維摩經疏 1.34

1.34

Below clarifies the practice of abandoning faults to relinquish the defiled land. The realm obtained is devoid of all defilements and evils. In this there are three clauses: the first, explaining the removal of difficulties, teaches others to leave faults behind; the latter two concern leaving them behind oneself. In the former teaching of others, "teaching the elimination of the eight difficulties" onward being the pure land distinguishes the cause in contrast to the fruit. Teaching others to eliminate the difficulties is the cause of the land. What are the eight difficulties? The three woeful paths make three. In the human realm there are four: first, the difficulty of being born blind, deaf, and so forth; second, the difficulty of worldly intellect and dialectical eloquence, which refers to evil false views; third, the difficulty of being before a Buddha or after a Buddha, when there is no Buddha-Dharma; fourth, the difficulty of Uttarakuru. Among the four, the first discusses difficulty in terms of suffering; the second in terms of evil—these two pertain to the entity itself. The third pertains to time; the fourth […] the eighth is the difficulty of the long-lived devas, which refers to the form and formless realms, where there is no initial entering into the noble […]. People cultivate and discard these difficulties, so it is called "teaching the elimination of [the difficulties through] cultivation."