Boundless Magnificence
From Amitabha Buddha’s Great Vow 39
Boundless Magnificence
Amitabha Buddha’s Great Vow 39
Sakyamuni Buddha speaks of the monk Dharmakara, his practice, and his forty-eight vows before he became Amitabha Buddha. Excerpted from the Infinite Life Sutra:
When I become a Buddha, all things in my land will be magnificent, pure, bright, and resplendent. Their shapes and colors will be splendidly unique, exquisite in detail, and wondrous beyond description and measure. If the beings who possess the heavenly eye are able to distinguish the shapes, colors, radiance, names, and numbers, and describe these clearly, I will not attain perfect enlightenment.
- Vow 39. Boundless magnificence.
The thirty-ninth to forty-third vows discuss the virtues and merits of Amitabha Buddha’s land. These vows focus on the magnificent living environment of the Western Pure Land.
In the sentence “When I became a Buddha, all things in my land will be magnificent, pure, bright, and resplendent,” “my land” refers to the Pure Land and “all things” refers to the living environment.
The Buddha told us about the origins of life and the universe. The environment is the dependent reward. It changes according to the proper reward, which refers to living beings. The material things in our world are not very pure. Why not? The sentient beings living in this world do not have a pure mind.
The Pure Land is different.
First, Amitabha Buddha’s mind is pure. Additionally, anyone who goes to the Pure Land also has a pure mind. Without a pure mind, one cannot go to the Pure Land.
How do we get a pure mind?
In everything we do, we need to chant and do so properly.
What is chanting properly?
When we are chanting properly, the mind subdues wandering thoughts, discriminations, and attachments. Such a mind is pure.
The minds of the beings in the Pure Land are so pure that their living environment is peerlessly “magnificent, pure.” “Magnificent, pure” is the essence of “all things in my land.” Everything in the Pure Land is made of precious gems. The expanse of this land is beyond measure! It is infinitely greater than Earth. Our world is composed of dirt and stone; it is not pure. The ground in the Pure Land is transparent green jade, which is very precious. People use green jadeite to set a ring and think it is very rare and beautiful. But in the Pure Land, it is the ground that the bodhisattvas walk on!
The ground is also transparent emerald. One can see far into its depths. We read in the sutras that the roads in the Pure Land are paved with gold. In our world, emeralds are opaque and roads are paved with asphalt and concrete. People in our world think the gems here are very beautiful. But to the bodhisattvas in the Pure Land, our gems look very common.
Everything in the Pure Land is made of precious gems, thus everything is “bright, and resplendent. Their shapes and colors will be splendidly unique, exquisite in detail, and wondrous beyond description and measure.”
Their appearances are so exceptional that one cannot find them in this world. Nothing here can compare to what we will see in the Pure Land. This is because everything there comes from the true nature — it is the realization of the virtues within the true nature. The wonders are incredibly varied in types and varieties, and their quantity is incalculable. It is beyond imagination.
All the bodhisattvas in the Pure Land have the heavenly eye, which is supported by Amitabha Buddha. And still, even if they all come together to categorize and calculate the things in the Pure Land, they cannot distinguish all “the shapes, colors, radiance, names, and numbers, and describe these clearly.”
The bodhisattvas cannot count them all, nor can they describe the wonders for they are beyond description.
Only the Buddhas can distinguish all the wonders.
This is but a brief glimpse of the beauty and marvels of the physical environment of the Pure Land.
>> Learn more: The Initiation, Amitabha Buddha’s Forty-eight Vows
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Dedication of Merit
May the merits and virtues accrued from this work
adorn the Buddha’s pure land,
repay the four kinds of kindness above,
and relieve the sufferings of those in the three paths below.
May all those who see and hear of this
bring forth the bodhi mind
and at the end of this life,
be born together in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.
Note: The above is excerpted from the book “Awakening the Bodhi Mind: Amitabha Buddha’s Forty-Eight Vows”, which is available for download at eLibrary collection, Amitabha Gallery.
The Amitabha Buddha’s forty-eight vows is derived from the Chinese verses of the Infinite Life Sutra, that we are immensely grateful to the compilation efforts by Mr Xia Lianju. Translation credits go to The Pure Land Translation Team, Pure Land College Press.
