樂邦遺稿 1.32

1.32

All buddhas, as their cause, cultivate the six perfections and ten thousand practices; as their fruit, they realize the fundamentally existing three bodies of one substance. Now, Amitābha's sixteen-foot [form] is the responsive body (nirmāṇakāya). The sixty trillion nayutas of Ganges sands of yojanas is the reward body (saṃbhogakāya). Neither reward nor responsive, pervading everywhere, is the Dharma body (dharmakāya). However, since Amitābha's reward body is so tall and vast, and the thoughts of inferior ordinary beings are weak and deficient, it cannot be contemplated rashly. When the Buddha was in the world, someone of sharp faculties like Vaidehī received the Buddha's exposition of the sixteen realms of contemplation, progressed in cultivation according to his words, and only upon realizing entry into the seventh stage of faith at the eighth contemplation of the image was she able to contemplate universally. How much more so for the dull faculties of the latter age, who by principle cannot immediately contemplate the superior marks, but must first contemplate the sixteen-foot [image]! Therefore the sūtra says: 'If there are those who wish with utmost sincerity to be reborn in the western direction, they should first contemplate a sixteen-foot image above the pond. The bodily measure of the Buddha Amitāyus is boundless, beyond the reach of ordinary beings' mental capacities.' This is Śākyamuni Tathāgata's extraordinarily wondrous expedient, directing the capacities of beings to contemplate the large from the small, which is why this is said. Were it not so, if someone were immediately to practice upon the Buddha's reward body, they could not avoid standing at the brink of a precipice [in despair]. Nowadays, monastics and laypeople mostly do not understand this intent; whenever they make praises, invoke, or visualize, none do not speak first of the eighty-four thousand marks and signs. Evaluating this by the words of the Buddha and patriarchs above, is this not overstepping the order and losing the principle? I certainly do not dare to judge arbitrarily; fortunately, the sacred teachings are fully preserved, allowing examination and verification. From now on, if one does not reject the words on account of the person, please expound and spread them according to the doctrinal principle.