樂邦文類 4.65

4.65

Question: In the heavenly palaces, life is long and fully sufficient for cultivation, and accumulating good deeds among humans also naturally brings transcendence. As for the asuras, nāgas, ghosts, and the evil destinies of the three paths, these are precisely where one can relieve suffering and benefit living beings. Why must one exclusively devote oneself to the Land of Ultimate Bliss?
Answer: The gods of the realm of desire are deeply attached to wondrous pleasures and drunk on the wine of desire. When their merit is exhausted, they immediately fall, like an arrow shot into the sky. Although the gods of the form realm practice solitary conduct without social interaction, they have not yet exhausted the burdens of physical form. The formless realm does not transcend saṃsāra, and in the sūtras it is determined to be a place of difficulty. As Great Being Fu said: 'Even though eighty thousand kalpas are passed, / in the end one falls into emptiness and destruction.' There is also a class of divine immortals who have attained a different principle of life and live for thousands or tens of thousands of years. The Śūraṅgama refers to them in its detailed examination of the seven destinies: all are submerged in the marks of conditioned existence; receiving births through deluded thoughts over immeasurable kalpas, they do not attain true purity. Asuras are consumed by hatred and anger, the nāga destiny is fraught with terror and distress, and the ghost realm is sunk in darkness. In the long night of the three paths, the suffering and anguish are hard to describe. Thinking from afar on the five signs of decay in heaven and observing up close the four marks among humans, what wise person would delight in entering the ocean of suffering? If one seeks to escape saṃsāra quickly, nothing surpasses seeking rebirth in the Pure Land. Those who are born in the Pure Land naturally have bodies radiant with light and possess the six supernatural powers; they keep company with the multitude of sages in an instant, transcending the three realms and abiding in constant joy. Therefore the Buddha said that the Land of Immeasurable Life has joy without limit, is forever aligned in luminosity with the Way and virtue, and forever uproots the fundamental root of birth and death.