Sentient Beings and their Experiences in the Western Pure Land
Excerpts from the Commentary on the Amitabha Sutra, by Grand Master Ou-i
Grand Master Ou-i describes the sentient beings in the wonders of the Pure Land and what they receive. First, the sutra explains what they experience in terms of the five sense-faculties and five sense-objects.
Next, it explains this in terms of hearing and sounds. Again, the first part is divided into the explanation itself and the summary.
The sutra reads, “And there is more — celestial music is constantly playing in this Buddha-land, and the ground is made of pure gold. Heavenly flowers rain down at all hours of the day and night. In the morning the sentient beings of this land fill their robes with multitudes of wondrous flowers and make offerings to hundreds of billions of Buddhas in other worlds. When it is meal time, they return to their own land, to eat and circumambulate the teaching assembly.”
Music represents the sense-object sound, the ground represents the sense-object form, the flowers represent the two sense-objects form and scent, food represents the sense-object flavor, making offerings represents the sense-object touch. It is obvious that the sense-faculties of sentient beings in the Pure Land are paired with sense-objects to show that in the Pure Land there is only happiness.
The music is constantly playing, twenty-four hours a day. The ground is made of pure gold, because Amitabha’s Pure Land is a world adorned with precious things, whose basic substance is gold.
The sutra says that flowers rain down at all hours of the day and night. But since both the Pure Land and its inhabitants shine with light, and do not depend on sun and moon for illumination, how can there be a division of day and night? This is just said provisionally to accord with the distinctions we make in our mundane world.
The Sanskrit name for the flowers that rain down in the Pure Land (mandarava) means both “as we wish” and “white flowers”.
Making offerings to Buddhas in other worlds symbolizes that through having a true causal basis, we can attain the ultimate fruit (Buddhahood), and that the virtues of this ultimate attainment extend everywhere. Using the language of our mundane world, the sutra speaks of hundreds of billions of Buddhas. The idea is that after we are reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, we can make offerings to Sakyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha and if we are strengthened by the supernatural power of Amitabha, there is no place too far for us to reach.
The time for eating is in the morning, so the sutra says the inhabitants of the Pure Land return to their own land when it is time to eat to show their supernatural power of travel. They go to all the worlds in the Ten Directions without leaving their own land.
This passage shows that in the Pure Land every sound, every sense-object, every moment, and even every step and every snap of the fingers, interpenetrates without obstruction, and are in accord with the three Jewels [Buddha, Dharma and Sangha] of all the worlds of the Ten Directions.
It also shows that in our mundane world, the defilements and obstructions are so serious that our world is separated from the Land of Ultimate Bliss, even though it is not really separated from it. When we are reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, our virtues will be so great that we will be separated from this mundane world called “Endurance”, without really being separated from it …
The sutra sums things up: “The Land of Ultimate Bliss is complete with all these adornments and virtues.”
Next the sutra explains what is experienced in the Pure Land in terms of hearing sound. In fact, the Land of Ultimate Bliss encompasses the potential of the Dharmadhatu (cosmos). All the sense-objects are perfect and wondrous there, and produce all the teachings.
This passage in the sutra is also divided into two parts: a particular explanation, and a general summation. The particular explanation discusses the sounds that transform sentient beings, and the sounds that transform inanimate things. It tells of the sounds of the birds bringing the benefits of the Dharma, and then briefly answers a question.
Here is the first part: “And there is more still — in this land there are birds of all sorts of wondrous variegated colors: white cranes, peacocks, orioles, egrets, kalavinkas and jivanjivas. All these birds bring forth harmonious songs day and night. Their songs communicate such Buddhist teachings as the Five Roots, the Five Powers, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Eightfold Path, as well as other teachings.
When sentient beings in this land hear the singing of the birds, they become mindful of the Buddhas, mindful of the Dharma, and mindful of the Sangha [Community of monks and nuns].”
Although all Buddhist methods are subsumed under the Thirty-Seven Limbs of Enlightenment, the potentials and circumstances of sentient beings all differ, and so different forms of the Buddhist teaching have been devised, some open, some closed, using all sorts of terminology. The Teaching is expressed effectively to all sentient beings according to what they are ready to hear.
This enables those who hear the Teaching to become mindful of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. It enables them to develop the Bodhi Mind (aspiration for enlightenment for the benefit of self and others), and to put to an end to afflictions. They vividly see the inconceivable mercy and awe-inspiring character of the Buddha, so they become mindful of the enlightened ones. The joy of the Dharma enters their hearts and they are filled with the flavor of the Dharma, so they become mindful of the teaching of enlightenment. They listen to the teaching together, and accept it as a community, and wholeheartedly cultivate realization, so they become mindful of the community of seekers.
The three forms of contemplation (on emptiness, on relative reality, and on the mean) and the three objects of contemplation (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha) have different aspects but the same essence.
You should use the foregoing brief analysis of the difference among the Thirty-Seven Limbs of Enlightenment to understand the four levels of the Buddhist Teaching (elementary, common, special, and complete) and the three levels of truth (absolute, relative, and the mean).
In the next passage the sutra briefly answers a question:
“Do you think that these birds were born as birds due to karmic retribution for past misdeeds. Why not? In this Buddha-land, the Three Evil Planes of existence (as animals, hungry ghosts, and hell-beings) do not exist. In this Buddha-land even the names of the Evil Planes of Existence do not exist, much less the realities. All these birds are the creations of Amitabha Buddha, fashioned in order to sings the sounds of the Dharma.”
It is obvious that the sutra is answering possible objections that might be raised.
Ask: Are birds (as animals) not creatures belonging to one of the Evil Planes of existence?
[Master Ou-i] Answer: The birds in the Pure Land are not birds as a result of karmic retribution for having committed evil. They are called birds, but they are all communicating the ultimate merits of the Tathagatas. They can be called “birds of the ultimate”, and this is a beautiful appellation conveying their innate virtues, not some pejorative name [connoting creatures born in a low plane of existence].
Ask: What does it mean that these birds are fashioned by Amitabha?
[Master Ou-i] Answer: There are four reasons for this.
First, ordinary people take delight in these birds and can be taught by them, since this suits their feelings, and make them happy. Second, when the birds express the Dharma, they enable their listeners to become virtuous. Third, by making us realize that we should not think of these birds in a pejorative way, it counteracts our tendency to make arbitrary distinctions. Fourth, the birds are emanations of Amitabha, which lets us awaken to the everywhere-equal nature of the Dharma Body, which is inherent in everything and creates everything.
This passage shows us that all the sounds in the Pure Land, such as the sound of the breeze and the rustling of trees, as well as everything about the Pure Land environment and the Buddha who presides there, whether a provisional expedient or an absolute reality — all these beings are in their very essence identical to Amitabha Buddha with his Dharma Body, Reward Body, and Emanation Body. All these things are not different from Amitabha Buddha, who is eternal, blissful, personal, and pure.
“In this Buddha-land, there is a slight breeze that stirs the rows of jewel trees and jewel netting, so that they emit subtle wondrous sounds, like hundreds and thousands of melodies playing all at once. All those who hear these sounds spontaneously become mindful of the Buddha, mindful of the Dharma, and mindful of the Sangha.”
In the Pure Land, both sentient beings and inanimate things manifest the wondrous Dharma together, and simultaneously expound the innumerable methods of the elementary, common, special and complete teachings. They offer explanations to all beings according to their kind, enabling their audiences to become mindful of the Three Jewels — Buddha (the Enlightened One), Dharma (the Teaching of Enlightenment), and Sangha (the Community of Seekers).
By becoming mindful of the Three Jewels, sentient beings receive four benefits. When ordinary people first hear the teaching, their bodies experience delight: this is the benefit of joy. When their vital energy makes contact with the Three Jewels, they are sure to be able to develop the Bodhi Mind: this is the benefit of becoming virtuous. Using this virtue to conquer afflictions is the benefit of destroying evil. Awakening to the Three Jewels [Buddha, Dharma, Sangha] as one single essence is the benefit of understanding the Supreme Truth.
At this point the sutra sums up the foregoing presentation with the line:
“This Buddha-land is complete with all these adornments and virtues.”
The sutra sums things up again and again so that we can believe with profound faith that all the adornments of the Pure Land are brought into being by the vows and actions of our guide Amitabha, and manifested by his wisdom, and that they are also brought about by our own pure karma, as manifestations of consciousness. The Buddha-mind and the minds of sentient beings are reflections of each other, just as the lights of many lamps both individually reach everywhere and seem to merge into one. Inner truth as a whole forms phenomena, and phenomena as a whole are merged with inner truth. Our entire True Nature gives rise to genuine religious practice, and genuine religious practice in its entirety lies within our True Nature. This is something we should constantly ponder deeply.
How can anyone talk as if there another “Pure Land that is Mind Alone” apart from this Pure Land? If you do this you are indulging in empty babbling.
This is the end of the section in the sutra describing the wonders of the Pure Land.
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Source:
The above excerpt is a translation from the Chinese Commentary on the Amitabha Sutra written by Grand Master Ou-i. Translation comes from the book, Mind-Seal of the Buddhas.
To learn more about the Pure Land teachings from this commentary, read the complete text at The Commentary on The Amitabha Sutra.
Resources:
Five Pure Land Sutras from Pure Land Buddhism
Buddha-name Chanting Music Collection
