“Why is the Pure Land divided into four lands?”

One day, a student asked the Buddha what his land was like.

The Buddha touched the ground, and the student instantly saw the Buddha’s pure land, a land so very different from what the student had seen just moments ago. Most reasonable, since the Buddha observed everything with a perfectly enlightened mind, and the student with a mind not yet perfectly unenlightened. And so, due to their respective states of mind, they perceived the world in different ways.

Frankly, in our world, we too all live in different lands. Ignorant people might live in a land that we could call “Ceaseless Craving” or “Recurring Anger.” But one who is awakening might live in a land we could call “Gracious Compassion.”

In the Western Pure Land, beings are also in different lands. As their meditative concentration advances, ignorance gradually drops away, awakening increases, and, in time, they advance from the Land Where Sages and Ordinary Beings Dwell Together all the way to the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light.

I resolve not to steal. Instead, I will . . .

Another chance.

Think of a person, now deceased, whom you had loved more than anyone else in your life. 

Think of all the things you wish you could have done for her or said to him. All the times you could have been more patient. Been more attuned to that special person’s unspoken needs and wishes. More concerned with their happiness and how to bring it about. More aware of their sadness and how to ease it.

Now think of all the things you did right, but just not often enough. Immersed in this back-and-forth roller-coaster of love and regret, look around you. 

In our uncountable lifetimes, we have loved innumerable beings just as much. Missed them just as intensely. So many who we wished with our all heart we had done more for. 

Our current loved one is no longer with us but others are still here. The next time you have negative thoughts of the person you are with, remember your special one. What emerges is the pain of regret, of words and deeds unfinished. You wish you had done more. 

With the one in front of you, you still can.