龍舒增廣淨土文 6.20

6.20

Chan Master Changlu Ze composed one hundred and twenty essays on filial piety and brotherly love. The first hundred essays speak of serving delicacies to one's parents as worldly filial piety; the latter twenty essays speak of exhorting one's parents to cultivate the Pure Land as supramundane filial piety. Worldly filial piety ends with a single lifetime and is still a minor filial piety. Supramundane filial piety never ends at any time, for when parents are born in the Pure Land, their blessings and longevity do not merely equal the kalpas of the sands of the Ganges; this is the greatest filial piety. If one fails to exhort and encourage them with this while one's parents are alive, later on one will vainly break one's heart, and what benefit will there be in vainly holding lavish ceremonies? If one can also turn around to transform others, causing them to exhort and transform one another in turn, using this merit to support one's parents' blessings and longevity and enrich one's parents' wholesome retribution, the Buddhas do not thwart the vows of sentient beings, so this intention will certainly be fulfilled. Concerning those who attain the highest grade of the highest grade, the text first speaks of filial support for parents; if we can extend this mind as filial support, the grade of rebirth is readily evident.