無量壽經優婆提舍願生偈註 2.81

2.81

Question: It was said above that knowing birth is unborn must apply to those of the highest grade of rebirth. If a person of the lowest-of-the-low grade attains rebirth by mounting the ten recitations, does that not mean taking rebirth as real? Merely taking rebirth as real falls into two attachments: first, fearing that one will not attain rebirth; second, fearing that one will again generate the delusion of birth. Answer: For example, if a pure maṇi jewel is placed in turbid water, the water immediately becomes clear and pure. Even if a person has the turbid sins of immeasurable birth-and-death, when they hear the name of that supreme, unborn, pure jewel of Amitābha Tathāgata and cast it into their turbid mind, then in thought-moment after thought-moment sins are eradicated and the mind is purified, and they immediately attain rebirth. Furthermore, if a maṇi jewel is wrapped in dark or yellow silk and cast into water, the water immediately turns dark or yellow, exactly like the color of the object. That pure Buddha-land possesses the unsurpassable jewel of Amitābha Tathāgata, wrapped in the silk of the accomplishment of immeasurable adornment merits, and when it is cast into the mind-water of the one to be reborn, how could it fail to transform the view of birth into the wisdom of unbornness? Again, it is like lighting a fire on ice: when the fire is fierce, the ice melts; when the ice melts, the fire is extinguished. Although that person of the lower grade does not know that the Dharma-nature is unborn, merely through the power of reciting the Buddha's name, they generate the thought of rebirth and aspire to be born in that land. That land is the realm of the unborn, and the fire of the view of birth naturally extinguishes.