釋淨土群疑論 2.17

2.17

Answer: Because the afflictions of sentient beings are blazing, and they revolve in saṃsāra and sink in the ocean of suffering with no time of release, the Buddha praised the four kinds of adornments of the primary and secondary retributions of the Western Sukhāvatī and exhorted all sentient beings to take rebirth in the pure land. Although various classes of sentient beings hear the Buddha's teachings, their hindrances vary in gravity and their awakenings in depth, which consequently leads to differences in superior and inferior capacities in following the teaching. There is one class of sentient beings who, although they hear the pure teaching, slander and revile it; not only do they fail to be born in the West, they also sink into evil destinies themselves. These are entirely distant from the West. There is another class of sentient beings who, although they hear the pure teaching, have deep faith and do not slander it; yet their minds are entangled in the five desires and they delight in dwelling in the defiled land, neither making vows nor cultivating practice. If such people cultivate wholesome deeds they may be born among humans or gods, or if they commit evil they sink into the evil destinies. For these people, the prospect of rebirth in the West is also distant, because they entirely lack the intention to seek it and, furthermore, slander and revile [the teaching]. The Scripture of Pure, Equal, and Perfect Enlightenment states: 'If there are sentient beings who hear the teaching of the pure land expounded, yet hear it as if not hearing, and conversely give rise to slander, I say that such people have not attained liberation.' Having just come from the three evil destinies, they simply have no faith or inclination, and likewise completely lack practice and vows, and therefore have not attained liberation. There is another class of sentient beings whose past vows and karmic conditions with Amitābha Buddha have matured; hearing the teaching of the pure land expounded, with a pure mind of faith and reverence they make a great vow: 'May I be reborn in the Western Pure Land, and no longer wish to seek the fruits of humans or gods.' Although they make this vow, such people may, due to the conditions of their afflictions, be deeply attached to the five desires, or they may be indolent and remiss, unable to cultivate the path. Meeting with bad spiritual companions, they may widely commit the ten evils; or when facing death they may not meet a good friend; or with their bodies afflicted by severe illness, they may become mad and lose their minds; or they may be unconscious for many days, unable to understand human speech. Thus they end up having made only empty vows without ever cultivating pure practice. Although they are not immediately reborn in the pure land, this vow serves as a distant cause for rebirth; or, by the superior power of having made the vow, they will definitely be able to cultivate practice later; or, as someone who merely gives rise to practice must have the intention to cultivate, though they have not yet been able to initiate practice, they will in the future have the merit of initiating practice. In comparison with the previous two classes of people, they possess the meaning of distant rebirth; therefore the sūtra prophecies and praises such people as attaining rebirth in the West. Foolish people mistakenly suppose that it is attained immediately without relying on separately cultivating pure causes. The treatise master's explanation of this sūtra text as having the meaning of another time signifies that it is not that one immediately attains rebirth in the West merely by making a vow alone. Later people read the treatise without understanding and thus say that by practice one does not attain rebirth. This is a profound error! Furthermore, there is another class of sentient beings whose wholesome roots are deep and thick and whose afflictions are slight; meeting with superior conditions, they hear the pure teaching, give rise to deep, pure faith, make vows and cultivate practice, and at the end of life attain rebirth, fully as expounded in the sūtras. These are those whose practice and vows are both complete and who immediately attain rebirth; being different from those who only make empty vows, this is not an implicit teaching of another time. Because the Buddha was addressing the fact that the previous two classes of people had not yet attained rebirth, he prophesied that those who make the vow would attain rebirth. Fearing that they might be conflated with those who, having both practice and vows complete, immediately attain rebirth, the treatise master separately distinguished those who make only vows as having the meaning of another time. Thus the vow is compared to the first coin, buddhānusmṛti and cultivation of practice and the like are the intermediate nine hundred and ninety-eight coins, and rebirth in the pure land is the one-thousandth coin. Therefore the Mahāyānasaṃgraha says: 'Just as by means of one coin one trades and obtains a thousand coins.' It is also like recollecting Prabhūtaratna Buddha, where one does not immediately reach the stage of non-retrogression. The stage of non-retrogression is at the initial mind of the ten abodes. When this person recollects Prabhūtaratna Buddha, they are perhaps at the mind prior to the ten faiths, or at the initial mind of the ten faiths, and it cannot be that merely by recollecting Prabhūtaratna Buddha they immediately transcend the ten faiths and ten thousand kalpas to reach the initial mind of the ten abodes; for in the interim they must further cultivate the eighty-four thousand pāramitā practices before reaching that initial mind. Yet recollecting Prabhūtaratna Buddha serves as a distant condition for the practice of non-retrogression; therefore it is called an implicit meaning of another time. The above has clarified the meaning of another time through numerous arguments; it naturally pertains to making vows, not to those who have initiated practice. This is the meaning of another time spoken of by that master of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha. Furthermore, what the text of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha refers to with the meaning of another time is the reward pure land; with vows and buddhānusmṛti alone, by principle one is not reborn immediately. If it is a transformation pure land, with vows and buddhānusmṛti alone one will certainly be reborn immediately, as in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra; there is no need for doubt.