The Fifth Vow, the Sixth Vow, the Seventh Vow, the Eighth Vow and the Ninth Vow
The Fifth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not have the power to know their past lives and the past events in 100,000 koti nayuta kalpas, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Sixth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not have the god-eye to see everything in 100,000 koti nayuta Buddha Lands, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Seventh Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not have the god-ear to hear, accept, and uphold the words spoken by 100,000 koti nayuta Buddhas, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Eighth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not have the power to know the thoughts of sentient beings in 100,000 koti nayuta Buddha Lands, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Ninth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not have the power to travel, in the instant of a thought, to 100,000 koti nayuta Buddha Lands, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The above five vows make clear that gods in the Pure Land all possess five perfect supernatural powers. These five vows are made to meet with all beings’ aspiration to be free and unrestrained as well as to help beings to acquire Buddha’s wisdom. To possess the miraculous divine powers also caters to the natural desire of sentient beings in this world. Many among the beings transmigrating in “the three regions and the six paths” in this world of Saha have five kinds of supernatural powers. Human beings through practice can also acquire these five divine powers, but their powers are not as great as those of beings in the Pure Land. For example, Arhats have purvanivasanusmriti-jnana, the power to know former existences of selves and others over 500 lifetimes, while gods in the Pure Land have the power to know their past lives and the past events in 100,000 koti nayuta kalpas. Similarly, the other four divine powers—divyachaksus (celestial eye), divyashrotra (celestial ear), parachitta-jnana (the ability to know the thoughts of others’ minds) and Riddhi-saksatkriya (deva-foot ubiquity to appear at will in any place without hindrance)—they can exercise these supernatural powers in 100,000 koti nayuta worlds at will, and it can be said that the application of their divine powers in time and space has no limit. The supernatural powers possessed by devas and immortals in our world cannot be compared with those of gods in the Pure Land.
For human beings who want to possess these five divine powers, sometimes even with diligent cultivation they cannot accomplish the goal. To make it worse, due to their preference and longing for these divine powers, they often encounter disturbances caused by Mara-hindrances or are possessed by spirits and ghosts, which will obstruct the practitioners in the process of cultivation. These five vows made by Bhiksu Dharmakara meet the needs of all beings who long for divine powers.
With purvanivasanusmriti-jnana, gods in the Pure Land can have access to all the past events. Imagine, if we also had purvanivasanusmriti-jnana possessed by the gods in the Pure Land, we could know everything that happened before Infinite Kalpas. In this way, everyone would know about reincarnation and chain of cause and effect, and no one would doubt the Buddha’s teachings. If we had divyachaksus (celestial eye), we would see that in addition to humans, there are countless advanced life forms in time and space that we can communicate with. If we had divyashrotra (celestial ear), we could hear the teachings of the Buddhas in the Worlds of Ten Directions, and we would no longer lament it difficult to encounter a wise teacher. If we had parachitta-jnana, we could understand the thoughts and minds of all sentient beings, and we would no longer have to worry about being unable to communicate with others or to find a kindred spirit. With parachitta-jnana, we will no longer generate mutual suspicion or deception because our hearts and minds are crystal clear to each other. If we all had Riddhi-saksatkriya, we could appear in the countless Buddhas’ worlds in the instant of a thought, and then we don’t need to invent transportation vehicles such as cars, airplanes, and ships, etc. We just need to initiate a thought to reach the place, and the spatiotemporal movement is completed immediately. It is not necessary for us to worry about environmental pollution any more.
Amitabha Buddha helps sentient beings in the Worlds of Ten Directions to fulfil their aspiration to naturally possess these five divine powers once they get reborn in the West Pure Land, and the divine powers they possess surpass almost all the heavenly beings in the Worlds of Ten Directions.
In our world, almost all Buddhist masters prohibit their disciples from using divine powers because the six sense-organs of the disciples are still defiled and they are lacking in Samadhibala (the power of fixity). They play with supernatural powers out of curiosity or various desires and habits so much so that they even pursue non-Buddhist ways to cultivate the supernatural powers instead of aspiring to pursue the supreme enlightenment to fully understand the absolute reality of life and all phenomena. These disciples will all lose the greater for the less and be lost in the illusion of supernatural powers. In the course of such cultivation, a slight deviation will result in going into the devil way. After the practitioners perfect their cultivation achievements, they can have access to the supernatural powers since they know all phenomena are fundamentally void. Therefore, the practitioners shall neither easily play with the supernatural powers, nor turn pale at the mere mention of these powers. Don’t readily label those who talk about divine powers as being possessed by Maras. It is important to have a correct view of the Five Eyes and Six Divine Powers. If the practitioner’s six sense-organs are not pure and the concentration power is inadequate, the divine powers he attains will definitely be limited. Sometimes, such practitioners cannot even subjugate ghosts with less blessings because ghosts also have limited Five Divine Powers. So, when maras come, it is better for this kind of practitioners to recite the Shurangama Mantra. Moreover, when using divine powers to destroy karma and retribution, those who exercise divine powers are required to have the ability to settle old scores and solve debts between sentient beings occurring in many past lives. Otherwise, the practitioners with supernatural powers will not only be unable to help others, but also may be caught in the karmic consequences of others and be powerless to extricate themselves.
The Tenth Vow and the Eleventh Vow
The Tenth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should form an attachment to or a reluctance to parting with their own bodies, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Eleventh Vow: After I become a Buddha, if gods in my land should not abide in correct Samadhi and not progress on the right path to bodhi until their attainment of the great nirvana, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
These two vows are made to be directed against the difficulties practitioners often meet with in our world, whereas gods in the Pure Land avoid entirely. Due to our obsession with our bodies, the decay and the death of our bodies and the parting with our beloved are the two major sufferings for human beings. Even gods in the Realm of Desire have to face this kind of misfortune. Whether we assume the material body or the emanation body of clear light, as long as we recognize it as ourselves, there will always be discrimination of you, me, and him. The attachment to the body leads to bitterness and sufferings of longing-for, form declines and dies, reluctance of leaving and unwillingness to lose it. It is a very painful and frightening affair to see one’s physical form declines and dies. Bhiksu Dharmakara makes the vow that in His Pure Land, all beings will never be attached to their bodies; hence, there will be no sufferings of clinging to and leaving the body and the dread of physical pains and death.
The Eleventh Vow makes clear that all beings in the Pure Land abide in correct Samadhi and attain the great nirvana in which nothing has been created and nothing can be destroyed. The correct Samadhi will enable beings to see clearly the reality of all phenomena in the universe, which will lead to the liberation from the bondage of time and space. If we human beings want to enter into the correct Samadhi, we shall first of all put an end to citta of killing, stealing and lust. Bhiksu Dharmakara makes the vow that once all sentient beings get reborn in the Pure Land, they can all abide in the correct Samadhi and attain the Buddha’s nirvana state, which is equivalent to proclaiming that all sentient beings in the Pure Land will become Buddhas in their lifetime.
Someone once asked me if all sentient beings in this world learn Buddhism and become Buddhas, what would the world be like? I said that our world would be what the West Pure Land looked like.
The Twelfth Vow and the Thirteenth Vow
The Twelfth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if my radiance should have a limit of illuminating 100,000 koti nayuta Buddha Lands, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
The Thirteenth Vow: After I become a Buddha, if my lifespan should have a limit of 100,000 koti nayuta kalpas, I would not think that I have completed Buddhahood and I would not attain the perfect enlightenment.
These two vows clearly point out the immeasurable brilliance and the infinite lifespan of Amitabha Buddha in the Pure Land, which indicates the limitlessness of Amitabha Buddha’s power to save all sentient beings respecting time and space. Living in the blissful West Pure Land and savoring boundless radiance and infinite lifespan may be the wish of all sentient beings in the Worlds of Ten Directions, especially those celestial beings who are enjoying their good karma. Because of Amitabha Buddha’s immeasurable brilliance and the infinite lifespan and His firm willpower, everything in the West Pure Land is close-to-eternal in sharp contrast to our world’s impermanence that finds expression in the four kalpas of formation, abiding, destruction and annihilation. In our world, people often lament that “good things are not firm, just like colorful clouds are easily scattered and glazed glassware is liable to breaking.” It is the firm willpower of Bhiksu Dharmakara that renders everything beautiful in the West Pure Land everlasting. The sentient beings in the Worlds of Ten Directions afflicted by a deep sadness caused by impermanence of everything in their life find solace and a sense of complete liberation.
Moreover, Amitabha Buddha’s boundless radiance illuminates all the lands of Buddhas without obstacles, making it convenient for Amitabha Buddha to guide sentient beings from the Worlds of Ten Directions to His Land. With the blessings of Amitabha Buddha’s incomparable radiance and infinite lifespan, all celestial beings in the Pure Land are endowed with a radiance and infinite lifespan far surpassing those beings in other worlds. Because of the infinite lifespan, the celestial beings in the Pure Land can readily awaken to the fact that in nature they are no different from a Buddha.
In this world, Shakyamuni Buddha does not manifest an ageless image and immortality in the Path of Humans. It is not that he cannot, but rather that sentient beings love their own physical forms so deeply and dread death so much that they are unable to comprehend the great Nirvana in death. Another reason is that these human disciples love their teacher so much that they just depend on Him, unwilling to practice on their own and failing to cherish the precious Buddhist teachings as they should. In the eyes of Buddha, the transformation of the vast sea into the farm land is completed in the blink of an eye. In order to awaken sentient beings to the transience of life and imminent death and to make sentient beings cherish Buddhism, Our Buddha manifests aging and death, which is a convenient way for promoting Dharma and ferrying over His disciples. However, now in the Pure Land, Amitabha Buddha, in order to fulfill all beings’ wish to have an eternal life and not to grow old or die, he primarily adorns himself with immeasurable brightness and longevity because the celestial beings have emanation bodies of clear light and their permanent existence relies on immeasurable light.
Amitabha Buddha truly dotes on all beings and satisfies all their desires, for first of all, He closes the door to the three evil paths, where sentient beings who have desires and bad habits may fall. Trying every means possible to satisfy the desires of sentient beings, He at the same time avoids various dangers and the possibilities of their falling. Secondly, He guarantees the Correct Samadhi with which all beings in the Pure Land can achieve the enlightenment. I often think that if Shakyamuni Buddha is compared to a strict father, then Amitabha Buddha is a wise and loving mother who dotes on all beings.