Ouyi's Preface, and Why It Is Called Amitābha
Ouyi Zhixu opens his commentary on the Amitābha Sūtra with the story of why he wrote it — not to compete with the two great commentaries that came before his, but to open a smaller, more direct door beside them. He then begins the traditional five-part framework of "explaining the meaning" that every Tiantai commentary uses to introduce a sūtra: this page covers the first two of the Five Profound Meanings — explaining the sūtra's name, syllable by syllable, and distinguishing its essence as the true mark of reality itself, the single thought of mind present right now.
Ouyi's Preface
佛說阿彌陀經要解 三藏法師鳩摩羅什譯 西有沙門蕅益智旭解
原夫諸佛憫念群迷隨機施化，雖歸元無二而方便多門，然於一切方便中求其至直捷至圓頓者，莫若念佛求生淨土。又於一切念佛法門之中，求其至簡易至穩當者，莫若信願專持名號，是故淨土三經並行於世，而古人獨以《阿彌陀經》別為日課，豈非有見於持名一法普被三根，攝事理以無遺、統宗教而無外，尤不可思議也哉！古來註疏代不乏人，世遠就湮所存無幾，雲棲和尚著為《疏鈔》，廣大精微；幽谿師伯述《圓中鈔》，高深洪博，蓋如日月中天有目皆覩，特以文富義繁邊涯莫測，或致初機淺識信願難階，故復弗揣庸愚再述要解，不敢與二翁競異，亦不敢與二翁強同。譬如側看成峯橫看成嶺，縱皆不盡廬山真境，要不失為各各親見廬山而已。將釋經文五重玄義。
The Essential Explanation of the Buddha's Discourse on Amitābha. Translated [into Chinese] by the Tripiṭaka Master Kumārajīva. Explained by the monk Zhixu of Xiyou, of the Ouyi order.
Now, the buddhas, moved by compassion for the confusion of the multitude, bestow their teaching according to each being's own capacity; though the return to the source knows no second path, the skillful means toward it are many. Yet among all skillful means, whoever seeks the most direct, the most perfectly and suddenly complete, will find none surpassing the recitation of the Buddha's name in order to seek birth in the Pure Land. And among all methods of buddha-recollection, whoever seeks the simplest and easiest, the most settled and secure, will find none surpassing holding fast to the name with faith and vow. This is precisely why the three Pure Land sūtras circulate together in the world, and yet the ancients singled out the Amitābha Sūtra alone to serve as their daily recitation — is this not because they saw that the single method of holding the name reaches universally across all three levels of capacity, gathers in both phenomena and principle leaving nothing out, and unites doctrine and practice leaving nothing outside it? How truly inconceivable this is!
Commentators across the generations have not been lacking, yet as the age recedes into the distance, the works themselves have been lost, and little survives. The venerable monk Yunqi [Zhuhong] composed his Shuchao [Commentary and Sub-commentary], vast and subtle in its detail; Elder Master Youxi [Chuandeng] set forth his Yuanzhongchao [Perfect Center Commentary], lofty, deep, immense, and broad — these stand like the sun and moon at midday, seen by every eye alike. But precisely because their prose is so rich and their meaning so intricate, their boundaries beyond fathoming, they may cause beginners of shallow understanding to find faith and vow difficult to climb toward. And so, without presuming on my own mediocrity and foolishness, I have once more set forth this Essential Explanation — not daring to compete with these two elders by claiming to differ from them, nor daring to force an agreement with them either. It is like Mount Lu: seen from the side it becomes a single peak, seen from across it becomes a long ridge — neither view exhausts the true scene of Mount Lu itself, and yet each remains, in its own way, a genuine, personal sighting of Mount Lu. I shall now explain the sūtra's text by way of the Five Profound Meanings.
The two commentaries Ouyi measures himself against are both cited elsewhere on this site's reading notes for the sūtra itself: Yunqi Zhuhong (蓮池大師, 1535–1615), whose Amituo Shuchao (彌陀疏鈔) is the encyclopedic commentary the sūtra's own reading guide already draws on for a contrasting reading of "Pure Land is only the pure mind"; and Youxi Chuandeng (幽谿傳燈, 1554–1628), whose Yuanzhongchao is less widely translated but stands, in the tradition's own reckoning, as the third of the sūtra's three classical commentaries alongside Ouyi's own. "Five Profound Meanings" (五重玄義) is the standard Tiantai framework for opening any sūtra commentary — name, essence, essential teaching, power and function, and doctrinal classification — used throughout this site's other Tiantai-adjacent translations, including the Jiaoguan Gangzong.
First: Explaining the Name
第一釋名者，此經以能說、所說人為名。佛者，此土能說之教主，即釋迦牟尼如來，乘大悲願力生五濁惡世，以先覺而覺後覺，無法不知無法不見故名佛也。說者，悅所懷也，佛以度生為懷，眾生機熟，佛為應時說法令得度脫，故悅也。阿彌陀者，即所說彼土之導師，以四十八願接信願念佛眾生，令生極樂世界永階不退者也。梵語阿彌陀，此云無量壽，亦云無量光。以要言之，功德智慧，神通道力，依正莊嚴，說法化度，一一無量，聊舉壽命、光明二事以為言端耳。經者、訓法訓常，一切金口所宣通名為經，今對佛說阿彌陀五字、即是通別合為題也。教。行。理三各論通別，廣如台藏所明，自應尋之，茲不繁述。
First, explaining the name. This sūtra takes its title from the one who speaks and the one spoken of. "Buddha" is the teaching-lord of this world who does the speaking — that is, the Tathāgata Śākyamuni, who, riding upon the power of his great compassionate vow, was born into this evil world of the five turbidities, awakening those who came after him as one already awakened himself; there is no dharma he does not know, no dharma he does not see — hence he is called Buddha. "Discourse" [說] means the joy of what he holds in his heart: the Buddha holds the liberation of beings as his own deepest concern, and when beings' capacities have ripened, the Buddha, responding to the moment, discourses on the Dharma so that they may attain liberation — hence the joy. "Amitābha" is the guiding teacher of the land spoken of — who, by his forty-eight vows, gathers in beings who hold his name in mind with faith and vow, causing them to be born in the World of Utmost Bliss and forever ascend to non-retrogression. In Sanskrit, Amitābha means "Infinite Life," and also "Infinite Light." To state the essential point: his merit and wisdom, his spiritual powers and the strength of his path, the adornments of his dependent and direct rewards, his discoursing on the Dharma to convert and liberate beings — each and every one of these is infinite; the sūtra merely singles out lifespan and light, these two matters, to serve as the opening thread of speech. "Sūtra" [經] is glossed as both "dharma" and "the constant" — every discourse spoken by the Buddha's own golden mouth is generally called a sūtra. Set here against the five characters "the Buddha's discourse on Amitābha," this combines the general term [sūtra] together with the specific title to form the one heading. Teaching, practice, and principle can likewise each be discussed in their general and specific senses, set out at length in the Tiantai canon — the reader should seek it there; I will not elaborate on it further here.
Ouyi's gloss of Amitābha's two Sanskrit roots — Amitāyus, "Infinite Life," and Amitābha, "Infinite Light" — collapsed into a single Chinese transliteration is the same point the sūtra's own reading guide already makes; see the note to Section 6 of that page. The "Tiantai canon" (台藏) he defers to for the fuller discussion of teaching, practice, and principle is the broader Tiantai doctrinal corpus, most fully worked out in Zhiyi's own Fahua Xuanyi, the model this whole five-part framework is itself borrowed from.
Second: Distinguishing the Essence
第二辨體者，諸大乘經皆以實相為正體。何謂實相？即現前一念心之自性是也。吾人現前一念心性，不在內、不在外、不在中間，非過去、非現在、非未來，非青黃赤白、非長短方圓、非香、非味、非觸、非法，覓之了不可得而不可言其無，具造百界千如而不可言其有，離一切緣慮分別相，而緣慮分別亦非離此實相別有自性，離一切語言文字相，而語言文字亦非離此實相別有自性。以要言之，離一切相、即一切法，唯其離一切相故無相，惟其即一切法故無不相，無相無不相故不得已強名實相。
實相之體非寂非照，而復寂而恒照、照而恒寂，照而恒寂強名為常寂光土，寂而恒照強名清淨法身。又照而恒寂強名法身，寂而恒照強名報身。又性德寂照強名法身，修德寂照名報身。又修德照而恒寂名為受用身，修德寂而恒照強名應化身。當知寂照不二、性修不二、身土不二無非實相，實相無二亦無不二，是故舉體作依、作正、作法、作報、作自、作他，乃至能說所說、能度所度、能信所信、能願所願、能持所持、能生所生、能讚所讚，無非實相正印之所印也。
Second, distinguishing the essence. Every Mahāyāna sūtra takes the true mark of reality as its proper essence. What is meant by "the true mark"? It is precisely the intrinsic nature of the single thought of mind present right now. The nature of our own current single thought of mind is not within, not without, not in between; it is neither past, nor present, nor future; it is not blue, yellow, red, or white; not long or short, square or round; it is not fragrance, not flavor, not touch, not any dharma at all. Seek it, and it can never be found — and yet one cannot say it does not exist; it fully constructs the hundred realms and thousand suchnesses — and yet one cannot say it exists. It is apart from every mark of conditioned reflection and discriminating thought, and yet conditioned reflection and discriminating thought are not, apart from this true mark, possessed of any separate nature of their own; it is apart from every mark of language and written word, and yet language and written word are not, apart from this true mark, possessed of any separate nature of their own. To state the essential point: it is apart from every mark, and yet it is identical with every dharma. Precisely because it is apart from every mark, it is without any mark at all; precisely because it is identical with every dharma, there is no mark that it lacks. Being without mark, and yet without lacking any mark, one is compelled, for want of any better term, to name it forcibly "the true mark."
The essence of the true mark is neither tranquility nor illumination, and yet it is tranquil while ever illuminating, illuminating while ever tranquil. Illuminating while ever tranquil, one forcibly names it the land of eternal, tranquil light; tranquil while ever illuminating, one forcibly names it the pure and undefiled Dharma-body. Again: illuminating while ever tranquil is forcibly named the Dharma-body, tranquil while ever illuminating is named the reward-body. Again: the tranquility-and-illumination of one's own inherent virtue is forcibly named the Dharma-body, the tranquility-and-illumination of one's cultivated virtue is named the reward-body. Again: the cultivated virtue's illuminating while ever tranquil is named the body of enjoyment, the cultivated virtue's tranquil while ever illuminating is forcibly named the response-and-transformation body. One should know that tranquility and illumination are not two, that inherent nature and cultivation are not two, that body and land are not two — none of them anything other than the true mark. The true mark is neither dual nor non-dual; and so, taking up its entire substance, it becomes the dependent reward and the direct reward, the Dharma-body and the reward-body, self and other — and even the one who speaks and what is spoken of, the one who liberates and what is liberated, the one who has faith and what is had faith in, the one who vows and what is vowed for, the one who holds the name and what is held, the one who is born and what one is born into, the one who praises and what is praised — none of it anything other than what is sealed by the true mark's own correct seal.
This is one of the densest passages in the whole commentary, and it rewards being read slowly. Ouyi is not offering four unrelated pairings of the three bodies and the "land"; he is running the same tranquility/illumination (寂/照) pair through four successively narrower lenses on the identical reality. First, land against body in general: the true mark viewed as ground is the land of eternal, tranquil light; viewed as the one who dwells there, it is the pure Dharma-body. Second, body against body: viewed as illuminating-while-tranquil it is the Dharma-body itself; viewed as tranquil-while-illuminating it is the reward-body. Third, the same pair reassigned by source: the Dharma-body belongs to inherent, uncultivated virtue (性德) — what every being already possesses; the reward-body belongs to cultivated virtue (修德) — what is actually brought forth through practice. Fourth, the reward-body itself splits in two according to direction: turned toward oneself it is the body of enjoyment (受用身, closer to the Sanskrit sambhogakāya), turned toward others it is the response-and-transformation body (應化身, closer to nirmāṇakāya) — which is the body, on Ouyi's own account below, that Amitābha himself presently occupies within Sukhāvatī. The three bodies — Dharma-body, reward-body, response-body — and the four Pure Lands this passage sets up (the land of eternal, tranquil light foremost among them) are the doctrinal frame the rest of this commentary keeps returning to, most fully in the fourth of the Five Profound Meanings.
Part 1 Complete
This closes the preface and the first two of the Five Profound Meanings: why Ouyi wrote a third major commentary on a sūtra two towering predecessors had already covered, and the technical groundwork — the true mark of reality as the single thought of mind present right now, and the fourfold body-and-land scheme built from tranquility and illumination — that the rest of the commentary assumes without re-explaining. Part 2 turns to the third and longest of the Five Profound Meanings: distinguishing the essential teaching, where Ouyi lays out faith, vow, and practice as the sūtra's own governing structure, working through the six kinds of faith one by one.
Continue to Part 2 — Faith, Vow, and Practice →