廬山蓮宗寶鑑 7.6

7.6

The Essentials of Amitābha states: 'For those who practice buddhānusmṛti, the most pressing matter is failing to correspond properly. Why is that? Although they are said to uphold precepts and practice buddhānusmṛti, they have never resolved to vow for rebirth in the Pure Land; they just bury their heads and let the days pass, losing the wholesome benefit themselves. Generally, in practicing buddhānusmṛti, one must first generate the aspiration. If one wishes to transcend birth and death and be reborn in the Pure Land, one must make the great vow one's primary intention. One must constantly practice buddhānusmṛti, making prostrations to Amitābha with single-minded devotion morning and evening. Like paying court to an emperor, never missing the appointed times, one draws nearer and closer day by day. When mind and mouth correspond with the Buddha, one is not far from the Buddha. Reciting with the mouth, contemplating with the mind, and yearning with the mind to see the Buddha, making deep and weighty vows with firm faith and no doubt—as days and years go by and the practice matures, the samādhi will naturally be accomplished, and when life ends, Amitābha will welcome you and the Pure Land will appear before you. Further vow that in this present life you will always encounter good friends and never meet teachers of wrong views, so that they do not delude your mind and you do not give rise to laxity. If it is like this, practicing buddhānusmṛti with deep faith and making vows, then the three of faith, practice, and vows are not deficient. Seeing the Buddha at the end of life does not come from the outside; it is entirely the manifestation of Mind-only. Just as a seed in the ground sprouts when encountering spring—how could it come from the outside? It all emerges from the ground. Cultivation today is also like this: when faith and vows of buddhānusmṛti are stored in the ground of the eighth consciousness, the Pure Land and Amitābha that manifest at the end of life do not come from the outside; they all emerge from one's own mind.' The verse says: