53) Remember the Ultimate Aim and Be Diligent

For recitation to be vigorous and steadfast, we should have a firm standpoint. That standpoint is to remember the very goal of cultivation. For example, a farmer who aims for a bumper crop arises early and retires late, endures many hardships and toils all day long. Similarly, an aspiring official, wishing to pass his examinations with honors and make his parents proud, burns the midnight oil in study, tired but not discouraged. The cultivator should do likewise. His current practice is for the goal of ultimate liberation, to save himself and others. Elder Master Ch'e Wu, a master of the highest virtue, versed in both the sutras and the various schools, once wrote a stanza which can be considered the kernel of Pure Land:

Because of Birth and Death, 
Develop the Bodhi Mind; 
With deep Faith and Vows, 
Recite the Buddha's name.

We who are in the cycle of Birth and Death, subject to endless suffering, should urgently seek to escape that cycle. I have already dwelled briefly on this urgent matter. However, self-liberation alone is a limited and narrow goal. We should seek Buddhahood to help ourselves and others reach the realm of ultimate liberation. Our Master, Sakyamuni Buddha, preached the Dharma for forty-nine years and elaborated upon it in more than three hundred assemblies precisely and for no other reason than to reach that goal. Once we have developed the Bodhi Mind, seeking to escape Birth and Death, there is no easier or safer way to go about it than "to recite the Buddha's name with deep Faith and Vows."

Those who are ignorant of the Dharma are, of course, helpless. However, those who know the Pure Land teaching but fail to cultivate diligently are ungrateful to the Buddhas and are wasting a unique opportunity to realize their wonderful Self-Nature.[68] Thus, we should persevere with increased effort in reciting the Buddha's name over an extended period of time, rather than doing so in a perfunctory, haphazard manner, with constant interruptions. The ancients have said:

If we do not plan to save this body in this life, 
When, then, will we do so?

Promising ourselves to cultivate in the next life is no different from a deluded person speaking of a dream-like event. Let us take two examples from ordinary life: a lover sometimes has to travel long distances and endure many hardships just to get to the rendezvous; a gambler, desiring to win, can give up food and sleep, sometimes playing for several days in a row. If ordinary people can endure such hardship over a little bit of worldly lust, how much more should a cultivator endure while pursuing a lofty goal? Therefore, if we are indolent during cultivation, subject to lapses and interruptions, afraid of difficulties and hardships and fond of fleeting pleasures and sleep, it is because we are not firm in our determination or earnest in our will to liberate ourselves and others!

Time flies, the God of Impermanence does not wait, this body is easily lost, the Dharma is difficult to encounter. The practitioner should remember these points and keep the two words "suffering" and "death" constantly before his very eyes, thus urging himself on.

54) A Method for Escaping Birth and Death in One Lifetime

The ocean of worlds throughout the ten directions can be divided, in general, into two types: pure lands and defiled lands. Pure lands are the pure and adorned realms of the Buddhas; once reborn there, we have escaped Birth and Death forever and will gradually progress to become sages and saints. Defiled lands are realms where everything, from the environment to the bodies and minds of sentient beings, is defiled; their inhabitants must revolve along the Six Paths, subject to the sufferings of samsara.

If sentient beings in this defiled Saha World merely keep the Five or the Ten Precepts and perform other good deeds but do not practice Buddha Recitation, they will have little affinity with the Buddhas. As they lack affinity with the Buddhas, the transcendental seeds in their Alaya consciousness cannot develop. Therefore, although they may perform good deeds, they can at most be reborn in the celestial realms, but not in the Western Pure Land. The lifespan in these realms, while long, is still limited. When their merits and blessings are exhausted, they will undergo rebirth once more, according to their stock of transgressions and merits.

With attachment to the self as the cornerstone, sentient beings begin to create more good or bad karma; therefore, they continue to revolve in the cycle of Birth and Death. In that cycle, transgressions are easy to commit, while good deeds are difficult to perform. Thus, the time spent on the evil realms is very long, while the periods of stay in the celestial realms are limited. Buddha Sakyamuni once lamented:

Sentient beings usually take the three Evil Paths as their homeland.

For this reason, we can predict that sentient beings who are not reborn in the pure lands of the Buddhas are bound to remain in the defiled lands. In these defiled lands, in the midst of an evil environment full of obstructions and weighed down by their limited capacities and conditions as sentient beings of the Dharma-Ending Age, they will sooner or later descend onto the Evil Paths. Thus, to achieve rebirth in the pure lands of the various Buddhas, they must recite these Buddhas' names.

Some might ask: "There are many methods leading to liberation; why should we recite the Buddha's name?" The answer to this question should be obvious, but I will reply all the same, to make it clearer.

In ancient times, even though Sakyamuni Buddha had passed away, the True Dharma still flourished. Sentient beings then had light karma and their minds were intrinsically good. Therefore, they could succeed with whatever Dharma method they chose. With the passing of time, in the Dharma Semblance Period, a long time after Buddha Sakyamuni had entered Nirvana, the environment and the minds of people had gradually grown complicated. Out of hundreds of thousands of practitioners, perhaps one or two would attain the Way.

This is even more true now that we are deep into the Dharma-Ending Age, when virtues and morals have broken down. True cultivators are rare enough; why talk about those who have attained the Way? This is because sentient beings today have heavy obstructions, their minds are confused, and their lives and social organization are more complex and troublesome than in earlier times. Added to this are constant threats of war and strife, poverty, shortages and disasters, one after another. Furthermore, pornography and violence are condoned, while religion and morality are considered anachronisms. With so many obstacles from within our minds and from the environment reinforcing one another, no wonder it is difficult to reach Enlightenment by reliance on self-power alone, as taught in most Dharma methods.

We should know, furthermore, that to escape Birth and Death, we must sever Delusions of Views and Delusions of Thought. However, according to the ancients:

Blocking Delusions of Views is as difficult as blocking a raging stream coming from forty miles away.

Why, then, even mention eliminating all Delusions of Thought?

Thus, if we want to achieve liberation in this Dharma-Ending Age, the most appropriate method is Buddha Recitation. Through this method, the cultivator, after utilizing his self-power to the utmost, receives additional assistance from other-power. Even though his karma and delusions are not yet extinguished, he can, through the power of Amitabha Buddha's Vows, "take his residual karma along" to the Pure Land. Once reborn, he will no longer retrogress and will have transcended Birth and Death forever!

As discussed earlier, in the Great Heap Sutra and the Longer Amitabha Sutra, Sakyamuni Buddha, in His profound wisdom and compassion, predicted the limited capacities and evil conditions of people in the Dharma-Ending Age as well as the efficacy and appropriateness of the Pure Land method. Therefore, in this degenerate age, when Enlightenment "in this very lifetime" can seldom be attained through other methods, only Pure Land can prolong the turning of the Dharma wheel and liberate sentient beings. In a letter to a fellow monk, Elder Master Yin Kuang expressed it this way:

Deep into the Dharma-Ending Age, when practicing methods other than Pure Land, we may speak of sowing good seeds and creating favorable conditions for Enlightenment in the future, but we cannot speak of attaining the fruit of liberation in this very lifetime.

For these reasons, we can conclude that in the Dharma-Ending Age, only Buddha Recitation brings liberation from Birth and Death in one lifetime.

55) Do Not Procrastinate

We should know that Pure Land is a Perfect and Sudden Mahayana method. Why Mahayana? Because this method takes Buddha Recitation as "cause" and complete Enlightenment as "effect." Why "Perfect"? Because this Dharma door, as the ancient masters have said, completely encompasses the Five Periods and Eight Teachings. Why "Sudden"? Because this expedient can guide everyone from the level of an ordinary being completely bound by greed, anger and delusion to the stage of non-retrogression, and from the beginning levels of Bodhisattvahood to Supreme Enlightenment, via a straight and swift shortcut.

Therefore, this method is extolled by all of the Buddhas of the ten directions, while Bodhisattvas such as Manjusri and Samantabhadra, and Patriarchs such as Asvaghosha and Nagarjuna, all vow to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land. Thus, to recite the Buddha's name is to practice personally according to the Perfect Sudden Mahayana method.

When seeking liberation, we should consider Buddha Recitation to be most essential and urgent and put this method into practice immediately, without procrastination. Buddha Sakyamuni taught on many occasions that human life is only as long as one breath, because if we exhale but do not inhale, we have already died and stepped over into a new lifetime. Therefore, death awaits us at all times; behind each year, each month, each day, each hour and even each and every second lurks our impending demise. No one can predict the length of his own lifespan, as reflected in the following stanzas:

Yesterday, at the crossroads, he still rode his horse; 
Today he lies still in his coffin!

Do not wait until old age to recite the Buddha's name, 
In abandoned cemeteries can be found the graves of many youths.

These stanzas reflect the facts of life. Thus, to avoid being surprised by the God of Impermanence, let us at all times apply ourselves to earnest recitation of the Buddha's name. Only then will we escape bewilderment and confusion in our last moments.

To prevent and discourage laziness and laxity in cultivation, Sakyamuni Buddha carefully taught:

There are, in general, eight occasions when a monk tends to be lax. For instance, whenever he does not receive enough food on his alms rounds, he may think, "I do not have enough food today. Therefore I lack nutrition and good health. Let me postpone cultivation for one night." Whenever he receives ample food, he may think to himself, "today I am full and feel heavy and tired. Let me postpone cultivation for one night and continue tomorrow." He may engage in similar reasoning on such occasions as: preparing to do a great deal of work, having just completed some heavy physical task, feeling ill, recovering from illness, readying himself for a long trip, or having just returned from a long trip. In all these instances, he always has one excuse or another to stop cultivation and rest. On the contrary, when a diligent monk is faced with these same situations, he always sets his mind on the truth of Impermanence and never avoids assiduous cultivation.

If even monks and nuns are that indolent, lay people can be assumed to be worse. A well-known Master once urged a close friend to recite the Buddha's name. The latter wrote back complaining that he was currently too busy, and promised to take the Master's advice into account as soon as his affairs were temporarily settled. The Master penned a stanza on the letter before returning it. The verse reads as follows:

If we have decided to stop, let us stop at once; Why promise to wait for our cares to end -- as they never will.

Truthfully, the preoccupations and worries of this world will never end, not even when it comes time for us to close our eyes and depart.

A well-known Master once advised a lay friend to recite the Buddha's name. The latter replied, "There are three things I have not yet attended to: one, my father's coffin is not yet entombed; two, my son does not yet have a family; three, my youngest daughter is still unmarried. Let me take care of these three things and then I will follow your advice." A few months later, the layman was struck by a grave illness and suddenly passed away. After the memorial, the monk offered a stanza in lieu of condolences:

My friend, the wise official 
When I advised him to recite the Buddha's name he countered with three things; 
The three things have not been accomplished, 
Yet impermanence has already snatched him away. 
Lord of Hell, how inconsiderate can you be!

Reading this stanza, who among us dares claim he is not another wise official? Therefore, those who are determined to cultivate should take advantage of every single instant, and recite the Buddha's name at that very moment. They should avoid stepping in the doomed footprints of those who have erred before them -- with cause for regret for a thousand autumns to come.