The Buddha says that the Amitabha Sutra is briefly understood

The Buddha said that the Amitabha Sutra is slightly understood

Buddhist College of China

I. Explanation question:

The Amitabha Sutra is a compulsory scripture for practicing the Pure Land Dharma and is one of the five sutras on which the Pure Land Sect is based. It is also the most authoritative and concise way to teach us how to recite the Buddha's past lives in the Western Elysium. To explain the title of this sutra today, all Buddhist sutra titles generally have seven different kinds: First, a single-person title: that is, a name is established by someone who can speak, such as the "Buddha Says The Amitabha Sutra", which can be said to be a person, so it is called a single person. The second is the single-law title, that is, the name of the said law, such as the Nirvana Sutra, nirvana is what the Buddha said "law", so it is called a single law. The third is to establish a name by a single metaphor, that is, to establish a name based on the metaphor used in the Buddha's sayings, such as the "Great Treasure Accumulation Sutra", "Great Treasure Accumulation" is a kind of metaphor, and the sutra spoken by the Buddha is like many treasures accumulated together, so it is called a single metaphor. The fourth is the establishment of a name by the law of man, that is, the name is established by the combination of the person who can speak and the law that is said, just like the "Manjushri Asks the Prajnaparamita Sutra", "Manjushri" is the person who is said, and "Prajnaparamita" is the law of man, so it is called the name of the human law. The fifth is the name of the person, that is, to establish a name based on the person who speaks and the metaphor used in the saying, such as the "Rulai Lion Roar Sutra", "Rulai" is the person who speaks, and "Lion Roar" is a metaphor for the Buddha's saying that it is like a lion roaring, which can subdue all the magic path and cut off all troubles, so it is called a human metaphor. The sixth is the name of the Dharma metaphor, that is, the name is based on the purse used in the dharma and the saying, such as the "Lotus Sutra of the Myofa", "the Lotus" is the profound and mysterious meaning of the Buddha's dharma, and the "lotus" is a metaphor for the Dharma like a lotus flower out of the mud and not stained, so the name is the Dharma metaphor. Seventh, the name of the person who can speak, the law of the person, the law of the person, the metaphor used when speaking is established together, such as the "Dafang Guangfo Huayan Sutra", "Dafang Guang" is the said Law, the vastness is endless, "Buddha" is the person who can speak, "Hua Yan" is the metaphor of the Buddha's Dharma is good and solemn, heavy and endless, like a large round mirror pure and incomparable, so it is called the human Fa metaphor.

The Amitabha Sutra that I want to talk about now is named after a single person, and the person who speaks of "Buddha", the Sanskrit name of Buddha, translates to Chinese means "enlightened person", that is, enlightened person. The person who is "enlightened" refers to the person who has completed the three senses. There are two kinds of three senses: one, self-realization, enlightenment, and enlightenment, and the fulfillment of the three senses, and the person who says "self-realization" is that as far as all sentient beings are unconscious, the Buddha realized that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature, and originally possessed the qualities of wisdom and virtue, but because sentient beings have no beginning, they are hindered by ignorance and defilements such as greed and anger, and they cling to the delusions of whether the Dhamma is whether they are good or bad, and they cannot realize their own pure self-nature. If we can get rid of this confusion and defilements, then we will attain the Nirvana Dharma-body if we are able to purify ourselves and naturally appear. The person who says "enlightened him" means that after the Buddha became enlightened, he did not satisfy himself with self-realization, but rather pitied all sentient beings who could not realize themselves, indulged in the cycle of birth and death to pursue the happiness of the five desires, created all kinds of bad karma and felt the results of the three evil paths, and flowed in the cycle of birth and death to suffer all kinds of sufferings. The Buddha widely preached to all sentient beings the Great Dharma of Renunciation that he had realized, so that sentient beings could hear the Fa and practice, learn from confusion and return to enlightenment, surrender delusions to truth, eliminate evil from good, understand the cause and effect of the three lifetimes, and understand the Buddha-nature of sentient beings. Those who say "perfect enlightenment and action" mean that the Buddha can realize that he is able to realize that both of his actions are complete and sufficient, and those who are self-conscious are said to be full, that the Buddha has developed bodhichitta from the very beginning, generated enlightened wisdom, and according to this wisdom, he has cut off all kinds of troubles, first he has decided that I have no self for all sentient beings, and then I have decided that the Dharma is empty after all, and finally I have broken through ignorance to realize that the pure Dharma body is non-existent and non-existent. Thus the defilement of the cessation of wisdom is sufficient perfection, for the sake of self-realization. Since he became enlightened, the Buddha has developed bodhichitta according to the highest and most wonderful methods, taking the benefit of all sentient beings as his cause and promoting the wonderful dharmas of the Buddhas as his household chores. After the three great monks have robbed and diligently cultivated the six degrees, and through the hundred robberies and cultivated all kinds of repairs, and the merit and wisdom are perfect, it is called the blessing of enlightenment. Thus the blessing and wisdom are sufficient, and the two-line perfection is called the two-legged figure, so it is called the enlightenment perfection. The two, the original consciousness, the initial awareness, the ultimate enlightenment, the speech of the original enlightenment, is to say that the sentient beings originally have a pure nature, the mind body is originally enlightened, away from all delusions, so the name is the original awareness; the beginning of the speech, is to say that the body of the sentient beings, because of ignorance arises delusional thoughts, slowly become unconscious, now the practice of the teachings began to realize that all the Dharmas are true, equal and not two, so the name of the first enlightenment; the ultimate enlightenment, is to say that sentient beings because of the cultivation of the Teachings, cut off the confusion and confusion of karma, and attain the ultimate nirvana, realized that the Dharma is not born from itself, is not extinguished now, so that the origin of the Dharma that is not born and does not perish, so that it is not born and does not perish, so that the origin of the Dharma is not born and does not perish. In the end, it is perfect, hence the name ultimate enlightenment.

In addition, the Buddha has three bodies: one, the Dharma-body Buddha, the Sanskrit name of Vilujana Buddha, translated into Chinese as the name of all places. For sentient beings, it is called Buddha-nature, that is, the pure self-nature of sentient beings; for the ruthless world, it is called Dharma-nature, that is, the original reality of all dharmas. The ancients said: Mountains and rivers and the earth are exposed to the body of the King. The two, the Buddha, the Sanskrit Word for Lushena Buddha, is translated into Chinese as pure fullness, that is, the meaning of the purification of troubles and confusion, and the perfection of the two wisdoms of power and reality. Being able to manifest itself in the body he receives, and the self-acceptance of the body refers to the Buddha's own body of dharma pleasure that has received internal evidence; his body of retribution refers to the body of the Buddha who manifested for the ten bodhisattvas of the ten lands. The three, the Incarnate Buddha, the Sanskrit Word Shakyamuni Buddha, translated into Chinese as Nengren Silence, Nengren means the one who can achieve the supreme Dafa, this is from the perspective of benefiting sentient beings; Silence is the extinction of all confusion karma, this is from the perspective of self-interest and self-realization, so the person who should be the body of the Buddha is realized by the chance of all sentient beings.

"Speaking" means that the Buddha's golden mouth personally proclaimed it, not on behalf of the Buddha through the words of others. Because there are five kinds of people who say in the Buddhist scriptures: one is what the Buddha says, the second is what the disciples say, the third is what the celestial beings say, the fourth is what the immortals say, and the fifth is what the incarnated people say, and the other four except the Buddha can be said for the Buddha, and the Dharma that is said can be understood as the Dharma. The present "Buddha Says That the Amitabha Sutra" indicates that it is not what the other four people say, but what the Buddha himself proclaimed.

The "Amitabha" is the main representative figure in the sutra, and the three words of Amitabha represent the buddha's purpose of this sutra, and it is also the main ideological content of the whole sutra, that is to say, this sutra is developed with the figure of Amitabha as the center, and when we understand the meaning of Amitabha, we understand the meaning of the Amitabha Sutra. "Amitabha" is a Sanskrit transliteration of the Meaning of Immeasurable Life and Immeasurable Light in Chinese. It is said that Amitabha Buddha has an infinite and endless life span and dwells in the land of bliss, so it is called immeasurable life; and there is an immeasurable and boundless light that can shine in our world, so it is called immeasurable light. As the sutra says, "The Buddha's life span is immeasurable, and his people, the immeasurable and boundless monks, hence the name Amitabha." This is to illustrate the meaning of "immeasurable life"; at the same time, the sutra also says: "The Buddha's light is immeasurable and boundless, and there is no obstacle according to the world of the ten directions, so it is called Amitabha." This is to illustrate the meaning of "immeasurable light". This is an example of Amitabha Buddha who was a king when he was practicing in the local area, and who gave up his throne to become a monk after hearing the sayings of the Great Self-Contained King Buddha, named Dharmagupta Bhikkhu. I once made forty-eight wishes to the Buddha, the King of Self, of which the twelfth wish was clouded: Let me attain Buddhahood in the future, and the light is limited, down to those who do not follow the land of the hundreds of billions of Buddhas, and I will not attain enlightenment. And the thirteenth wish cloud: Let me attain Buddhahood in the future, and have a limited lifespan, down to a hundred billion and billion that are robbed by others, and I will not attain enlightenment. Thus the wish is full of fruit, so the light and lifespan are immeasurable. In fact, Amitabha Buddha is not only immeasurable in light and lifespan, but also infinite in wisdom, miraculous powers and merit, so it is called "Amitabha".

The "sutra", the Sanskrit name Shudra, translated as Chinese is the meaning of the "sutra", that is, the mysterious principle of the Buddhas of the upper contract, the root mechanism of the sentient beings, and the saying that the enlightenment of sentient beings can be the opportunity to reason, so it is called the sutra. The "path" of the sutra is also the path, the meaning of the path, that is, the path of cultivation. Because the path can lead people to their destination, and the Sutras can make sentient beings stop their defilements and attain bodhichitta and lead to the other shore of nirvana, it is the meaning of the path. Elysium is our hometown, but sentient beings have lost the way home due to greed, anger, and defilement, and Amitabha Buddha is our loving father who can guide us back to our hometown, so the "sutra" is the path for us to recite the Buddha's practice. In addition, the "sutra" is the meaning of penetration, which can run through all the Dharmas spoken by the Buddha, and can be used by future generations to practice without being lost. In our last Dharma era, sentient beings were shallow and could not personally hear the Buddha's sayings, and the Buddhist sutras we are reciting now are all assembled by the disciples of the Buddha, so the sutras are the meaning of penetration.