The Gate of Restraint
The forty-eight vows exclude those who commit the five heinous crimes or slander the Dharma; this sūtra now describes exactly such a five-heinous offender attaining rebirth. Shandao's resolution — a vow that restrains before the act, and a vow that includes after it — has governed how Pure Land Buddhism reads its own founding promise ever since.
A Vow That Excludes, a Sūtra That Includes
問曰：「如四十八願中，唯除五逆、誹謗正法不得往生。今此《觀經》下品下生中，簡謗法、攝五逆者，有何意也？」答曰：「此義仰就抑止門中解。如四十八願中除謗法、五逆者，然此之二業其障極重，眾生若造直入阿鼻，歷劫周慞無由可出。但如來恐其造斯二過，方便止言不得往生，亦不是不攝也。
A question is asked: "Within the forty-eight vows, it is only those who commit the five heinous crimes or slander the true Dharma who are excluded, and do not attain rebirth. Yet now, within this very Contemplation Sūtra's own lowest rebirth of the lower rank, those who slander the Dharma are excluded while those who commit the five heinous crimes are included — what is the meaning of this?"
The answer: "This meaning is to be understood, with reverence, within the gate of restraint. As for the forty-eight vows excluding those who slander the Dharma and commit the five heinous crimes: these two karmic acts carry an obstruction of the utmost gravity — should sentient beings commit them, they fall directly into the Avīci hell, wandering through kalpa after kalpa with no way out. It is only that the Thus Come One, fearing that beings might go on to commit these two transgressions, expediently restrains them by saying that they cannot attain rebirth — this is not, in truth, a refusal to include them.
"The gate of restraint" (抑止門) is Shandao's own name for a vow spoken not as a final judgment, but as a warning meant to prevent the very act it names. The exclusion clause functions the way a parent's "if you do that, you're not welcome here" functions — spoken precisely to keep the act from happening, its own severity a measure of how gravely the outcome is feared, not a promise kept once the warning has failed.
Already Committed, Not Yet Committed
又下品下生中取五逆、除謗法者，其五逆已作，不可捨令流轉，還發大悲攝取往生；然謗法之罪未為，又止言若起謗法即不得生，此就未造業而解也。若造，還攝得生，雖得生彼，華合逕於多劫。此等罪人在華內時有三種障。一者不得見佛及諸聖眾。二者不得聽聞正法。三者不得歷事供養。除此已外更無諸苦。經云：『猶如比丘入三禪之樂也。』應知，雖在華中多劫不開，可不勝阿鼻地獄之中長時永劫受諸苦痛也。此義就抑止門解竟。」
"Furthermore, as for this Contemplation Sūtra's own lowest rebirth of the lower rank taking up those who commit the five heinous crimes while excluding those who slander the Dharma: since the five heinous crimes have already been committed, they cannot simply be abandoned and left to wander on in birth and death — great compassion is therefore raised up once more, to include and take up this being, granting rebirth. But the offense of slandering the Dharma has not yet been committed, and so it is restrained by saying that, should one give rise to slander of the Dharma, one cannot attain rebirth — this is explained with reference to karma not yet committed. Should it in fact be committed, this being is nonetheless still included and granted rebirth; yet though granted rebirth there, the flower remains closed across many kalpas.
"While such offenders remain within this flower, they face three kinds of obstruction. First, they cannot behold the Buddha or any of the assembled sages. Second, they cannot hear the true Dharma expounded. Third, they cannot attend upon or make offerings to anyone. Beyond these three, there is no further suffering at all. The sūtra says: 'It is just as though a monk had entered the bliss of the third dhyāna.' One should know this: though this being remains within the flower unopened for many kalpas, is this not still far better than enduring, within the Avīci hell, every manner of suffering across a long, endless span of kalpas? This meaning is now explained in full, within the gate of restraint."
Shandao's distinction turns on tense, not on any difference in the gravity of the two offenses themselves: the five heinous crimes, in the case this sūtra actually describes, are already an accomplished fact — compassion, facing what cannot be undone, chooses to include rather than abandon. Slander of the Dharma, by contrast, is named only as a future possibility the vow is trying to forestall; should it too become an accomplished fact, Shandao states plainly, that offender is included as well. The gate of restraint speaks to prevent an act; the gate of inclusion, named again at Part 79, receives whoever the restraint failed to stop. Neither vow is broken — they operate at different moments, on the same compassion.
Part 101 Complete
This closes Part 101. Part 102 returns to the ninth grade's own narrative: this being's encounter with a good friend at the very edge of death, too overwhelmed by mortal suffering to complete even a single recollection of the Buddha's name, until taught instead to simply speak it aloud.
Continue to Part 102 — Ten Recitations at the Edge of Death →