Editors' Foreword
Of all the forms of Buddhism currently practiced in Asia,
Pure Land has been the most widespread for the past thousand years. At the
core of this school is a text of great beauty and poetry, the Amitabha
Sutra, intoned every evening in countless temples and homes throughout the
Mahayana world. This important text shares with the Avatamsaka and Brahma
Net sutras the distinction of being among the few key scriptures preached
spontaneously by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, without the customary request
from the assembly.
Although several translations of the sutra itself are
available (the best known, by the renowned scholar Max Muller, dating from
1894), no major commentary appears to have been published in English. The
Van Hien Study Group is therefore privileged to be associated with J.C.
Cleary's present rendering of The Essentials of the Amitabha Sutra --
a seminal Chinese commentary by the T'ien-t'ai Master Ou-i (1599-1655),
later recognized as the ninth Patriarch of the Pure Land school.
***
To those pressed for time but hungry for solace, Pure Land
Buddhism offers the vision of a pure, idealistic realm, where Amitabha
Buddha has vowed to assist all those who sincerely call upon Him. Pure Land
literature tells the beautiful story of the Bodhisattva Dharmakara, the
future Buddha Amitabha,
who had for eons past been deeply moved by the
suffering of sentient beings and who had determined to establish a Land of
Bliss where all beings could experience emancipation from their pain. In
the presence of the eighty-first Buddha of the past, Lokesvararaja,
Dharmakara made forty-eight vows relating to this Paradise, and promised
that he would not accept enlightenment if he could not achieve his
goals... When, after countless ages, Dharmakara achieved
enlightenment and became a Buddha, the conditions of his [18th] vow were
fulfilled: he became the Lord of Sukhavati, the Western Paradise,
where the faithful will be reborn in bliss, there to progress through
stages of increasing awareness until they finally achieve enlightenment.
(Pure Land Buddhist Painting, p.14-15)
Sukhavati, the Pure Land, is of course, ultimately Mind but, to human
beings bound by attachments and delusion, it is also real -- as real as our
evanescent, dreamlike world. Consider this exchange between a Zen monk
and his chosen disciple:
Disciple: Master, does the Pure Land
exist?
Master: Does this world exist?
Disciple: Of course it does, Master.
Master: If this world exists, then the Pure Land exists all the
more.[1]
May all sentient beings rediscover the sublime vows of the Buddha of
Light, Life and Compassion, may they rediscover their Bodhi Mind -- the
Mind-seal of the Buddhas![2]
D.Phung/Minh Thanh/P.D.Leigh
Rye
Brook: Vesak, May '96
Notes:
[1]"In
secular western thought, awareness of psychological projection as a source
of supernatural being has served to demythologize demons, goblins, angels
and saints and rob them of their power. The Bardo Thodol [Tibetan Book
of the Dead], however, speaks of the deities as 'projections' but never as
'mere projections.' The deities are present and must be dealt with
religiously ... not just by intellectual insight." (D.G. Dawe in The
Perennial Dictionary of World Religions, p. 93.)
[2]Bodhi Mind: the determination to achieve
Buddhahood, for oneself and for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Mind-seal: heart of the teaching.