無量壽經連義述文贊 3.46

3.46

On the sūtra's words from "The Buddha told Ānanda" to "all sentient beings," the Commentary states: Third, praising and censuring gains and losses to exhort ordinary beings and followers of the small vehicle. It has three parts: first, praising the supreme wondrousness of that land to cause beings to aspire and seek it; next, explaining the defilement and evil of this world to cause people to feel revulsion and abandon it; last, jointly demonstrating gains and losses to cause them to cultivate or abandon. The first part also has two: first, extensively praising supreme bliss; last, exhorting rebirth. The first part has eight: this first is the length of lifespan. "A single life" is the last life among the five lives; provisional and real are not fixed. The real is the birth in the wisdom-realm of Maheśvara. The provisional also has two distinctions: if in an impure land, it is birth in Jambudvīpa, called "a single life"; if reborn in the pure land, it is the birth of becoming a buddha, called "a single life." Now, intending to set aside the real, it is therefore also called "one life away [from buddhahood]" (eka-jāti-pratibaddha). Some might doubt: if the bodhisattvas in that land are all in the position of one life away, they should not roam and transform; thus it explains that with the exception of original vows, none meet with untimely death.