One Buddha, All Buddhas
The third doubt asks a practical question with a doctrinal edge: if all buddhas and all their pure lands share one Dharma-nature and are therefore equal, doesn't focusing on Amitābha alone betray that very equality? The answer turns on a moon reflected in every body of water at once — never two moons, and never really apart.
Doubt 3: Why Single Out One Buddha's Pure Land?
第三疑
問：「十方諸佛，一切淨土，法性平等，功德亦等，行者普念一切功德，生一切淨土。今乃偏求一佛淨土，與平等性乖，云何生淨土？」
答：「一切諸佛土，實皆平等。但眾生根鈍，濁亂者多，若不專繫一心一境，三昧難成。專念阿彌陀佛，即是一相三昧，以心專至，得生彼國。如《隨願往生經》云：『普廣菩薩問佛：「十方悉有淨土，世尊何故偏讚西方彌陀淨土，專遣往生？」佛告普廣：「閻浮提眾生，心多濁亂，為此偏讚西方一佛淨土，使諸眾生，專心一境，即易得往生。」』若總念一切佛者，念佛境寬，則心散漫，三昧難成，故不得往生。又求一佛功德，與一切佛功德無異，以同一佛法性故。為此念阿彌陀佛，即念一切佛；生一淨土，即生一切淨土。故《華嚴經》云：『一切諸佛身，即是一佛身，一心一智慧，力、無畏亦然。』又云：『譬如淨滿月，普應一切水，影像雖無量，本月未曾二。如是無礙智，成就等正覺，應現一切剎，佛身無有二。』智者以譬喻得解，智者若能達一切月影即一月影，一月影即一切月影，月影無二；故一佛即一切佛，一切佛即一佛，法身無二。故熾然念一佛時，即是念一切佛也。」
Doubt 3
Question: "The buddhas of the ten directions, and all their pure lands, are equal in Dharma-nature, and equal too in merit. A practitioner ought to be mindful of the merits of all buddhas equally, and be born in every pure land alike. Why then seek, with such partiality, only the pure land of a single buddha? Does this not go against that very equality? How, then, can one actually be born in a pure land this way?"
Answer: "All the pure lands of all the buddhas are indeed, in reality, equal. But sentient beings are dull in faculty, and most of them are turbid and confused; if they do not fix the mind single-pointedly on one object, samādhi is hard to accomplish. To be mindful of Amitābha Buddha alone is itself the samādhi of a single mark — because the mind is single and reaches its goal, one attains rebirth in his land. As the Sūtra on Rebirth According to One's Vow says: 'The bodhisattva Puguang asked the Buddha: "Pure lands exist in all ten directions — why, World-Honored One, do you single out the western pure land of Amitābha for praise, and urge rebirth there alone?" The Buddha said to Puguang: "The beings of Jambudvīpa are for the most part turbid and confused in mind. This is why I single out the one pure land of the west for praise — so that all these beings may fix their minds single-pointedly on one object, and thereby more easily attain rebirth there."' If one were to hold all buddhas equally in mind at once, the field of one's mindfulness would be too broad, the mind would grow scattered, samādhi would be hard to accomplish, and rebirth would not be attained. Moreover, to seek the merit of one buddha is no different from seeking the merit of all buddhas, since they share one and the same Dharma-nature. This is why to be mindful of Amitābha Buddha is itself to be mindful of every buddha; to be born in one pure land is itself to be born in every pure land. This is why the Avataṃsaka Sūtra says: 'The bodies of all buddhas are, in truth, a single body; one mind, one wisdom, and their powers and fearlessnesses are likewise so.' And it also says: 'It is like the clear and full moon, which answers to every body of water at once: though its reflected images are without measure, the moon itself has never once been two. Just so is this unobstructed wisdom, which, having accomplished perfect enlightenment, manifests itself throughout every realm — the buddha-body is never two.' The wise come to understanding through this simile: if one can grasp that every reflection of the moon is itself the one reflection, and the one reflection is itself every reflection — the moon's reflections never being two — then one buddha is every buddha, and every buddha is one buddha, the Dharma-body never being two. This is why, ardently holding one buddha in mind, one is thereby holding every buddha in mind."
Chengyu pauses over two terms before letting the doctrine proceed. Samādhi, he notes, is properly transliterated samādhi (三摩地) and means "correct concentration," also called "even-holding": freedom from both agitation and dullness is the "even," and fixing the mind on a single object is the "holding." And Jambudvīpa (閻浮提) he traces to its own etymology — Jambu names a tree, one that grows at the southern edge of this continent, and dvīpa (提) simply means "continent": the whole name is no more exotic than "the continent of the jambu tree."
He also raises, and answers, a further question the base treatise does not pose: if the Dharma-body's land of unmoving light is truly equal everywhere, how can the response-bodies' lands also be called equal, when this world has mountain ridges and pits while the west has jeweled trees and lotus ponds? His answer turns on the classical distinction between substance and function: "the Dharma-body is the substance, the two response-bodies are its function; the land of unmoving light is the substance, the three other lands are its function. Precisely because it is the function of that substance, purity and defilement remain exactly as different as they appear; precisely because it is the substance underlying that function, all of it is, in a single flavor, equal." He backs this with a citation from the Sūtra Resolving Doubts About the Semblance Dharma, on how differently the Buddha's own final nirvāṇa appeared to different witnesses — some saw an ordinary monk, some a majestic buddha teaching from a jeweled lotus seat, some a body without any boundary at all, filling empty space itself. Purity and defilement, Chengyu concludes, are a matter of the perceiving being's own capacity, not of any difference in the one who is perceived.
Part 3 Complete
This closes Part 3. If one buddha is every buddha and every buddha is one buddha, the questioner's charge of favoritism dissolves — but a sharper version of the same question remains open. Part 4 asks it directly: granted that focusing on any single buddha would work equally well in principle, why does this treatise, and the whole weight of Śākyamuni's own teaching, point so insistently at Amitābha in particular?
Continue to Part 4 — Why Amitābha, and No Other →