Question 14 （Doubts and Questions about Pure Land）

by Elder Zen Master T'ien Ju

Question 14

I now understand the reasons why the Western Pure Land and Amitabha Buddha have been singled out, as well as the concepts of subduing and converting, revulsion and fondness. However, I venture to think that the True Mind has always been equal, clear and even. If there is still revulsion and fondness, then there is still love and hate, grasping and rejection. Are we not still in error?

Answer

You raise this question because you still do not understand the issue in depth. This revulsion and fondness is not the mundane Mind of love and hate, but is rather the common method employed by all the Buddhas of the ten directions, to transform ordinary beings into sages. If there is no revulsion and rejection, how can common mortals be transformed? If there is no fondness and grasping, how can sagehood be attained?
    
Therefore, in the span of cultivation from ordinary person to sagehood and from sagehood to “Equal Enlightenment,” everything is within the cycle of grasping and rejection, revulsion and fondness. Only when the practitioner has attained the highest level of “Wonderful Enlightenment” will he be free of such feelings and enter the state of “Equal Thusness”[Buddhahood].(87) For this reason, the ancients have said:

   “At the beginning, cultivators should have feelings of grasping and rejection, in order to arrive at the point of no grasping and no rejection. When that grasping and rejection have reached the ultimate stage, they will be found to be the same as non-grasping and non-rejection.”(88)

Moreover, the Pure Land method was expediently devised by Buddha Sakyamuni and Buddha Amitabha, with Buddha
Sakyamuni exhorting people to seek rebirth and Buddha Amitabha playing the role of welcoming and escorting. If the Pure Land cultivator does not have feelings of revulsion and rejection, how can he leave the Saha World? If he does not have feelings of fondness and seeking, how can he be reborn in the Western Pure Land? To achieve rebirth is nothing more than to rely on the auspicious environment of that Land to achieve Buddhahood swiftly. Therefore, such grasping and rejection, revulsion and fondness are of great benefit; how can they possibly be considered liabilities? [See Note 52.]
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87. Equal Enlightenment and Wonderful Enlightenment are the very last stages of cultivation before the attainment of Buddhahood.                                               

88. “It is like lighting a fire on top of ice. As the fire intensifies, the ice will melt. When the ice melts, then the fire will go out. Those people of a lower grade of rebirth who rely on the power of reciting the Buddha’s name … even though they do not understand the birthlessness of the dharma nature, will attain the realm of birthlessness and will see the flame of rebirth spontaneously disappear at that time.” (The Patriarch  Tao Ch’o, as quoted in David W. Chappell, “Chinese Buddhist Interpretations of the Pure Land.” In Buddhist and Taoist Studies I, p.42)   

related post:  Question 15 （Doubts and Questions about Pure Land）

Source Of Information:
《Pure Land Buddhism (Dialogues with Ancient Masters)》, by Elder Zen Master T'ien Ju, translated with annotations by Master Thich Thien Tam, printed and donated for free distribution by: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation (11F, 55, Hang Chow South Road Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan), printed in February 2023.
*** The information provided above does not contain personal opinion of this blog.