Why Amitābha, and No Other
Having conceded that any one buddha's land would do in principle, the questioner presses the practical follow-up: then why this one? The answer is unabashedly a matter of trusting Śākyamuni's own repeated choice, backed by a mountain of citation and a claim of special karmic affinity between Amitābha and the beings of this particular, especially difficult world.
Doubt 4: Why Not Just Any Pure Land?
第四疑
問：「等是念求生一佛淨土，何不十方佛土中，隨念一佛淨土隨得往生，何須偏念西方彌陀佛耶？」
答：「凡夫無智，不敢自專，專用佛語，故能偏念阿彌陀佛。云何用佛語？釋迦大師一代說法，處處聖教，唯勸眾生，專心偏念阿彌陀佛，求生西方極樂世界。如《無量壽經》、《觀經》、《往生論》等，數十餘部經論文等，殷勤指授，勸生西方，故偏念也。又彌陀佛別有大悲四十八願，接引眾生。又《觀經》云：『阿彌陀佛有八萬四千相，一一相有八萬四千好，一一好放八萬四千光明遍照法界，念佛眾生，攝取不捨。』若有念者，機、感相應，決定得生。又《阿彌陀經》、《大無量壽經》、《鼓音王陀羅尼經》等云：『釋迦佛說經時，皆有十方恒沙諸佛，舒其舌相，遍覆三千大千世界，證成一切眾生念阿彌陀佛，乘佛大悲本願力故，決定得生極樂世界。』當知阿彌陀佛與此世界，偏有因緣。何以得知？《無量壽經》云：『末世法滅之時，特駐此經，百年在世。接引眾生，往生彼國。』故知阿彌陀佛與此世界極惡眾生，偏有因緣。其餘諸佛，一切淨土，雖一經、兩經，略勸往生；不如彌陀佛國，處處經論，殷勤叮嚀，勸往生也。」
Doubt 4
Question: "Since being mindful of any one buddha's pure land in order to seek rebirth there amounts to the same thing, why not hold any buddha of the ten directions in mind at will, and attain rebirth accordingly — why must one be partial to Amitābha Buddha of the west alone?"
Answer: "An ordinary being lacks the wisdom to decide such a thing for himself, and dares not act on his own judgment; he must rely entirely on the Buddha's own words, and it is for this reason that he can single-mindedly hold Amitābha Buddha in mind. How does one rely on the Buddha's own words? Throughout the Great Teacher Śākyamuni's lifetime of teaching, in one sacred passage after another, he urged sentient beings to nothing but this: to hold Amitābha Buddha single-mindedly in mind, and to seek rebirth in the western land of Ultimate Bliss. Sūtras and treatises such as the Immeasurable Life Sūtra, the Contemplation Sūtra, and the Rebirth Treatise — some dozens of texts in all — instruct us in this earnestly and urge rebirth in the west; this is why the practice is partial to him. Amitābha Buddha also has, uniquely, his forty-eight great vows of compassion, by which he draws beings to himself. And the Contemplation Sūtra says: 'Amitābha Buddha has eighty-four thousand marks; each mark has eighty-four thousand excellent features; each feature emits eighty-four thousand rays of light, which illuminate the whole Dharma-realm, gathering in every being mindful of the Buddha, never abandoning them.' If there is one who is mindful of him, capacity and response answer each other, and rebirth is certainly attained. And the Amitābha Sūtra, the Great Immeasurable Life Sūtra, the Dhāraṇī Sūtra of the Drum-Sound King, and other texts say: 'When Śākyamuni Buddha spoke these sūtras, all the buddhas of the ten directions, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, extended their broad and long tongues, covering an entire trichiliocosm, thereby bearing witness that every being mindful of Amitābha Buddha, riding on the power of his original vow of great compassion, will certainly attain rebirth in the land of Ultimate Bliss.' One should therefore know that Amitābha Buddha has a special karmic affinity with this world of ours. How can this be known? The Immeasurable Life Sūtra says: 'When the final age comes and the Dharma is about to perish, this sūtra alone will be specially preserved, remaining in the world for a hundred years more, to draw beings across and bring them to rebirth in that land.' From this we know that Amitābha has a special karmic affinity with the extremely evil beings of this world. As for all the other buddhas and all their pure lands, though a sūtra here or a sūtra there may briefly urge rebirth in them, none compares to Amitābha's land, which sūtra after sūtra and treatise after treatise, everywhere, earnestly and repeatedly urge us toward."
Chengyu identifies each scripture the treatise piles up here by name and provenance, treating the sheer bulk of citation as itself part of the argument. The Immeasurable Life Sūtra, he notes, is the two-fascicle translation by Saṃghavarman of the Cao-Wei dynasty, telling of Amitābha in his causal stage as the bhikṣu Dharmākara, who met the Buddha Lokeśvararāja and there made his forty-eight vows. The Contemplation Sūtra is Kālayaśas's one-fascicle translation, telling of the Buddha teaching Queen Vaidehī the three pure karmas and the sixteen contemplations. The Rebirth Treatise, listed in the Kaiyuan catalog as the Upadeśa on the Immeasurable Life Sūtra, was composed by Vasubandhu (婆藪槃頭, "Kinsman of the Gods"). Even the more obscure Dhāraṇī Sūtra of the Drum-Sound King gets a note: a Liang-dynasty translation whose translator's name has been lost, teaching practitioners to recite a dhāraṇī associated with a drum's sound in order to attain rebirth in Sukhāvatī.
On the buddhas' "broad and long tongues" extended to cover a trichiliocosm, Chengyu supplies the logic rather than leaving it as spectacle: ordinary people doubt that so small a practice as buddha-recitation could really secure rebirth, and false speech is proverbial for shortening the tongue — so the buddhas, extending theirs broadly across an entire universe, offer the plainest possible sign that what they are witnessing to is true, precisely in order to dispel that doubt. He works out the trichiliocosm's own arithmetic from the Abhidharmakośa's verses: a thousand small-thousand-worlds make a middle-thousand, a thousand middle-thousands make a great-thousand, rising and falling together as one system.
He also raises a question the base treatise does not pose outright: if all buddhas guide beings equally, why does Amitābha alone reach out to this particular world? "Though the buddhas' guidance is equal," he answers, "this does not prevent each of them from having his own particular karmic affinity — which is why, when people of this world reach a moment of grief or sighing, it is Amitābha's name they cry out without thinking. The proof of that affinity is right there."
Part 4 Complete
This closes Part 4, and with it the treatise's answer to the two "why this one" objections. Parts 5 and 6 turn from the question of which buddha to the harder question of whether an ordinary being can reach any pure land at all — and, having reached one, whether anything actually keeps such a being from falling back.
Continue to Part 5 — Self-Power and Other-Power →