往生集 2.42

2.42

Yang Jie of the Song was a native of Wuwei Prefecture, known by the style Wuweizi. Having passed the examinations in his youth, he served as a bureau director of receptions in the Ministry of Rites (zhukelang) and judicial commissioner of Liangzhe. He revered the Buddhadharma and had a clear awakening into the Chan lineage. He held that sentient beings' faculties have sharp and dull dispositions, and that which is easy to know and easy to practice is solely the Western Pure Land: if one can only single-mindedly contemplate and recollect, totally collecting the scattered mind and relying on the Buddha's vow-power, one is certain to be reborn in Peaceful Nourishment. He once wrote a preface to Tiantai's Treatise on Ten Doubts, a Record of Amitābha's Precious Pavilion, Thirty Praises of Peaceful Nourishment, and a preface to the Collection Resolving Doubts Concerning the Pure Land, widely propagating the teachings and contemplations of the Western Direction to guide future generations. In his later years, he had a sixteen-foot image of Amitābha painted, which he took along with him for contemplation and recollection. On the day of his passing, he elicited the Buddha's welcoming arrival, sat upright, and passed away. His verse bidding farewell to the world ran: 'In living there is nothing to cling to, / In dying there is nothing to abandon. / In the great empty space: "of," "it," "which," and "also." / Making the best of an error, / Sukhāvatī of the Western Direction.'.