by Tien Tai Patriarch Chih I
Translated by Master Thich Thien Tam
The Bodhisattva Maitreya is a One-Life Bodhisattva who is now in the Tusita Heaven. He will succeed Buddha Sakyamuni and become a Buddha in the future. I venture to think that we should cultivate the loftier aspects of the Ten Virtues and seek to be reborn in the Tusita Heaven, to see Him in person. （45）When the time comes for Him to descend to earth and become a Buddha, we will follow Him and certainly achieve Sagehood in the course of His three teaching assemblies. Therefore, where is the need to seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land?
Answer
Seeking rebirth in the Tusita Heaven could be considered equivalent to hearing the Dharma and seeing the Buddha. It seems very similar to seeking rebirth in the Western Pure Land. However, upon close scrutiny, there are many great differences between the two. Let us cite two points for the sake of discussion.
A) Even though we may cultivate the Ten Virtues, it is not certain that we will achieve rebirth in the Tusita Heaven. As stated in the sutras:
“The practitioner must cultivate the various samadhi and enter deeply into right concentration to obtain rebirth in the Inner Court of the Tusita Heaven.”
From that we can deduce that the Bodhisattva Maitreya lacks the expedient of “welcoming and escorting”. This cannot be compared to the power of Amitabha Buddha’s Original Vow and His power of light, which can gather in and rescue all sentient beings who concentrate on Him.
Moreover, when Buddha Sakyamuni explained the meaning of the “welcoming and escorting” expedient in his exposition of the nine grades of rebirth, he earnestly enjoined sentient beings to seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land. This expedient is very simple. The practitioner need only recite the name of Amitabha Buddha and, thanks to the congruence of sentiment and response, he will immediately achieve rebirth. This is analogous to an enlistment campaign: those who wish to join the army may do so immediately, as their desire parallels the goal of the state.
B) Secondly, the Tusita Heaven is, after all, still within the Realm of Desire (to which our Saha World also belongs). Therefore, those who retrogress are legion. In that Heaven, the birds, rivers, forests, trees, wind ... do not preach the Dharma and thus cannot help sentient beings destroy afflictions, focus on the Triple Jewel nor develop the Bodhi Mind. Moreover, in that realm, there are goddesses who kindle the five desires in the Minds of
celestial beings, to the point where few of them escape distraction and infatuation.
How can this be compared to the Western Pure Land, (46) where the trees and birds proclaim the wonderful Dharma and the wind sings enlightenment, destroying the afflictions of sentient beings and reinforcing the Bodhi Mind of practitioners? (47) Moreover, in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, there are no seductive beings (48) or beings concerned with self-enlightenment alone. There are only pure vessels of the Mahayana way. Therefore, afflictions and evil karma cannot arise. Under these circumstances, how can cultivators fail to achieve the stage of non-retrogression swiftly? (49) We have only drawn a few points of comparison, yet the differences between the Pure Land and the Tusita Heaven are already obvious. How can there be any further doubt or hesitation?
Moreover, seeing the Bodhisattva Maitreya and achieving the fruits of Arhatship is not necessarily a sure thing! During the lifetime of Buddha Sakyamuni, there were many who saw the Buddha but did not achieve Sagehood. In the future, when the Bodhisattva Maitreya appears in the world, the same will be true: countless sentient beings will see Him and listen to the Dharma but not attain Arhatship. Such is not the case in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha: to be reborn there is to be assured of attaining the Tolerance of Non-Birth, with no possible retrogression to the Triple World nor bondage to the karma of Birth and Death.
In the Accounts of the Western Land, (i.e., India), there is the story of three Bodhisattvas, Asanga, Vasabandhu and Simhabhadra, all of whom practiced meditation, determined to seek rebirth in the Tusita Heaven. They all vowed that if the first one of them to die were reborn in the Inner Court of the Tusita Heaven and saw the Bodhisattva Maitreya, he would return and inform the others. Simhabhadra died first, but a long time elapsed
and he still had not returned. Later, when Vasabandhu was nearing death, Asanga said to him, “After paying your respects to Maitreya, come back and let me know right away.” Vasabandhu died, but did not return for three years. Asanga inquired, “Why did it take you so long?” Vasabandhu answered, “After paying my respects to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, listening to His sermon and exhortations, and respectfully circumambulating Him three times, I came back immediately. I could not return sooner because a day and night in the Tusita Heaven is equivalent to four hundred years on earth.”
Asanga then asked, “Where is Simhabhadra now?” Vasabandhu replied, “He has strayed into the Outer Court of the Tusita Heaven, and is now entangled in the five pleasures. From the time of his death to now, he has been unable to see Maitreya.”
We can deduce from this anecdote that even lesser Bodhisattvas who are reborn in the Tusita Heaven are subject to delusion, not to mention common mortals. Therefore, practitioners who wish to be assured of non-retrogression should seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land rather than the Tusita Heaven.
_______________________________________
45. The purpose of seeing the Buddha is to be able to hear his teaching directly, rather than through intermediary sources such as sutras, commentaries, etc. Moreover, if cultivators are reborn in the Pure Land, as is said in the Surangama Sutra:
“They will never be far from the Buddha, and their Minds will awaken by themselves, without the aid of expedients. A person who has been near incense will carry a fragrance on his person ….” (Master Hsuan Hua, tr.)
46. The Perfection of Wisdom Treatise states:
“The Pure Land is not included in the Triple World…. It is the Bodhisattva Dharmakara’s special karma which brought this about. It exists extra-phenomenally and so we can call it subtle.” (T’an-Luan as quoted in Roger J. Corless, “Pure Land and Pure Perspective,” The Pure Land, December 1989)
47. To enlightened persons, everything reminds them (speaks) of the Dharma; thus, the metaphor of the birds, rivers, etc. speaking the Dharma. This is also a poetical way to describe rebirth among like-minded practitioners — among the “transcendental Sangha.” (Sangha = fraternity of monks and nuns.)
48. Buddhist sutras were written some twenty centuries ago, when the monastic order was mainly (though not exclusively) composed of monks. Therefore, the word actually used in the text, “women,” may, in this context, be understood as “seductive beings” rather than “female persons.”
“When investigating feminine imagery in Buddhist literature, it is important to keep in mind the social and cultural setting within which the teachings were given. The original texts themselves present a range of variant images, not contradictory in an absolute sense, but speaking to different audiences and to beings of different propensities. One point to be noted, for example, is that many of the discourses in these early texts were aimed at helping celibate males break through attachments to the female form. Had the Buddha been addressing celibate females, the defects of the male form would have been similarly elaborated.” (Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Daughters of the Buddha„ p.22)
49. See this beautiful account of the meeting between the Pure Land Patriarch T’an Lun (then a Taoist) and the famed translator/monk Bodhiruci:
“T’an Lun (488-554), seeking immortality, travelled about China obtaining teachings from various noted sages, including the Taoist master T’ao Hung-ching. Eventually (ca. 530) he met with the Indian Buddhist teacher Bodhiruci: ‘T’an Lun opened the conversation by saying “Is there anything in the Teaching of the Buddha which is superior to the methods for obtaining immortality found in this country’s scriptures on the immortals?’”
‘Bodhiruci spat on the ground and said, “What are you saying? There is no comparison! Where on this earth can you find a method for immortality? Suppose that you can obtain youth in your old age, and never die: even having done that, you would still be rolling around in the triple world!”’
‘So he gave him the Meditation Sutra and said, “These are the recipes of Amitabha Buddha: if you rely on his practices, you will be liberated from samsara.”’ (Raoul Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, p.241.)
related post: Question 8 （Ten Doubts about Pure Land）
Source Of Information:
《Pure Land Buddhism (Dialogues with Ancient Masters)》, by Tien Tai Patriarch Chih I, 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment