無量壽經優婆提舍願生偈註 2.101

2.101

Question: If they are not immediately equal, why bother saying it? Once a bodhisattva ascends to the first stage, by gradually advancing, he will naturally become equal to the Buddha; why must one borrow the expression that he becomes equal to the bodhisattvas of the higher stages? Answer: In the seventh stage, a bodhisattva attains great tranquility and cessation; looking upward, he sees no buddhas to seek, and looking downward, he sees no living beings to deliver, so he wishes to abandon the Buddha path and realize the limit of reality (bhūtakoṭi). At that time, if he were not exhorted by the spiritual empowerment of the buddhas of the ten directions, he would immediately enter nirvāṇa, no different from the two vehicles. If a bodhisattva is reborn in [the Land of] Peace and Bliss and sees Amitābha Buddha, he is free from this calamity; therefore, it must be said that they are ultimately equal. Furthermore, in the Sūtra of Immeasurable Life, Amitābha Tathāgata's fundamental vow says: 'If, when I attain buddhahood, the bodhisattvas in the buddha-lands of the other directions who come to be born in my land should not definitively reach [the rank of being] bound to one last rebirth—excepting those who, according to their original vows, freely transform themselves, and for the sake of living beings don the armor of the great vows, accumulate the roots of virtue, deliver all beings, travel to all buddha-lands to cultivate the bodhisattva practices, offer worship to the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, guide and transform living beings as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, causing them to stand in the unsurpassed, true, and correct path, transcending the practices of the ordinary stages, and manifestly cultivating the virtues of Samantabhadra—may I not attain the correct awakening.' According to this sūtra, when deducing [the state of] the bodhisattvas of that land, they may perhaps not pass from one stage to the next. The mention of the ranks of the ten stages was merely Śākyamuni Tathāgata's singular path of response and transformation in Jambudvīpa; why must it necessarily be so in the pure lands of the other directions? Among the five kinds of inconceivable things, the Buddha-dharma is the most inconceivable. If one claims that a bodhisattva must pass from one stage to the next without any principle of leapfrogging, I would not dare say that for certain. For example, there is a tree named 'Fine and Firm.' This tree grows in the ground for a hundred years, and only then [sprouts, whereupon] in a single day it grows a hundred fathoms tall. Continuing thus day after day, in calculating its hundred-year height, how could it be compared to an ordinary pine? Seeing that the pine's daily growth does not exceed an inch, upon hearing of that 'Fine and Firm' tree, how could one not doubt it? That is: when someone hears that Śākyamuni Tathāgata realized arhatship upon a single hearing, or mastered non-arising in the course of a single morning, he considers these to be words of expedient guidance rather than statements that accord with reality. Hearing the matter discussed in this treatise, he likewise will not believe it. Indeed, extraordinary words do not enter ordinary ears; that he should consider them untrue is only natural.