Cultivating Wisdom and Good Fortune While in the Pure Land
May 5, 2009 Once in the Western Pure Land, Amitabha Buddha truly helps the practitioners. Although a practitioner still has afflictions and residual habits, with Amitabha Buddha’s help, he or she has the ability to visit all the Buddhas in all the ten directions. (North, northeast, east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest, above and below. These ten stand for all directions.)
The sutra says that the practitioner can visit one hundred thousand kotis, or one hundred billion, Buddhas in the ten directions. There is a reason for using this number. The reason is that the Western Pure Land is one hundred thousand kotis of Buddha-lands away from our Saha world. This means that after you attain rebirth there, you can easily come back to the Saha world. You can come back to the Saha world every day. In fact, you can come back whenever you like due to this ability.
When you visit a Buddha, you will listen to the Buddha’s Dharma talk, and your wisdom will arise. Of course, you will also make offerings to that Buddha. Therefore, when you visit a Buddha, you cultivate both wisdom and good fortune. And you do so every day. This is why accomplishment in the Pure Land is much quicker than with other methods.
~ Based on Ven. Master Chin Kung's 2003 lecture series on the Amitabha Sutra
Reader Comments (2)
We can come back to be reborn as a human being (remember the life span of beings in the Pure Land is an immensely long time so a human lifetime is like seconds to us) or through manifestation (we appear to help and then leave).
We help primarily through teaching and setting good examples. One account Ven. Master Chin Kung talks about is manifesting as people who worked in the kitchen so the monks could go to the cultivation hall to participate in an important ceremony that was benefiting many beings.