XI. Innumerable Treasures, Wonderful Clothing Instantly Manifest by a Single Thought
The Buddha told Ananda, “Gods in Amitayus Buddha’s land, can instantly manifest clothing, food and drink, flowers and incense, necklaces, silky canopies and banners, and wonderful music, as well as dwellings, palaces, and towers, made of one, two, or even innumerable treasures, in desired shapes, colors, heights, and sizes, by a single thought. Spread all over the ground are wonderful garments made with jewels. Gods step on them as they walk. Canopying that Buddha Land are innumerable jeweled nets, made of gold threads, pearls and precious gems and adorned with 100,000 varieties of jewels and wonderful treasures. Hanging from the four sides of these nets are jeweled bells, which sparkle with colorful light, extremely beautiful.”
Let’s first translate this part of the Sutra into vernacular Chinese.
The Buddha told Ananda, “Gods in Amitayus Buddha’s land, by a single thought, can instantly manifest clothing, food and drink, flowers and incense, necklaces, silky canopies and banners, and wonderful music, as well as dwellings, courtyards, palaces, and towers, shapes, heights and sizes of which suit their needs. If celestial beings want treasure, one, two, or innumerable jewels by a single thought will appear before their eyes. Spread all over the ground are wonderful garments made of jewels. Gods step on them as they walk. Canopying that Buddha Land are innumerable jeweled nets, adorned with gold threads, pearls and precious gems and 100,000 varieties of jewels and wonderful treasures. Hanging from the four sides of these nets are jeweled bells, which sparkle with colorful light, extremely beautiful.”
In the above part of the Sutra, the Buddha focuses on introducing the gods’ clothing, food, dwelling places, palaces and towers, and canopies and banners for making offerings to the Buddha, and at a single thought, these will instantly appear at their will. The shapes and sizes can all meet the desires of celestial beings.
In our world, building dwelling places and making clothing in our world take time and effort, and after completion they may not in every aspect meet our needs. It’s necessary for us to learn design and planning before we make clothing and building housings. Despite a lot of time and effort, the finished products may not satisfy everyone’s desire. Or, maybe, you are satisfied today, but you will feel disgusted tomorrow. Everything in the Pure Land is just in accordance with one’s wish and forever impeccable to the hearts of the gods. From this we can have an insight into Amitabha Buddha’s compassion and immeasurable merits. Amitabha Buddha achieves the effect because it takes him immeasurable kalpas to understand all beings well and fulfill their wishes.
The Sutra mentions jeweled nets canopying the Pure Land and wonderful garments made of jewels spreading all over the ground. When we look up at the sky in our world, what greets our eyes are the floating clouds or the flying birds. We generally floor our room with wood or lay carpets to decorate our abodes. A great wealth of jewels appears at wish to decorate space and ground in the Pure Land. Jeweled nets and garments are just two of them. Don’t fancy jeweled clothes having two sleeves and two pants legs like ours. We shall not limit our imagination by our physical features and our way of living, such as, our food and drinks, housing and transportation. For example, Indians may imagine jeweled clothes as a whole piece of fabric. Ananda and others may imagine jeweled garment as a piece of carpet. Do not imagine the jeweled nets canopying the Pure Land as something like fishing nets. If we are to imagine, better imagine that all the stars link together illuminating the bright night sky, or imagine that we sit on a plane at night and look down, and we can see the ground ablaze with lights, like a sparkling jeweled net covering the land.
This part of the Sutra shows that in the Pure Land celestial beings achieve great freedom in material wealth, and their wealth and happiness are beyond the imagination in worlds in the ten directions.
Ok, let’s continue to look at the scripture.
XII. Breezes of Virtue Disperse Flowers and Waft Fragrances Six Times a Day in a Pleasing Way
“Breezes of virtue naturally stir, and they are gentle and pleasant, neither hot nor cold, but warm or cool. Neither too weakly nor too strongly, they sweep across the jeweled nets and the jeweled trees, which sound innumerable wonderful Dharma tones and waft 10,000 kinds of gentle fragrances of virtue. For those who smell the fragrances, their afflictions, which enslave their body and mind, and their defiling habits will remain inactive. When these winds touch their bodies, they experience bliss like that of a bhiksu in the Samadhi of Total Suspension of Sensory Reception and Perception. Moreover, the breezes carry flowers all over that Buddha Land, which fall orderly, according to their colors, not chaotically. They are soft and lustrous, with a strong perfume. When one steps on them, the foot sinks down four inches. When one lifts one’s foot, the flowers spring back to the same height as before. After the flowers have been stepped on, the ground cracks open, and they gradually vanish, leaving no trace behind. According to schedule, the breezes disperse the flowers in this way six times a day.”
Let’s first translate this part of the Sutra into vernacular Chinese.
The Buddha said, “Breezes of virtue naturally stir, and they are gentle and pleasant, neither hot nor cold, but warm or cool. Neither too weakly nor too strongly, they sweep across the jeweled nets and the jeweled trees, which sound innumerable wonderful Dharma tones and waft 10,000 kinds of gentle fragrances of virtue. For those who smell the fragrances, their afflictions, which enslave their body and mind, and their defiling habits will remain inactive. When these winds touch their bodies, they experience bliss like that of a bhiksu in the Samadhi of Total Suspension of Sensory Reception and Perception. Moreover, the breezes carry flowers all over that Buddha Land, as heavenly maidens do. The flowers fall orderly, according to their colors, not chaotically. They are soft and lustrous, with a strong perfume. When one steps on them, the foot sinks down four inches. When one lifts one’s foot, the flowers spring back to the same height as before. After the flowers have been stepped on, the ground cracks open, and they gradually vanish, leaving no trace behind. According to schedule, the breezes of virtue disperse the flowers in this way six times a day.”
In this part, the Buddha introduces the breezes of virtue in the Pure Land. When coming into contact with the breezes of virtue, celestial beings in the Pure Land will be as happy as Bhikkhus in our world who have attained Nirodha-samapatti, a samadhi of complete extinction of sensation and thought. As the breezes of virtue stir, all beings can enjoy the happiness of tranquil extinction of the arhat of the fourth grade of saintship. When they sweep across the trees, jeweled nets, water, treasures, etc., the breezes sound innumerable wonderful Dharma tones and waft 10,000 kinds of gentle fragrances of virtue.
For those who smell the fragrances brought by the breezes, their afflictions and their defiling habits will remain inactive. A gentle wind could be so powerfully beneficial that it makes one feel peace and happiness, realize the truth and free from afflictions. Besides, the most beautiful scene unfolds before us in all its wonder—the breezes carry flowers gently all over that Buddha Land, which are soft and lustrous, with a strong perfume. These flowers fall orderly, according to their colors, not chaotically dancing to the wind. Petals emerge and vanish repeatedly. Celestial beings step on flowers—they do not mount the clouds and ride the mist as we imagine immortals do. The Buddha even makes mention of the depth of flowers when one steps on them, the foot sinks down four inches. When one lifts one’s foot, the flowers spring back to the same height as before. What a fragrant and comfortable heavenly path! After the flowers have been stepped on, the ground cracks open, and they gradually vanish as celestial beings pass by without leaving anything behind. The celestial beings are exempt from the labor of cleaning the streets typical of our world. The breezes stir and disperse fragrant flowers in this way six times a day.
In ancient India, many Buddhist disciples walked barefoot on dry parched, scorching hot and thorny roads. They should feel strongly about this part of scripture. Perhaps for some sentient beings in certain worlds, it has profoundly satisfied them and brought them peace walking on roads covered with fragrant flowers. They are accorded a sense of physical and mental abundance.
When Amitabha Buddha plans the Pure Land, He examines more than 200 koti wonderful Buddha Lands in order to make up for the regrets deep in hearts of sentient beings in these worlds. The scene of gentle breezes dispersing fragrant flowers is not just about aesthetics, it brings peace and contentment to all beings and helps to awaken them to Buddha’s wisdom and merits, to drop attachments and realize truth and not get lost in illusions of time and space.
Ok, let’s continue to look at the scripture.
XIII. The Incredible Jeweled Lotus Flowers with Boundless Radiance
“Moreover, there are jeweled lotus flowers all over that world, and each jeweled flower has 100,000 koti petals. The petals in innumerable colors are radiant. The blue colors gleam with blue light; the white colors, with white light. In black, yellow, red, and purple, the colorful light is striking, radiant, and splendid, outshining the sun and the moon. Each flower emits 3,600,000 koti beams of light. Manifested in each beam are 3,600,000 koti Buddhas, each with a purple-tinged golden body and an extraordinary, superb appearance. Each Buddha emits 100,000 beams of light as He expounds the wondrous Dharma in worlds in the ten directions. These Buddhas each set innumerable sentient beings on the right path to Buddhahood.”
Let’s first translate this part into vernacular Chinese.
There are jeweled lotus flowers all over that world, and each jeweled flower has 100,000 koti petals. The petals are emitting boundless light. The light contains innumerable colors. For example, the blue colors gleam with blue light; the white colors, with white light. In black, yellow, red, and purple, the colorful light is striking, radiant, and splendid, outshining the sun and the moon. Each lotus flower emits 3,600,000 koti beams of light. Manifested in each beam are 3,600,000 koti Buddhas, each with a purple-tinged golden body and an extraordinary, superb appearance, far surpassing worlds in the ten directions. Each Buddha emits 100,000 beams of light as He expounds the wondrous Dharma about all things in their real aspect etc., in worlds in the ten directions. These Buddhas manifested in the light of jeweled lotuses, each set innumerable sentient beings on the right path to Buddhahood.
In this part of the Sutra, the Buddha focuses on jeweled lotus flowers as the acme of perfection, which is matchless in lands of all Buddhas in the ten quarters. Jeweled lotus flowers almost spread throughout the Pure Land. Each has 100,000 koti petals. The light emitted by these petals contains infinite colors, outshining the light of the sun and moon in our world. Each lotus flower emits boundless beams of light. Manifested in each beam are innumerable Buddhas. Each Buddha emits 100,000 beams of light as He expounds the wondrous Dharma to sentient beings in worlds in the ten directions and set them on the right views of Buddhism.
We might as well picture the scene of the jeweled lotus flowers with a wild imagination. Jeweled lotus flowers like jeweled trees are a common sight in the Pure Land. In the human path of our world, when sometimes a cloud in the sky forms the figure of a Buddha, everyone marvels at the view. They immediately take a photo and post it on WeChat, hoping that it draws widespread admiration. But in the Pure Land, lotus flowers and leaves emit light, in which Buddhas are manifested, and these Buddhas emit beams of light and preach wonderful dharma teachings. The subtlety of the luminous lotus flowers serves as a foil to the limitations and coarseness of faculties of seeing, hearing and perception of our human beings. If the light and color of a lotus flower can be as wonderful as this, the appearance of the heavenly beings in this land as mentioned by the Buddha in the previous part of the scripture, is incredibly beautiful beyond our imagination. Even the god-king of the sixth desire heaven of radiant features and colors is much inferior. Can you imagine how beautiful and divine those celestial beings can be?
Some practitioners say: with a perfect heart, even a slender blade of grass or a morning glory in the human world bears the virtue of the Buddha’s dharma body, unparalleled in its beauty. It is true that there is no flower more beautiful than the others, nor is there one inferior to the others on the premise that you have achieved complete enlightenment and attain the Dharma body realm of all laws being equal. And even if you have attained dharma body realm of all laws being equal, you still cannot make all sentient beings with various habits and desires satisfied all the time, much less make them all attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi without completion of the original vows. Even if a sentient being with great supernatural powers who has seen the jeweled lotus flower in the Pure Land develops a same flower, but the power of virtue and original vows contained in the flower cannot be duplicated by means of supernatural powers. Therefore, the benefits that can be given to sentient beings are negligible.
The lotus flowers and water of virtue in the Pure Land are like the parents of sentient beings. When sentient beings are reborn in the Pure Land, they will be born from these lotus flowers.
In human path of our world, prenatal education is much valued, for parents are afraid that their children may lose at the starting line. Seeing the majestic, flawless, beautiful, radiant jeweled lotus flowers under the tutelage of immeasurable Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which subtly proclaim the dharma truth, one can understand what the most sacred. In our world, there are twelve types of beings—those born from womb, born from eggs, born from moisture, born by transformation, those with form, those without form, those with thought, those without thought, those not totally with thought, and those not totally without thought, those not totally with form, those not totally without form. In whichever way these beings are born, compared with the celestial beings in the Pure Land, they have already lost the game at the starting line, because the altruistic wishes and merits of their “parents” are far inferior to those of Amitabha Buddha.
The above is a description given by Shakyamuni Buddha about flowers, trees, water, breezes, sound, the appearance of celestial beings, as well as food, housing, etc. in the Pure Land. Through elaboration of the above-mentioned aspects, we know for sure that the forty-eight vows of bhiksu Dharmakara have been fulfilled and manifested in the Pure Land. And if a sentient being in the world of Saha does not study Buddhism and does not want to attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, these aspects about the Pure Land are exactly what he wants to know about before the emigration. Shakyamuni Buddha briefly explains these aspects according to the comprehension of beings in the world of Saha, but I believe these sketches are appealing enough to humanity.
What are the requirements for immigration if a sentient being does want to go to the Pure Land? For example, if we humans want to leave our home country and immigrate to live in other countries, we need to go through various procedures and meet the conditions, etc. So, what are the conditions to be met if sentient beings in our world of Saha want to immigrate into the West Pure Land? What are the possible obstacles? Who can make it to immigrate to the West Pure Land with certainty?
Hereunder are the instructions given by Shakyamuni Buddha about how to get reborn in the Pure Land.
Let’s continue to look at the original scripture.