by Elder Zen Master T'ien Ju
Question 4
The “gathering power” [i.e., teaching] of the Pure Land method is truly all-embracing — this foolish monk will no longer dare to comment upon it. However, I used to hear such expressions as “Self-Nature Amitabha, Mind-Only Pure Land,” and could not but secretly rejoice! （71）That was so until I glanced through the Pure Land sutras and commentaries and discovered that the Pure Land is the Land of Ultimate Bliss, ten billion Buddha lands from here, and that Amitabha Buddha is the teacher of that Land. Thus, there seems to be a contradiction: here [i.e., Mind-Only Pure Land] and there [i.e., Pure Land in the West] are quite distant, and outside the truth of Mind-Only Self-Nature! How shall I understand this question?
Answer
You still have a superficial and narrow understanding of the issue. Do you not know that your True Mind is all-extensive and all-illuminating? The Surangama Sutra states:
“The various mountains, rivers and continents, even the empty space outside our physical body, are all realms and phenomena within the wonderful, bright True Mind.”
It further states:
“Phenomena which are born — they are all manifestations of Mind-Only.”
Therefore, where can you find a Buddha land outside the Mind? Thus, the concept of Mind-Only Pure Land refers to the Pure Land within our True Mind. This is no different from the ocean, from which springs an untold number of bubbles, none of which is outside the wide ocean. It is also like the specks of dust in the soil, none of which is not soil. Likewise, there is no Buddha land which is not Mind. Therefore, sages and saints have said:
“This single Mind encompasses the four kinds of Lands in their totality: a) the Land of Common Residence of beings and saints; b) the Land of Expediency; c) the Land of True Reward and d) the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light (Eternal Serenity and Illumination)….” [The Land of Common Residence is further divided into the Common Residence Pure Land and the Common Residence Impure Land.](72)
The distinctions among the four lands are based on different levels of cultivation and achievement; however, they are in fact but one realm. The True Mind encompasses the ten thousand phenomena.(73) Lands as numerous as the specks of dust throughout the ten directions are none other than the realms in our own Mind; the countless Buddhas of the Three Periods of Time are also the Buddhas in our own Mind. Nothing exists outside our Self-Mind. Understanding this truth, we realize that there is no land which is established independently of our own Mind,
there is no Buddha who appears without relying on our nature. This being the case, how can the Western Pure Land ten billion Buddha lands away from here not be the Pure Land of Mind-Only?
The Land of Ultimate Bliss being thus, the Teacher of that Land is, likewise, Buddha Amitabha of the Self Nature. We should know that this Mind encompasses the totality of the Ten Realms, bodies and lands freely interpenetrating ad infinitum. We should know, further, that Mind, Buddha and sentient beings, while three, are in fact one: (74) they have the same Nature and are no different from one another. Sentient beings and Buddhas appear interchangeably, their thoughts meshing with one another’s ….
The realm of the True Mind, encompassing untold lands, can be likened to the Jewel Net of Indra described in the
Avatamsaka Sutra.
[This is a net said to hang in the palace of Indra, the king of the gods. At each interstice of the net is a reflecting jewel, which mirrors not only the adjacent jewels but the multiple images reflected in them. This famous image is meant to describe the unimpeded interpenetration of all and everything.](75)
The Western Pure Land, as well as each of the ten billion Buddha lands, resembles one of the jewels in Indra’s net.
On a more subtle level, throughout each and every land, from the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats down to animals, hungry ghosts and hells, each and every thing resembles one of the jewels. Buddha Amitabha himself is one of the jewels. Therefore, to see one Buddha is to see all the Buddhas of the ten directions as well as the nine realms of sentient beings throughout the ten directions. The multitude of Buddha lands, the ten directions of the past and present — the whole constitutes an “ocean seal,” “sudden and perfect.” There are no other dharmas.(76)
Thus, the “dusts” [sensory objects] throughout the ten billion Buddha lands are born by transformation precisely within our own Self-Mind. How can the “substance” [i.e., beings] which appears in the nine Lotus Grades [see Glossary] be separate from or outside the True Thusness Buddha? These explanations are the enlightened teachings of the Buddhas, Patriarchs, sages and saints. If we understand this truth, we will see that the Western Pure Land is Mind-Only, each Buddha land, each mote of dust, is also Mind-Only, Lord Amitabha Buddha is the Self-Nature, and each Buddha, each sentient being is also the Self-Nature.(77) Thus, what is there to
doubt?
Additional comments by Dharma Master Thien n Tâm
The Dharma Realm True Mind is an immensely broad and extensive state, encompassing an untold number of lands, Buddhas and sentient beings.
In that One True State, the aspect of lands and sentient beings, constantly in flux, pertains to the “Door of Birth and Death.” The silent and illuminating aspect — still, wonderful, clear, bright and everlasting — is called the “Door of True Thusness.”
The True Mind is a Common True State encompassing those two Doors, the conditioned and the unconditioned. All the following expressions refer to that True Nature: True Mind, Self-Nature, Buddha Nature, Womb of the Tathagata, Dharma Realm, Dharma Nature, True Mark, Nirvana, Dharma Body, Alaya Consciousness of the Tathagata, Original Face, Prajna, True Emptiness …
The Buddha taught two approaches for returning to that true nature. Such Dharma methods as Zen, Ti’en Ta’i (Tendai or Lotus School) and a division of the Esoteric School enter it through the Door of Emptiness. Other schools, such as the Pure Land School, the Avatamsaka School, the Vinaya (Discipline) School, as well as the Diamond Division of the Esoteric School do so through the Door of Existence.
Therefore, those who deeply understand the prajna truth of Zen, or the meaning of the Ten Mysterious Gates of the Avatamsaka School, all clearly realize that form is no different from emptiness, emptiness is no different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. On the other hand, those who lack thorough understanding will cling to emptiness unless they cling to existence.
However, clinging to existence at least makes the practitioner fear cause and effect, avoid transgressions and perform good deeds, which leads to auspicious rebirth in human and celestial realms — or in the Western Pure Land (in the case of diligent practitioners of Buddha Recitation). On the other hand, if he clings to emptiness, he will end up denigrating cause and effect and rejecting the Buddhas and sages. Thus, he will descend, in the future, upon the Three Evil Paths. Therefore, the ancients have cautioned:
“It is better to be attached to existence, though the attachment may be as great as Mount Sumeru, than to be attached to emptiness, though the attachment may be as small as a mustard seed.”(78)
The visiting Zen Master of our story did not yet clearly understand the True Mind. Therefore, as soon as he heard that “the Pure Land is Mind-Only, the Self-Nature is Amitabha Buddha,” he hastily concluded that our Mind, if pure, is precisely the Pure Land, is precisely Amitabha Buddha — and that there is no other Land of Bliss nor any Buddha called Amitabha. Such deluded individuals, attached to emptiness, can be found everywhere. In general, they reject the existence of Buddha Amitabha, the Western Pure Land, demonic or celestial realms, or else they say that the Bodhisattva Earth Store (Ksitigarbha) is the Mind-ground-Nature-store and there is no such Bodhisattva as Earth Store.(79)
This is not unlike wearing dark glasses and seeing everything in black. Regardless of how many Dharma talks such practitioners present or how many sutras or commentaries they compose or translate, ultimately they stray, developing the disease of attachment to emptiness.
These individuals are usually vain and conceited, considering themselves intelligent and lofty, while deprecating others as being attached to forms. In truth, when they write commentaries or translate sutras, they have the intention of propagating the Dharma, but, in the end, they vilify the Three Treasures [Buddha, Dharma, Sangha]
instead. Not only are they in the wrong, they mislead countless others as well. This is no different from an incompetent physician who wishes to help sentient beings, but, because his knowledge is not yet up to par, harms many patients instead.
Thus, translating sutras and lecturing on the Dharma do not necessarily bring merits nor constitute propagation of the Dharma, if the author goes astray and misses the intent of the sutras.
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71. In Mahayana Buddhism, be it Pure Land, Zen, etc., Amitabha Buddha, at the noumenon level, is our Enlightened
Self-Nature, all-illuminating and everlasting — just as He is the Buddha of Infinite Light and Infinite Life. Hence, the expression “Self-Nature Amitabha Buddha, Mind-Only Pure Land” represents the teaching that, if the Mind is pure, the environment, the land, is pure as well. This expression is popular in Zen.
72. Four kinds of Lands. A classification by the Pure Land and T’ien T’ai Schools of the various realms described in the sutras. They are:
i) the Land of Common Residence of Beings and Saints, where all beings, from the six lower worlds (hells, hungry ghosts …) to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, live together (further divided into two, the Common Residence Pure Land and Common Residence Impure Land);
ii) The Land of Expediency, inhabited by Arhats and lesser Bodhisattvas;
iii) the Land of True Reward, inhabited by the highest Bodhisattvas;
iv) the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light, in which the Buddhas dwell.
These distinctions are introduced as a heuristic device. At the noumenon level, there is, of course, no difference among them.
73. Ten thousand, ten billion, i.e., an infinite number.
74. This is a key Mahayana concept: “Mind, Buddha, sentient beings — the three are not different.”
75. For a description and explanation of Indra’s net, see Francis Cook, Hua-Yen Buddhism, p.2.
76. “Ocean seal,” “sudden and perfect,” are technical terms used in the Avatamsaka Sutra and other Mahayana sutras. The meaning of the paragraph can be summarized in the famous Avatamsaka teaching of “one in one, one in all, all in one, all in all,” everything interpenetrating freely ad infinitum.
77. See the Avatamsaka Sutra, Chap. 20:
“If one wishes to understand / All Buddhas of the three periods of time, / One should contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm: / Everything is made from the mind alone.” (tr. by Master Hsuan Hua.)
78. Very important concept.
79. “Some people say that the Pure Land is nothing but mind, that there is no Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss beyond the trillions of worlds of the cosmos. This talk of mind-only has its source in the words of the sutras, and is true, not false. But those who quote it in this sense are misunderstanding its meaning.
“Mind equals objects: there are no objects beyond mind. Objects equal mind: there is no mind beyond objects. Since objects are wholly mind, why must we cling to mind and dismiss objects? Those who dismiss objects when they talk of mind have not comprehended mind.” (Master Zhuhong, in J.C. Cleary, trans., Pure Land, Pure Mind.)
related post: Question 5 （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.
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