廬山蓮宗寶鑑 3.20

3.20

Dharma Lecturer Tiantai Sifan long dwelt on Mount Linping. His understanding and practice were clear and rigorous, and he penetrated deeply into the source of doctrinal contemplation and nature and characteristics. Whenever he conversed back and forth with literati, his answers and explanations in response to their questions were brilliantly clear. One day, Controller Zheng asked: 'What is clarified in the teachings is mindfulness of Amitābha Buddha and wishing to be born in the Pure Land. This was an expedient teaching set forth solely for dull capacities. Those of superior faculties who suddenly awaken directly transcend and enter the Buddha stage at once; why would they rely on another Buddha's Pure Land?' The master said: 'Earlier worthies of our school rebuked this view, saying: "While the Buddha was in the world, Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, and after the Buddha's passing, Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna, as well as Great Master Zhizhe and Chan Master Zhijue in this land, all aspired to be reborn in the Pure Land. Could they have been of dull capacities? If this is taken to be an expedient teaching, what then would be considered real? Formerly Sun Xinlao also had doubts about this; through meeting with Yang Cigong and Wang Minzhong in debate, he then settled these doubts and had faith that this Pure Land is not an expedient device of the sages, but the true tenet of the perfect and real. Focusing one's mindfulness on that Buddha, one will surely be born in the Pure Land—these are indeed real words according with nature, not an expedient teaching."'