樂邦遺稿 1.73

1.73

Confucian classics in this land speak abundantly of the West, such as the *Zhoushu yiji*: "Su You memorialized King Zhao of Zhou, saying, 'A great sage is born in the West.'" Also, the *Liezi* states: "The Grand Minister of Shang asked Confucius, and Confucius answered, saying, 'In the West there is a sage.'" *Wenzhongzi* states: "The Buddha's teaching is the teaching of the West." These Confucian books all take the Buddha's teaching to be of the West, referring to the Western lands of the Five Indias, not what is called the Western Pure Land. Furthermore, a single great trichiliocosm is the realm transformed by Śākyamuni Buddha alone; the five lands of India lie in the middle of Jambudvīpa, while China lies to their southeast, and looking toward them from here they are therefore termed the West. If it is Amitābha Buddha's Western Pure Land, it lies outside this great trichiliocosm, beyond a hundred thousand koṭis of Buddha-lands (a single Buddha-land is roughly equivalent to one great trichiliocosm). Thus one knows that between this and the five Indian lands in the west of this Southern Jambudvīpa, the distance is like heaven and earth; truly they must not be conflated.