འཕགས་པ་མ་ཏག་ག་ཚགས་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.10

intro.10

In Bouquet of Flowers, the names of buddhas reflect their main qualities, which in turn they have acquired through the aspirations they made during their bodhisattva careers. These included aspirations that beneficial, liberating outcomes ripen for all who hear their names. Hearing these names, becoming inspired by them, and sometimes expressing this inspiration or devotion outwardly can thus be considered a practice of buddhānusmṛti in relation to both the physical presence of those buddhas and their qualities. In this respect, we can also compare the kind of practice that seems to animate this sūtra to another kind of practice commonly associated with Pure Land Buddhism: reciting the name of Buddha Amitābha with the aim of being reborn in his pure land Sukhāvatī. Amitābha, also referred to as Amitāyus in the sūtra, figures among the last few of the many buddhas mentioned in the text (). The possibility of being reborn in his pure land can be granted, according to the sūtra, through merely hearing his name, experiencing great joy, and genuinely longing for his hundreds of thousands of attributes. It should be reiterated, however, that rebirth in these pure lands is not Bouquet of Flowers’ main concern, but only one of the many benefits that can result from hearing the names of a buddha; the idea of rebirth in a buddha’s pure land appears only a few times. Another feature of this text that connects it with Sukhāvatī-related literature is the notion that women who hear the names of buddhas are reborn as men, “superior” physical forms with which to continue their spiritual journeys. Although the Buddha invokes this notion several times in Bouquet of Flowers, he punctuates the lengthiest and most misogynistic instance with a trenchant deconstruction of reifying labels of gender and sex. He exposes both man and woman as false constructs empty of inherent existence, and even criticizes those who would hear the buddhas’ names in order to change their sex as obsessive.