beings, and enabled them to attain lasting deliverance. None who heard the Buddha’s teaching failed to rejoice. Gods, humans, and even all crawling forms of life received the Buddha’s compassionate kindness and escaped their grief and suffering.
The Buddha’s instruction was exceedingly profound and good. With wisdom he saw the eight directions, above and below, and events of past, present, and future, penetrating them all without remainder. Maitreya and the assembly received deliverance now because of the Buddha’s humility and arduous practice while seeking the path in former lives. The Buddha’s kindness covered all, his merit was lofty, and his light penetrated the boundless reaches of space. He opened the entrance into nirvāṇa, held the governing principles of the teaching, and with majestic virtue subdued and transformed those who were difficult to guide, stirring the ten directions without end. The Buddha was the Dharma King, honored above all sages, universally serving as teacher of every god and human, and guiding sentient beings to the path in accordance with their aspirations. Now the assembly had encountered the Buddha and heard the Name of the Buddha of Measureless Life. None failed to rejoice; every mind opened and became clear.
〔十 · A Buddha Is Difficult to Encounter, and the Teaching Cuts Doubt and Uproots Desire〕（0275b22）
The Buddha told Maitreya that what he had said was so. If someone possessed loving reverence for a buddha, this truly was a great good. Only after an immensely long time did another buddha appear in the world. The Buddha had now attained buddhahood in this world, taught the scriptural Dharma, spread the true path, severed sentient beings’ net of doubts, uprooted desire, and blocked the source of every evil action.
The Buddha moved sovereignly through the three realms without obstruction. He held wisdom and the essentials of every path, grasped the governing strands of the teaching, made right and wrong luminously clear, revealed the five destinies, delivered those not yet delivered, and decisively showed the road out of birth and death and into nirvāṇa.
〔十一 · After Long Kalpas of Wandering, the Dharma Is Finally Heard Today〕（0275b28）
The Buddha further told Maitreya: for numberless kalpas Maitreya had cultivated bodhisattva practice and long aspired to deliver sentient beings. The beings who attained the path through him and reached nirvāṇa were beyond counting. Maitreya, the gods and humans of the ten directions, and the entire fourfold assembly had likewise wandered through the five destinies for long kalpas. Their grief, fear, and toil could not be completely described; birth and death had continued without interruption up to this very life.
Now sentient beings had finally encountered the Buddha, heard and received the scriptural Dharma, and also heard of the Buddha of Measureless Life. This was a joyous and supremely good condition, and the Buddha rejoiced together with Maitreya and the assembly.
〔十二 · Make the Body Upright and Wash the Mind; Deliver Oneself and Rescue One Another〕（0275c05）
The Buddha urged Maitreya to become disenchanted with birth, death, old age, illness, pain, impurity, and uncleanness, knowing that nothing therein was truly delightful, and to decide firmly for himself. One should make bodily conduct upright and increase every good deed; cultivate oneself, keep the body pure, and wash away the mind’s defilements; make speech and conduct loyal and trustworthy, so that outward expression and inward intention correspond. People should first be able to deliver themselves and then support and rescue one another. With clarity and single-mindedness they should seek what they aspire to and continue accumulating roots of goodness.
Even if cultivation brings toil in this one life, it lasts only a brief moment. Afterward, birth in the land of the Buddha of Measureless Life brings bliss without end and lasting accord with the path’s virtue and wisdom. The root of birth and death is forever pulled out, and greed, anger, delusion, and anguish no longer remain. Whether one wishes to live one kalpa, a hundred kalpas, or thousands of millions of kalpas, it can be attained freely and at will. What is realized is unconditioned and naturally so, immediately approaching the path of nirvāṇa.
Each person should practice vigorously and fulfill the aspiration of the mind. They must not create their own fault by doubting and then regretting, thereby being born in a palace of the seven precious substances in the borderland and undergoing hindrances for five hundred years.
〔十三 · Maitreya Resolves to Practice without Doubt〕（0275c15）
Maitreya told the Buddha that he had received the Buddha’s weighty instruction. He would cultivate and study with single-minded vigor, practice in accordance with the teaching, and no longer dare to doubt.
〔十四 · Making the Mind Upright in an Evil World Is Supremely Rare〕（0275c17）
The Buddha told Maitreya: to make the mind upright and the intention correct in this world and refrain from the many evils is the highest virtue, unsurpassed and without equal among the worlds throughout the ten directions. Why? Gods and humans in other buddha-lands naturally practice good, do not commit much evil, and are easy to teach and transform.
The Buddha had now attained buddhahood in this world amid the five evils, five pains, and five burnings, where suffering was most severe. He taught and transformed sentient beings so that they relinquished the five evils, removed the five pains, and escaped the five burnings. He subdued and transformed their minds so that they maintained the five good deeds, attained the corresponding merit, crossed beyond the world, gained long life, and entered the path of nirvāṇa.
這一講依憬興《連義述文贊》所辨直勸往生、娑婆三毒、勸修領解與五惡總標，參照慧遠《義疏》重攝下人的大科，再以曇鸞《往生論註》不求自樂、攝生同往的菩提心校正願生方向。三家分科與語境不盡相同；我們不替它們消除差異，只循本經問：佛所勸之善，如何穿過忙碌、親愛、怨恨與疑惑，成為真正能度生死的行。
安樂之國，為何先問是否力行善
上一段說彼國菩薩功德百千萬劫不能盡，本段便轉告彌勒與會眾：彼國人德不可稱，國土微妙安樂清淨。佛沒有讓讚歎停在羨慕，而立刻問何不力為善，勸人勤精進、自求往生。彼國之美於是成為此土行者的責任，而不是遠方景觀。
「橫截五惡趣，惡趣自然閉」〔T12n0360 0274b22〕說往生能頓離流轉；自然卻沒有取消前面的力為善、勤精進與努力自求。所謂國不逆違，是清淨國土不拒絕如法願生者；所謂易往而無人，是可行之路少有人真正行，不是不用修因也能任意到達。少有人真行，不是國土拒人，而是久習纏蓋仍把人牽住。古疏也並存因滿果熟、不假功用而自然招致的一讀〔T37n1748 0163c09〕，明說其義亦可；兩讀都不能拿來取消前文明說的修因。橫截的是娑婆五道流轉，不是把下一段所說五惡之因直接改名作五趣之果，也不採把女人另列為惡趣的古解。
這裡的善也不只是世間美德的總稱。它與念道、求生、離惡趣、聞法和成就智慧相連。若只想取得極長壽與無極之樂，卻仍任貪瞋癡驅使，所求便與所往之土不相應。經必須從彼國轉回娑婆，正因願生要在此處的身口意上起步。
不急之事，何以耗盡一生
佛說世人薄俗，共爭不急之事。衣食住行本是生活所需，經所照見的不是所有營務都錯，而是人被求得、守護與失去三重力量不斷役使。有田憂田、有宅憂宅；沒有便想有，有了又怕少，勉強湊齊又可能散失。富者有富者的憂，貧者有貧者的求，身心同樣不得安。
「為心走使，無有安時」〔T12n0360 0274b29〕把顛倒說得極準。看似是人在使用財物，實則是貪求的心驅使人奔走；看似累積愈多愈安全，實則水火、盜賊、怨家、債主乃至無常，都可能令它消散。即使外物不失，守護之苦已先占據此生；命終時一切棄捐，更無一物相隨。
你若把不急理解成凡事都不必做，便會漏掉經中後面的端身正行、言行忠信與轉相拯濟。佛不是教人放棄照料生活，而是問：哪些事雖日日催逼，對生死與心行其實沒有解答？哪些需求已從資身變成役心？辨出這條界線，棄世事才不是逃避，而是取回被貪愛挾持的生命。
親愛若含著毒，來世便成大怨
經從財物轉到關係，先正面說父子、兄弟、夫婦、內外親屬應相敬愛，有無相通，言色和順。這幾句證明厭捨娑婆不是冷卻人情。真正要捨的，是憎嫉、貪惜與違戾；真正要修的，恰恰包括敬愛與互通。
微小恨意若被保存，便可能後世轉劇成大怨。經以含毒畜怒形容它：事情當下未必爆發，種子卻沒有離開；彼此再遇，便酬報前怨。佛不是把所有不幸簡單歸咎個人，而是在說瞋心一旦被認作正當資產，就會替未來預備新的傷害。
「獨生、獨死，獨去、獨來」〔T12n0360 0274c24〕並不否定親情，而是否定代受。再親近的人也不能替另一人承當身口意所成之業；正因不能代受，今生相遇時更應相敬、相通、相勸行善。愛若只求占有與不分離，無常到來便成束縛；愛若能尊重各自業行，就會趁彼此尚強健時相互扶持向善。
不信因果，不等於不再承受結果
第三層是愚癡。人不信作善得善、為道得道，不信死後相續與布施得福，只因先人如此、周遭如此，便彼此觀看、代代承受同一套無明。看不見因果，不會使因果停止；只使人更難在行為與結果之間建立遠慮。
經寫父哭子、子哭父，兄弟夫婦相哭，顛倒上下而無常。人明明反覆目睹別離，仍把生活安排成永遠不會離散；教語開導又少有人信，生死於是無休。這不是反對悲傷，而是指出若悲傷始終不使人醒悟，恩愛便只留下顧戀，不能轉成現在的善行。
不信逐漸成為快意：癡於愛欲，沒於瞋怒，貪於財色，不能深思、端心、專精行道。等到年壽忽盡，才發現忙碌並未回答去處。經所稱愚，不是知識不足，而是沒有把已見的無常納入抉擇；所稱遠慮，也不是焦慮未來，而是讓今天所作不背叛生命終將面對的事。
佛在世時，疑問本來可以說出來
世間三毒與苦果說畢，佛再告彌勒應熟思、離惡、擇善、勤行，並說愛欲榮華不可常保。這裡的熟思很重要：修行不是被一時恐懼推著走，而是看清什麼會散、什麼會隨業相續，再作選擇。
佛接著說，趁佛在世應當精進；若對經有疑不解，可以具體問佛，祂會解說。疑不是先被定罪，而是先獲得一條發問與聞法的路。真正危險的不是一時未解，而是隨心所欲、虧負經戒，又讓疑意在不問不學中變成中悔。
彌勒領解時，沒有只說自己明白。他先承認世人確如佛所說，再歎佛慈愍開示大道，使天、人乃至蠕動之類同蒙利益；又追溯佛過去求道的謙苦。聽法的開明，因而不只是獲得答案，也看見教法從何種長久悲願而來。這份看見使歡喜不輕浮，使領解帶著感恩與奉行。
自度之後，句子還沒有結束
佛印可彌勒，又說佛久遠難值；眾生長劫流轉，今得遇佛、聞無量壽佛，值得慶喜。隨後的勸修非常具體：厭離生老病死，端身正行，益作諸善，修己潔體，洗除心垢，言行忠信，表裏相應。
其中最不能省略的是「人能自度，轉相拯濟」〔T12n0360 0275c08〕。自度不是句點。若善行只為替自己預備一個安樂去處，便在轉相二字以前停住；經卻要能自持者再扶持他人，使個人的端正成為關係中的可靠，使願生之心成為共同離苦的因緣。
我們也由此知道，厭離和慈悲不是兩條相反道路。真正厭離的是貪瞋癡與生死根本，不是厭棄仍在苦中的人；真正相濟也不是一起延續愛欲榮華，而是共同修善、聞法、斷疑。此世愈劇苦，端心正意愈難，也愈顯其德。
一世勤苦與無量安樂，不在同一座秤上
佛說一世勤苦只在須臾之間，後生彼國則快樂無極，永拔生死根本，不復受貪恚愚癡苦惱。這不是以更大的享樂誘惑人壓抑現在，而是把兩種時間與兩種苦樂分開：一種勤苦是修己、行善、持戒所付的短時工夫；另一種勤苦是被欲望驅使、長劫流轉而無出期。
同樣，彼國之樂不是欲望得到無限滿足。經說長與道德合明，無為自然，次於泥洹；樂的內容是煩惱根本拔除、智慧明達、願行不退。若仍以貪心想像它，便把清淨土降成世間榮華的延長。
佛又戒人不可疑惑中悔，以免生邊地七寶宮殿，五百歲中受其障。這項警語延續前面的發問之門：有疑當問、當學、當決，不要一面願生，一面讓中悔侵蝕所修。你在此聽到的不是不准思考，而是思考必須走向求解與實踐，不能長久停在自相牴牾。
端心正意，是劇苦世界裡的至德
彌勒答願專精修學、不敢有疑，佛隨即說，在此世端心正意、不作眾惡，十方世界最無倫匹。其他佛國眾生自然作善、易受教化；在五惡、五痛、五燒交纏之處仍能持善，德便特別難得。
這不是讚美苦環境本身，也不是說必須身陷惡世才有修行。經所讚的是逆流：外境與習氣都推人作惡時，仍能制意、正身、相濟。佛出現在此劇苦處，也不是旁觀評斷，而是教化群生捨惡、去痛、離燒，令持五善，得福德乃至涅槃。
本段在這裡只給總綱，下一段才逐一說五惡。這個停頓讓讀者先看清全局：惡是所作之因，痛與燒顯其苦果，善則是可以轉向的行。若急著把五項變成只用來點數別人的戒條，便會錯過佛先對每個聞法者說的端心正意。
承衍——願生如何不縮成自己的樂
憬興以三次明顯科轉，讓本段從直勸往生，進入娑婆貪瞋癡，再到對彌勒勸修與領解，最後轉入五惡業苦；慧遠亦以彼國勝妙與娑婆穢惡的對照，說明為何要令人願求與厭捨。兩疏都不讓勸善離開往生，也不讓願生離開此土所作。
曇鸞所立不求自身住持之樂，正好守住這條路不向自利傾斜。願生者若只聽見彼國受樂，未發拔苦眾生之心，願便不順菩提；若以智慧、慈悲、方便修迴向，則自己的功德施與眾生，共向佛道，共生安樂。這不是在本經之外增添一個高遠要求，而是把本經的轉相拯濟展開：願我得度，也願相遇者不被遺下。
我們回望整段，真正急迫的事不是把一切生活都丟掉，而是不再讓不急之事耗盡能聞、能問、能行的時日。財物可以資身而不役心，親愛可以相濟而不含毒，疑惑可以求解而不中悔；一念願生也可以從自己的苦開始，卻不在自己的樂終止。這樣的善，才有力量穿過生死。
This exposition follows Jingxing’s distinctions among the direct exhortation to birth, the three poisons of Sahā, the exhortation and Maitreya’s reception, and the general statement of the five evils. It reads these alongside Huiyuan’s large division that again gathers in those of lesser capacity, and then uses Tanluan’s teaching that aspiration for birth does not seek one’s own pleasure but gathers sentient beings toward birth together to keep its direction aligned with the aspiration for awakening. The three masters do not share every doctrinal division or context. Without erasing their differences, we follow the question posed by this sūtra: how does the good encouraged by the Buddha pass through busyness, affection, resentment, and doubt and become a practice that genuinely crosses birth and death?
Why Does the Sūtra First Ask Whether We Practice Good after Describing the Land of Peace and Bliss?
The preceding passage says that even hundreds of thousands of millions of kalpas could not exhaust the virtues of the bodhisattvas of that land. This passage then addresses Maitreya and the assembly: the people’s virtues are beyond description and the land subtle, peaceful, blissful, and pure. The Buddha does not let praise stop at admiration. He immediately asks why people do not exert themselves in doing good and urges them to practice vigorously and seek birth for themselves. The beauty of that land thereby becomes the responsibility of practitioners here, not a distant landscape.
“Cutting across the five evil destinies, their gates naturally closing” means that birth in that land suddenly leaves the cycle of the five destinies. Naturally does not cancel the preceding exertion in good, vigor, and striving for oneself. That the land does not oppose aspirants means that a pure land does not reject those who aspire in accordance with Dharma. That it is easy to reach and few go means that few truly practice the available road, not that one arrives without cultivating a cause. The scarcity does not arise because the land rejects anyone, but because long-habituated hindrances continue to bind people and pull them away. An ancient commentary also permits a second reading: when causes become complete and results mature, the result is naturally brought forth without further effort. Neither reading can cancel the practices expressly stated before it.
The five evil destinies cut across here are the five modes of wandering in Sahā. They are not identical with the five evils as causal conduct in the following passage, and the ancient reading that separately counts women as an evil destiny is not adopted.
The good urged here is more than a generic label for decent worldly conduct. It is joined to keeping the path in mind, seeking birth, leaving the evil destinies, hearing the Dharma, and attaining wisdom. If someone seeks extremely long life and endless bliss while continuing to be driven by greed, anger, and delusion, what is sought does not correspond to the land sought. The sūtra must turn from that land back to Sahā because aspiration for birth begins through body, speech, and mind here.
How Do Matters That Are Not Urgent Exhaust an Entire Life?
The Buddha says that people of shallow custom contend over matters that are not urgent. Clothing, food, and shelter are necessary for life; the passage does not declare all ordinary work wrong. It reveals instead how people are ceaselessly driven by seeking, guarding, and losing. Those with fields worry over fields, and those with houses over houses. Those without possessions want them; those who have them fear shortage and loss. The wealthy have the anxieties of wealth and the poor the pursuits of poverty. Neither body nor mind finds peace.
“Driven about by the mind, without a time of peace” states the inversion precisely. People appear to use possessions, yet the mind of craving makes people its servants. Accumulation appears to bring safety, yet flood, fire, thieves, enemies, creditors, and impermanence can disperse it. Even if nothing outward is lost, the suffering of guarding has already occupied a lifetime. At death everything is abandoned, and nothing follows.
If you interpret not urgent as saying that nothing need be done, you will miss the later exhortations to upright conduct, trustworthy speech and action, and mutual rescue. The Buddha is not teaching abandonment of care for life. He asks which matters press upon us daily yet answer nothing about birth, death, and the mind; which needs have passed from sustaining the body into enslaving the mind. When this boundary is seen, relinquishing worldly affairs becomes a recovery of life from craving rather than escape from responsibility.
When Affection Stores Poison, It Becomes Great Enmity in a Later Life
The sūtra turns from possessions to relationship. It first states positively that parents and children, siblings, spouses, and relatives should honor and love one another, share between those who have and lack, and keep speech and expression harmonious. These statements show that disenchantment with Sahā does not mean making human feeling cold. What must be relinquished is hatred, jealousy, stinginess, and conflict. What must be cultivated includes respect, love, and mutual support.
A slight resentment preserved can deepen in later lives into great enmity. The sūtra describes it as concealing poison and accumulating anger. Retaliation may not occur immediately, but the seed does not leave the mind; when people meet again, former injury is repaid. The Buddha does not reduce every misfortune to personal blame. He shows that once anger is kept as a rightful possession, it prepares new harm for the future.
“Born alone, dying alone, leaving alone, returning alone” does not deny affection. It denies substitution. No matter how intimate the relationship, one person cannot bear the karma formed by another’s body, speech, and mind. Precisely because karma cannot be undergone by proxy, people who meet in this life should all the more honor, support, and encourage one another toward good while they remain strong. Love that seeks only possession and permanent togetherness becomes bondage when impermanence arrives. Love that respects each person’s karmic conduct uses the present meeting to support the good.
Disbelieving Cause and Effect Does Not Mean Ceasing to Undergo Results
The third layer is delusion. People do not trust that doing good brings good, that cultivating the path brings attainment, that life continues after death, or that giving produces merit. Their ancestors held the same view and those around them hold it, so they observe one another and inherit the same ignorance generation after generation. Failing to see cause and effect does not make cause and effect stop. It only makes it harder to connect present conduct with future results.
The sūtra depicts parents weeping for children and children for parents, siblings and spouses weeping for one another, as death overturns every expected order. People repeatedly witness separation yet arrange their lives as though separation will never occur. Few trust guidance, and birth and death continue without rest. This is not opposition to grief. It says that if grief never awakens the mind, affection leaves only yearning and cannot become present good conduct.
Disbelief gradually becomes pursuit of gratification: deluded by desire, submerged in anger, ravenous for wealth and attraction, people cannot reflect deeply, make the mind upright, or practice the path with full attention. When life suddenly ends, busyness has not answered where they will go. The sūtra’s delusion is not a lack of information. It is refusal to let the impermanence already seen enter one’s choices. Far-reaching reflection is not anxiety over the future; it makes today’s conduct answer honestly to what life must face.
While the Buddha Is in the World, Questions Were Always Allowed to Be Asked
After describing the three poisons and their painful results, the Buddha again tells Maitreya to reflect deeply, leave evil, choose good, and practice diligently. He says that desire and glory cannot last. Reflection is crucial here. Practice is not an impulse driven by temporary fear; it sees clearly what disperses and what follows through karma, then makes a choice.
The Buddha next says that while he is in the world, people should practice vigorously. If they doubt and do not understand the sūtra, they may ask him fully and he will explain. Doubt is not first condemned; it is first given a road of questioning and hearing. The danger lies not in temporary lack of understanding but in following desire, violating scripture and precepts, and allowing doubt, without asking or learning, to become later regret.
When Maitreya receives the teaching, he does not say only that he understands. He first acknowledges that people are as the Buddha described, then praises the Buddha’s compassionate revelation of the great path and the benefit received by gods, humans, and even crawling forms of life. He traces the teaching back to the Buddha’s humility and arduous quest for the path in past lives. Open understanding therefore means more than obtaining an answer. It sees the long compassionate vow from which the teaching comes. This vision keeps joy from becoming light and joins reception to gratitude and practice.
After Delivering Oneself, the Sentence Has Not Ended
The Buddha confirms Maitreya’s words and again says that a buddha is difficult to encounter. Sentient beings have wandered for long kalpas and now meet the Buddha and hear of the Buddha of Measureless Life; this deserves rejoicing. The ensuing practices are concrete: become disenchanted with birth, old age, illness, and death; make bodily conduct upright; increase good; cultivate oneself and cleanse the body; wash defilement from the mind; make speech and action trustworthy; and bring outward and inward into correspondence.
The words that must not be omitted are: “People can deliver themselves and then rescue one another.” Self-deliverance is not a full stop. If good conduct merely prepares a comfortable place for oneself, the sentence stops before one another. The sūtra asks those able to govern themselves to support others so that personal uprightness becomes reliability within relationship and aspiration for birth becomes a shared condition of leaving suffering.
Disenchantment and compassion are therefore not opposing roads. What is truly left behind is greed, anger, delusion, and the root of birth and death—not the beings who remain in suffering. Mutual rescue does not mean continuing worldly desire and glory together, but practicing good, hearing the Dharma, and resolving doubt together. The more severe the suffering of this world, the more difficult upright intention becomes and the more its virtue appears.
One Life of Toil and Measureless Bliss Do Not Stand on the Same Scale
The Buddha says that the toil of practice within a single life lasts only a moment, whereas birth in that land brings bliss without end, accord with the path’s virtue, and the permanent removal of the roots of birth and death, greed, anger, delusion, and anguish. This does not tempt people with a greater pleasure to suppress the present. It distinguishes two kinds of time and two kinds of hardship: the brief effort of cultivating oneself, doing good, and observing the precepts, and the endless toil of being driven by desire and wandering without escape.
Likewise, the joy of that land is not the unlimited gratification of desire. The sūtra says one remains in accord with the path’s virtue, in an unconditioned state naturally so and near nirvāṇa. Its joy is freedom from the roots of affliction, lucid wisdom, and non-retrogressive vow and practice. Imagined through craving, a pure land becomes only an extension of worldly glory.
The Buddha also warns against doubting and then regretting, lest one be born in a palace of the seven precious substances in the borderland and remain obstructed for five hundred years. This warning continues the preceding opening for questions: when in doubt, ask, learn, and decide; do not aspire on one side while allowing later regret to eat away the practice on the other. The teaching does not forbid thought. It requires thought to move toward understanding and practice rather than remaining in lasting self-contradiction.
Upright Mind and Intention Are Supreme Virtue in a World of Severe Suffering
Maitreya answers that he will practice single-mindedly without doubt. The Buddha then says that making the mind upright, the intention correct, and refraining from evil in this world is without equal among the ten directions. In other buddha-lands, beings naturally do good and are easily taught. Amid the five evils, five pains, and five burnings, maintaining good is especially difficult.
This does not praise a painful environment or claim that practice requires an evil world. What the sūtra praises is movement against the current: when environment and habit press toward evil, one still disciplines intention, makes conduct upright, and rescues others. The Buddha appears amid this severe suffering not to judge from outside, but to teach sentient beings to relinquish evils, leave pains and burnings, maintain the five good deeds, attain merit, and proceed toward nirvāṇa.
This passage provides only the general structure; the next unfolds the five evils one by one. The pause lets the whole be seen before the particulars: evil is causal conduct, pain and burning disclose painful results, and good is the possible turn. If the five immediately become a checklist for judging others, the first address to each hearer—to make the mind and intention upright—has already been missed.
Carrying Forward — How Aspiration for Birth Does Not Contract into One’s Own Pleasure
Through three explicit shifts of section, Jingxing moves from direct exhortation to birth into greed, anger, and delusion in Sahā; from there to the Buddha’s exhortation and Maitreya’s reception; and finally to the general structure of karmic suffering in the five evils. Huiyuan likewise contrasts the excellence of that land with the defilement and evil of Sahā to explain why aspiration and disenchantment are needed. Neither commentary lets exhortation to good separate from birth in that land or lets aspiration for birth separate from actions performed here.
Tanluan’s statement that the practitioner does not seek the pleasure of sustaining oneself guards this road from inclining toward self-benefit. If an aspirant hears only the pleasure of that land and does not give rise to the mind that draws suffering beings out, the aspiration does not accord with awakening. If wisdom, compassion, and skillful means govern dedication, one’s merit is given to sentient beings so that all turn toward the Buddha-path and are born in the land of Peace and Bliss together. This does not add a lofty demand foreign to the sūtra. It unfolds the sūtra’s own statement about rescuing one another: may I be delivered, and may those whom I meet not be left behind.
Looking back across the passage, the truly urgent matter is not throwing away the whole of ordinary life. It is refusing to let unurgent matters exhaust the time in which one can hear, ask, and practice. Possessions can sustain the body without enslaving the mind. Affection can rescue without storing poison. Doubt can seek understanding without becoming regret. Aspiration for birth can begin from one’s own suffering without ending in one’s own pleasure. Good of this kind can cross birth and death.
考據Apparatus
全段定位 本段由彼國人土勝妙轉向此土會眾：佛先勸往生，繼以財物憂患、親屬瞋怨、邪見愚癡說娑婆之苦，再對彌勒勸修善、捨疑惑；末以五惡、五痛、五燒總標接入下一單元的逐項解說。這不是泛稱做好人，而是把厭捨、修善、願生、聞法、斷疑與自他相濟連成一條路。
一、科判定位
憬興《無量壽經連義述文贊》以本段開啟勸人往生：先結彼國人德與土樂之勝，再正勸往生。單元內隨後有三處明示轉科，均須誌錄：
- 第一科轉：T360 由「然世人薄俗，共諍不急之事」〔T12n0360 0274b26〕轉入娑婆穢相；主鏡判「第二、申娑婆穢惡令人厭捨」〔T37n1748 0164a07〕，四分展開見
0164a07–0164a10：顯煩惱過、勸令修捨、申罪業過、重勸修捨。 - 第二科轉：T360 至「我今語汝世間之事」〔T12n0360 0275b02〕，主鏡判「此第二、勸人脩捨」〔T37n1748 0165a20〕，四分展開見
0165a20–0165a22：正勸、彌勒領解、重勸、重領解。 - 第三科轉：T360 至「汝等能於此世端心正意」〔T12n0360 0275c17〕，主鏡判「第三、廣舉業苦令人厭捨」〔T37n1748 0166a15〕，二分展開見
0166a15–0166a19；先歎前解行，再總標五惡、五痛、五燒。其逐項別釋從下一單元開始。
慧遠《義疏》亦在重攝下人的三分中，把『世人薄俗』以下判作第二，明娑婆穢惡使人厭捨；又在本單元末確認廣舉五惡、五痛、五燒的轉點。兩疏可相互印證中途確有大科推移；本文只誌分科，不據此重切單元。
二、異譯對勘（四譯一會·異同誌錄不判）
| witness | 對應範圍 | 對勘結果 |
|---|---|---|
| T361 | 0293a06–0295b13 | 有完整勸善場景，先告阿逸與會眾願生之行，再展開世務、親怨、善惡與反覆勸誡。起錨為「諸欲生無量清淨佛國」〔T12n0361 0293a07〕。 |
| T362 | 0311a18–0313b25 | 與 T361 同類，十善條目與齋戒安排較明。起錨為「諸欲往生阿彌陀佛國者」〔T12n0362 0311a19〕。 |
| T363 | 本段零命中 | 已讀 08 收束至 0325a06，下一行 0325a07 即進禮佛見土的 11 場景；後段勸信受持屬 12 流通，不重複計作 09。其相鄰收束句為「此諸菩薩，我土五濁之所無有，經百千俱胝劫說不能盡。」〔T12n0363 0325a05〕 |
| T310 會五 | 本段零命中 | 已讀 08 收束至 0099c07，0099c08 即命阿難禮見極樂、進入 11；後段勸持屬 12，不回填本段。相鄰收束句為「阿難！我今略說彼極樂界所生菩薩摩訶薩眾真實功德悉皆如是。」〔T11n0310 0099c03〕 |
兩個零命中是按說者、受者與場景相鄰逐段讀出的負命題，不是以 T360 關鍵詞搜索所得。T363、T310 會五仍有其他位置的勸信文字；只是不具有可獨立對應本單元的同一說法場景，故不得拿流通文一段兩算。
三、經論宗依（眼）
本段的眼是：往生之善，不能由對彼國快樂的私求與對此世責任的逃避構成。佛先說彼國人土之勝，立刻問人為何不盡力行善；再把世人的奔逐、護持、散失、憎嫉、報復、疑謗與昏闇逐層照出，最後回到端身、正行、洗心、忠信與相互救濟。
曇鸞《往生論註》把願生的方向判得很明：行者「不求自身住持之樂，欲拔一切眾生苦故」〔T40n1819 0842a22〕。故本段勸人棄世事，不是棄置親屬和眾生，而是棄除令身心被財愛、瞋怨、愚癡役使之事；修善也不止於自保，經文明說人能自度，還要轉相拯濟。
四、本段釋要
本段依科轉與經次第可分七層：
- 結勝而直勸：彼國聲聞、菩薩功德智慧不可稱，國土安樂清淨；佛因此勸人勤善願生，橫截五惡趣，入無窮道。易往而無人不是保證不修而生，而是哀其少有人真肯修因。
- 貪求之苦：第一科轉後先說世人爭不急事。無論貴賤貧富，有者怕失、無者求得；田宅畜產、衣食什物令人勤求、守護、散失，身心不得安穩，命終又一物不隨。
- 瞋怨之苦：佛勸家屬相敬相愛、有無相通、言色和順。微小憎嫉若含毒不捨，後世轉劇成怨；各人獨生獨死、自受善惡，彼此難再相值，故當趁強健時修善願度世。
- 愚癡之苦：不信善因善果、生死相續與惠施得福，代代相承無明；恩愛憂念又使人不能端心行道。貪、瞋、癡遂發為殺毒惡業，受苦難出。
- 正勸與領解：第二科轉後，佛勸熟思、遠惡、擇善、趁佛在世精進願生，並開許疑者當面請問。彌勒領受佛語，歎佛慈恩、智慧與教化，聞無量壽佛名而心開。
- 重勸修捨：佛印可彌勒，說值佛聞法難；再勸厭離生老病死，端身正行、洗除心垢、言行相應、自度度他、積累善本。後得安樂不是縱欲之樂，而是永拔貪恚癡與生死根本；故又戒疑惑中悔。
- 總標五惡業苦：彌勒答願奉行不疑。第三科轉隨即轉到此世端心正意之難能，總標佛於五惡、五痛、五燒中教眾生捨惡持善。五項別釋留在下一單元，本段只到總綱。
五、諸家異釋（分欄並錄）
| 義位 | 憬興《連義述文贊》T1748 | 慧遠《義疏》T1745 | 曇鸞《往生論註》T1819 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 易往而無人 | 先破把易往簡化成勝劣比較之說，落在難生中之易：專求者一念十念得生，而久習纏蓋者少修其因 | 依勸往生之文說其國易往而世人少有修因，著重勸人棄穢求淨 | 不逐句解此語；以願生必發菩提心、防止只貪自身受樂補其行向 |
| 娑婆三過 | 依貪、瞋、癡三門，貪又分求、守、失，瞋明結怨受報，癡明不信因果與承習無明 | 同以貪欲、瞋恚、愚癡解娑婆穢惡，並續接勸修與五惡業苦 | 以智慧、慈悲、方便三門遠離貪著自身、無安眾生與求己供養三障 |
| 勸修內容 | 熟思、離惡、擇善、請問、聞法、斷疑依四重勸領展開 | 自度、度他與積善相續，後接業苦總標 | 願以己功德施一切眾生共向佛道；攝眾生同生安樂國是無上方便 |
| 五惡總標 | 五惡為殺、盜、邪婬、妄語、飲酒；五痛判現世華報，五燒判三途果報 | 在下一科逐項解釋五惡、五痛、五燒，並另起勸修 | 不逐文判五惡，重在以三清淨心順菩提門 |
憬興對「自然之所牽」〔T12n0360 0274b24〕並存二讀：先釋為「久習纏蓋，自然為之牽縛不往」〔T37n1748 0163c08〕，又記「因滿果熟，不假功用，自然招致」〔T37n1748 0163c09〕而明言「義亦可也」〔T37n1748 0163c10〕。慧遠取娑婆眾生習於蓋纏、自然被牽縛不去一讀〔T37n1745 0112a09〕。依上下文，今以牽縛不往為主讀，同時保留憬興許可的因熟自然招致一讀，不把古釋寫成一致。
諸說都要求願生與實際斷惡修善相應；對易往、五痛五燒的細判並不完全相同。本目並列各家證據，不以一說消除其他古釋。
六、術語
| 名相 | 本段義界 |
|---|---|
| 念道之自然 | 念及修道所得的自然利益。此處不可斷成任運無行；上下文明說力為善、勤精進與自求之。 |
| 橫截五惡趣 | 往生而頓離五道流轉。憬興不採把女人列作惡趣之解，也不把下文五惡之因直接等同五趣之果。 |
| 易往而無人 | 國土不逆願生者，然而少有人真修其因；不是說國中無人，也不是無條件得生。 |
| 不急之事 | 相對生死大事而說的世俗爭逐，不是說衣食照護全無必要；經所斥是為貪心驅使、終無安時。 |
| 曼佛在世／曼強健時 | 曼有趁、及之義：趁佛住世、趁身尚強健而修，不待無常逼至。 |
| 自度、轉相拯濟 | 端身正行不止自利，並使他人同離惡修善；正與願生不為自身求樂相應。 |
| 邊地七寶宮殿 | 疑惑中悔者所生之處，五百歲中有見聞三寶之障；本段只作勸捨疑惑，不在此詳判下一單元的胎化問答。 |
| 五惡、五痛、五燒 | 本段末僅總標所捨惡因及苦報；逐項內容自下一單元起，不應提前把後文全數搬入。 |
七、譬喻·修辭
本段少用單一長譬喻，主要以反覆、對舉與迫問成勢。貧與富、有與無、尊與卑都落在同樣憂網；獨生、獨死、獨去、獨來連用四個獨字，截斷人以親愛財物代受業果的幻想；父哭子、子哭父又把無常的次序顛倒呈現。
佛反覆問為何不棄眾事、為何不求道、還等待什麼，並非以恐嚇代替修行，而是使讀者看見延宕本身正在耗盡強健與聞法因緣。三次科轉也形成修辭上的回環：先揭穢惡，再勸修捨；經領解後又重勸；領解奉行後再總標業苦，使聽懂、答應與實行不可混為一事。
八、徵引承衍
- 願生不求自樂：論註明說只因彼土樂而願生，若不發無上菩提心，便失願生正向。這使本段的安樂與長壽不落為延長自我享受。
- 三門除三障：依智慧不求自樂，依慈悲拔眾生苦，依方便憐愍眾生；三門分別對治貪著自身、置眾生不安於不顧、求自身供養恭敬。
- 三清淨心：無染心不為自己求樂，安心拔一切眾生苦，樂心令眾生得大菩提並攝生彼國。三者把本經自度、相濟與願生合為一向。
- 智慧與方便不相離：論註說智慧方便相緣而動、相緣而靜；本經亦非只叫人厭世，還要在世端身正行、言行相應、轉相拯濟。
九、校本定位
本單元底本為 T12n0360 0274b18–0275c24，抽取帳記 14 個段落、正文二千三百二十一字；底層 XML 有三十則校勘項，分布於二十九個異讀位，正文 gaiji 與行內註均為零。所誌異讀包括安養／安樂、趣／道、獲／得、俱／居、夭／天、相／想、曼／遇、政／正、教誡／教戒及潔體／潔淨等；本文守底本，不以異讀改寫正文。
本段起於佛告彌勒彼國人土勝妙，止於持五善所得福德與度世長壽。以上三處都是單元內的主鏡科轉；09/10 單元界則落在五惡總標與逐項別釋之間，故本段不提前納入殺生等五項詳文。
T361、T362 的平行段均逐場景定位；T363、T310 會五則在讀畢 08 收束、11 起首及後續流通後，確認本段零命中。此負命題的範圍只限 09_quanshan 之獨立場景，不推成兩譯全經沒有勸善、勸信或持戒文字。各本有無、次序及條目差異，只作文本現象誌錄。
Placement of the passage as a whole. This passage turns from the excellences of the beings and land there to the assembly in this land. The Buddha first exhorts the listeners to seek birth in that land. He then reveals the suffering of the Sahā realm through anxiety over possessions, anger and resentment among relations, and the delusion of wrong views. Afterward, he exhorts Maitreya to cultivate good and relinquish doubt. At the end, the general heading of the five evils, five pains, and five burnings leads into their item-by-item explanation in the next unit. This is not a generic injunction to be a good person. It joins disenchantment and relinquishment, cultivation of good, the aspiration for birth in that land, hearing the Dharma, severing doubt, and mutual rescue into one path.
I. Doctrinal-Outline Placement
Jingxing’s Linked-Meaning Expository Praise on the Sūtra of Measureless Life takes this passage as opening the exhortation to birth in that land. It first concludes the excellences of the beings and the joy of the land there, and then directly exhorts the listeners to seek birth. Three explicit changes of division follow within the unit, and all three must be recorded:
- First transition. At 「然世人薄俗，共諍不急之事」—“Yet people of the world are shallow and vulgar, contending together over matters of no urgency” 〔T12n0360 0274b26〕, T360 turns to the defilement of the Sahā realm. The principal commentary classifies this as 「第二、申娑婆穢惡令人厭捨」—“Second, revealing the defiled evils of the Sahā realm so that people will become disenchanted and relinquish them” 〔T37n1748 0164a07〕. Its four parts appear at
0164a07–0164a10: revealing the faults of the afflictions, exhorting cultivation and relinquishment, revealing the faults of evil karma, and again exhorting cultivation and relinquishment. - Second transition. At 「我今語汝世間之事」—“I will now speak to you about the affairs of the world” 〔T12n0360 0275b02〕, the principal commentary classifies the passage as 「此第二、勸人脩捨」—“This second part exhorts people to cultivate and relinquish” 〔T37n1748 0165a20〕. Its four parts appear at
0165a20–0165a22: the direct exhortation, Maitreya’s reception and understanding, the repeated exhortation, and his repeated reception and understanding. - Third transition. At 「汝等能於此世端心正意」—“You are able in this world to make the mind upright and the intention correct” 〔T12n0360 0275c17〕, the principal commentary classifies the passage as 「第三、廣舉業苦令人厭捨」—“Third, extensively setting forth the suffering of karma so that people will become disenchanted and relinquish it” 〔T37n1748 0166a15〕. Its two parts appear at
0166a15–0166a19: first praising the understanding and practice just expressed, and then giving the general heading of the five evils, five pains, and five burnings. Their separate explanations begin in the next unit.
Huiyuan’s Commentary likewise makes the passage beginning with “people of the world are shallow and vulgar” the second part within his threefold division of the renewed gathering-in of people below, explaining the defiled evils of the Sahā realm so that they will become disenchanted and relinquish them. At the end of this unit, he also confirms the transition to the extensive presentation of the five evils, five pains, and five burnings. The two commentaries thus corroborate the major changes of division within the passage. This apparatus records those divisions without using them to recut the unit.
II. Collation with the Alternate Translations (Four Translations and One Assembly) — recorded without adjudication
| Witness | Corresponding range | Result of collation |
|---|---|---|
| T361 | 0293a06–0295b13 | A complete scene of exhortation to good is present. It first tells Ayita and the assembly the practice for those who aspire to birth in that land, then unfolds worldly affairs, relations and resentments, good and evil, and repeated admonitions. Its opening anchor is 「諸欲生無量清淨佛國」—“Those who wish to be born in the immeasurable pure buddha-realm” 〔T12n0361 0293a07〕. |
| T362 | 0311a18–0313b25 | This is the same general kind of scene as T361, with a clearer arrangement of the ten good deeds and fasting and precepts. Its opening anchor is 「諸欲往生阿彌陀佛國者」—“Those who wish for birth in Amitābha Buddha’s realm” 〔T12n0362 0311a19〕. |
| T363 | No match for this passage | Unit 08 has been read through its close at 0325a06; the next line, 0325a07, immediately enters the unit 11 scene of paying homage to the Buddha and seeing the land. The later exhortation to believe and uphold belongs to the unit 12 transmission and is not counted again as unit 09. The adjacent closing sentence is 「此諸菩薩，我土五濁之所無有，經百千俱胝劫說不能盡。」—“These bodhisattvas do not exist in my land of the five turbidities; even if I spoke for hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas, I could not exhaust their description” 〔T12n0363 0325a05〕. |
| T310, Assembly Five | No match for this passage | Unit 08 has been read through its close at 0099c07; at 0099c08, Ānanda is immediately instructed to pay homage and behold Ultimate Bliss, entering unit 11. The later exhortation to uphold belongs to unit 12 and is not retroactively inserted here. The adjacent closing sentence is 「阿難！我今略說彼極樂界所生菩薩摩訶薩眾真實功德悉皆如是。」—“Ānanda! I have now spoken briefly: the true merits of the assembly of bodhisattva-mahāsattvas born in that realm of Ultimate Bliss are all such as these” 〔T11n0310 0099c03〕. |
The two findings of no match are negative claims reached by reading the neighboring passages scene by scene, with attention to speaker and audience; they were not produced by searching T360 keywords. T363 and T310, Assembly Five, still contain exhortations to faith elsewhere. They simply do not contain an independently corresponding discourse scene for this unit, so a passage from the later transmission section must not be counted twice.
III. Scriptural and Treatise Grounding (the “eye”)
The “eye” of this passage is that the good leading to birth in that land cannot be constituted by a private desire for pleasure there or by flight from responsibility in this world. Having described the excellence of the beings and land there, the Buddha immediately asks why people do not exert themselves fully in doing good. He then illuminates, layer by layer, worldly pursuit, possessiveness, loss, hatred, retaliation, doubt and slander, and benightedness. Finally, he returns to making one’s bearing upright, practicing correctly, cleansing the mind, speaking faithfully, and rescuing one another.
Tanluan’s Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land makes the direction of the aspiration for birth in that land explicit. The practitioner acts 「不求自身住持之樂，欲拔一切眾生苦故」—“not seeking the pleasure of sustaining his own existence, but wishing to pull all sentient beings out of suffering” 〔T40n1819 0842a22〕. The exhortation to abandon worldly affairs therefore does not mean abandoning one’s relations or other sentient beings. It means abandoning the affairs through which the mind and body are enslaved by attachment to wealth, angry resentment, and delusion. Nor does cultivating good stop at protecting oneself. The sūtra expressly says that one who delivers oneself should go on to rescue others in turn.
IV. Essentials of the Commentary on This Passage
According to the transitions in the doctrinal outline and the sequence of the sūtra, this passage can be read in seven layers:
- Concluding the excellences and exhorting directly. The merit and wisdom of the śrāvakas and bodhisattvas in that land are beyond reckoning, and the land is peaceful, blissful, and pure. The Buddha therefore exhorts people to cultivate good diligently, aspire to birth in that land, cut across the five evil destinies, and enter the inexhaustible path. “Easy to reach, yet no one is there” is not a guarantee of birth without cultivation. It laments how few people are truly willing to cultivate the cause.
- The suffering of craving and pursuit. After the first transition, the Buddha first describes people contending over matters of no urgency. Noble or lowly, poor or rich, those who have possessions fear losing them and those who lack them seek to acquire them. Fields, houses, livestock, clothing, food, and utensils keep people laboring to obtain, protect, or recover what is dispersed. Body and mind never become secure, and at death not one thing follows them.
- The suffering of anger and resentment. The Buddha exhorts family members to respect and cherish one another, share what they have and lack, and keep speech and expression harmonious. If the poison of even slight hatred or jealousy is harbored and not relinquished, it becomes an intensified grievance in later lives. Each person is born alone, dies alone, goes alone, and comes alone, personally receiving the results of good and evil; it is difficult for people to encounter one another again. They should therefore cultivate good and aspire to transcend the world while they are still strong and healthy.
- The suffering of delusion. People do not believe in good causes and good results, the continuity of birth and death, or the merit gained through generosity, and ignorance is inherited from generation to generation. Affection, anxiety, and attachment further keep them from making the mind upright and practicing the path. Greed, anger, and delusion consequently issue in killing, poisoning, and other evil karma, bringing suffering from which escape is difficult.
- The direct exhortation and its reception. After the second transition, the Buddha exhorts the listeners to ponder carefully, stay far from evil, choose good, and, while the Buddha remains in the world, strive vigorously and aspire to birth in that land. Those with doubts are invited to ask him directly. Maitreya receives the Buddha’s words, praises his compassion, wisdom, and teaching activity, and opens his mind upon hearing the name of the Buddha of Measureless Life.
- The repeated exhortation to cultivation and relinquishment. The Buddha affirms Maitreya and explains how difficult it is to encounter a buddha and hear the Dharma. He again exhorts the listeners to become disenchanted with birth, old age, illness, and death; make their bearing upright and their practice correct; cleanse the defilements of the mind; make speech and conduct correspond; deliver themselves and others; and accumulate roots of goodness. The peace and bliss gained afterward are not the pleasure of indulging desire, but the permanent removal of greed, anger, delusion, and the root of birth and death. For this reason, he again warns against doubt and regret.
- The general heading of the suffering caused by the five evils. Maitreya replies that he will respectfully practice without doubt. The third transition immediately turns to how rare and difficult it is to make the mind upright and the intention correct in this world, then gives the general heading of how the Buddha teaches sentient beings amid the five evils, five pains, and five burnings to abandon evil and maintain good. The separate explanations of the five are reserved for the next unit; this passage reaches only the general outline.
V. Divergent Readings of the Commentators — recorded without adjudication
| Doctrinal position | Jingxing, Linked-Meaning Expository Praise, T1748 | Huiyuan, Commentary, T1745 | Tanluan, Commentary on the Treatise on Birth in That Land, T1819 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy to reach, yet no one is there | First rejects reducing “easy to reach” to a comparison between superior and inferior realms, and locates it in what is easy within difficult birth: those who seek single-mindedly gain birth in one thought or ten thoughts, while those long habituated to envelopment cultivate little of its cause | In explaining the exhortation to birth in that land, says that the land is easy to reach but few people in the world cultivate the cause, emphasizing the exhortation to abandon the defiled and seek the pure | Does not comment on this phrase word by word; supplements its practical direction by requiring those who aspire to birth in that land to arouse the aspiration for awakening, guarding against craving only their own pleasure |
| Three faults of the Sahā realm | Uses the three gates of greed, anger, and delusion. Greed is further divided into seeking, guarding, and losing; anger explains forming resentments and receiving retribution; delusion explains disbelief in cause and result and the inherited habit of ignorance | Likewise explains the defiled evils of the Sahā realm through craving, anger, and delusion, then continues into the exhortation to cultivate and the suffering of the five kinds of evil karma | Through the three gates of wisdom, compassion, and skillful means, removes the three obstructions of attachment to oneself, failure to bring peace to sentient beings, and seeking offerings for oneself |
| Content of the exhortation | Careful reflection, leaving evil, choosing good, asking questions, hearing the Dharma, and severing doubt unfold through four successive exchanges of exhortation and reception | Self-deliverance, delivering others, and continuous accumulation of good, followed by the general heading of the suffering of karma | Vows to bestow one’s own merit upon all sentient beings so that all may together proceed toward the Buddha path; gathering sentient beings so that they are born together in the Land of Peace and Bliss is the unsurpassed skillful means |
| General heading of the five evils | Takes the five evils as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and drinking intoxicants; the five pains are classified as their present-life deferred results, and the five burnings as their results in the three evil destinies | Explains the five evils, five pains, and five burnings item by item in the next division, and separately begins another exhortation to cultivate | Does not classify the five evils passage by passage, but emphasizes following the gate to awakening through the three pure minds |
Jingxing preserves two readings of 「自然之所牽」—“naturally drawn along” 〔T12n0360 0274b24〕. He first explains it as 「久習纏蓋，自然為之牽縛不往」—“Having long been habituated to envelopment, they are naturally bound by it and do not go” 〔T37n1748 0163c08〕. He then records the reading 「因滿果熟，不假功用，自然招致」—“When the cause is full and the result ripens, without requiring deliberate effort it is naturally brought about” 〔T37n1748 0163c09〕, and expressly says 「義亦可也」—“This meaning is also admissible” 〔T37n1748 0163c10〕. Huiyuan adopts the first reading, in which sentient beings of the Sahā realm are habituated to the coverings and bonds and are naturally bound by them so that they do not go 〔T37n1745 0112a09〕. In light of the immediate context, the present translation takes being bound and not going as its primary reading while retaining the alternate reading, accepted by Jingxing, in which a fulfilled cause and ripened result are naturally brought about. It does not present the ancient interpretations as unanimous.
All three explanations require the aspiration for birth in that land to correspond to actually severing evil and cultivating good. Their finer classifications of “easy to reach” and of the five pains and five burnings are not entirely the same. This topic sets out each master’s evidence without using one interpretation to erase the others.
VI. Terms
| Term | Grounded sense and range |
|---|---|
| Reflecting on the natural benefit of the path | To reflect on the natural benefit obtained through cultivating the path. It must not be divided so as to imply spontaneous attainment without practice: the immediate context expressly says to exert oneself in doing good, strive vigorously, and personally seek it. |
| Cutting across the five evil destinies | Through birth in that land, abruptly leaving cyclic passage through the five destinies. Jingxing does not accept an interpretation that counts women as an evil destiny, nor does he directly equate the causes of the five evils below with the results that are the five destinies. |
| Easy to reach, yet no one is there | The land does not resist those who aspire to birth there, yet few people truly cultivate its cause. It does not mean that the land has no inhabitants, or that birth is attained without conditions. |
| Matters of no urgency | Worldly contention, considered in relation to the great matter of birth and death. This does not mean that clothing, food, and care are wholly unnecessary. What the sūtra criticizes is being driven by craving and never having a moment of peace. |
| While the Buddha is in the world / while one is still strong and healthy | The word translated “while” has the sense of taking the opportunity while it remains: cultivate while the Buddha dwells in the world and while the body is still strong, rather than waiting until impermanence presses close. |
| Deliver oneself / rescue others in turn | Making one’s bearing upright and one’s practice correct does not stop at personal benefit; it also enables others to leave evil and cultivate good. This accords directly with aspiring to birth in that land without seeking pleasure for oneself. |
| Palace of the seven precious substances in the borderland | The place of birth for those who doubt and later regret, where for five hundred years they meet an obstruction to seeing and hearing the Three Jewels. This passage invokes it only to exhort the relinquishment of doubt; it does not adjudicate here the questions of womb-birth and transformation-birth treated in the next unit. |
| Five evils, five pains, and five burnings | At the end of this passage, these are only the general heading of the evil causes to be relinquished and their painful results. Their item-by-item content begins in the next unit and must not be moved forward in full. |
VII. Similes and Rhetoric
This passage employs few extended similes. Its force comes chiefly from repetition, paired contrasts, and urgent questioning. Poor and rich, having and lacking, noble and lowly all fall within the same net of anxiety. “Born alone, die alone, go alone, come alone” repeats “alone” four times, severing the fantasy that beloved relations or possessions can receive the results of one’s karma in one’s place. A father weeping for a child and a child weeping for a father then overturn the expected order of impermanence.
The Buddha repeatedly asks why people do not relinquish their many affairs, why they do not seek the path, and what they are still waiting for. This does not replace practice with intimidation. It makes the reader see that delay itself is exhausting the conditions of bodily strength and hearing the Dharma. The three transitions in the doctrinal outline also form a rhetorical return: first defiled evil is exposed, then cultivation and relinquishment are exhorted; after the teaching is received and understood, the exhortation is repeated; after it is again received with a pledge to practice, the suffering of karma is given as a general heading. Hearing, agreeing, and practicing cannot thereby be confused with one another.
VIII. Citation and Carrying Forward
- Aspiring to birth in that land is not seeking pleasure for oneself. The Commentary on the Treatise expressly says that if one aspires to birth there only because that land is joyful, without arousing the aspiration for unsurpassed awakening, one loses the right direction of that aspiration. This keeps the peace, bliss, and long life in the present passage from becoming an extension of self-enjoyment.
- Three gates remove three obstructions. Wisdom prevents seeking pleasure for oneself; compassion pulls sentient beings out of suffering; skillful means takes pity upon sentient beings. These three gates respectively remedy attachment to oneself, indifference to sentient beings’ lack of peace, and seeking offerings and reverence for oneself.
- Three pure minds. The undefiled mind does not seek pleasure for itself; the peaceful mind pulls all sentient beings out of suffering; the joyful mind enables sentient beings to attain great awakening and gathers them for birth in that land. The three join self-deliverance, mutual rescue, and the aspiration for birth in that land into a single direction.
- Wisdom and skillful means are inseparable. The Commentary on the Treatise says that wisdom and skillful means move in mutual dependence and become still in mutual dependence. The present sūtra likewise does not merely command people to become disgusted with the world. While still in it, they must make their bearing upright and their practice correct, make speech and conduct correspond, and rescue one another in turn.
IX. Placement Among the Recensions
The base text of this unit is T12n0360 0274b18–0275c24. The extraction record contains fourteen paragraphs and 2,321 characters of body text. The underlying XML contains thirty collation entries distributed across twenty-nine variant loci, with no gaiji or inline notes in the body. Recorded variants include Peace and Nourishment against Peace and Bliss; destiny against path; acquire against obtain; together against dwell; premature death against heaven; characteristic against thought; while against encounter; govern against correct; admonition against precept; and cleanse the body against cleanse and purify. The present text follows the base text and does not rewrite it from the variants.
This passage begins when the Buddha tells Maitreya of the excellence of the beings and land there and ends with the merit gained by maintaining the five good deeds and with transcending the world and attaining long life. The three points identified above are all principal-commentary transitions within the unit. The boundary between units 09 and 10 lies between the general heading of the five evils and their item-by-item explanation. Accordingly, this passage does not prematurely include the detailed treatment of killing and the other four evils.
The parallel passages in T361 and T362 have each been located scene by scene. For T363 and T310, Assembly Five, the finding of no match for this passage follows from reading the end of unit 08, the opening of unit 11, and the later transmission section. The scope of this negative claim is limited to an independent scene corresponding to 09_quanshan; it is not expanded into a claim that either translation contains no exhortation to good, faith, or observance anywhere in the sūtra. Presence, absence, sequence, and differences of itemization among the recensions are recorded only as textual phenomena.