Ten Recitations at the Edge of Death
A good friend arrives to teach mindful recollection of the Buddha, but the dying being's own suffering is too great to sustain it. What survives that failure is not abandoned, but simplified: spoken aloud instead, ten times, without a single break between them.
When Even Recollection Fails
四、從如此愚人下，至生死之罪已來，正明聞法念佛得蒙現益。即有其十。一明重牒造惡之人。二明命延不久。三明臨終遇善知識。四明善人安慰教令念佛。五明罪人死苦來逼，無由得念佛名。六明善友知苦失念，轉教口稱彌陀名號。七明念數多少聲聲無間。八明除罪多劫。九明臨終正念即有金華來應。十明去時遲疾直到所歸之國。
Fourth, from "such a foolish being as this" down through "the offense of birth and death," this makes plain hearing the Dharma and being mindful of the Buddha, and thereby receiving a benefit made manifest at once. There are ten points within it. First, this makes plain restating once more this being who has committed evil. Second, this makes plain that this being's own life is not long to continue. Third, this makes plain that, at the very end of life, this being encounters a good friend. Fourth, this makes plain this good person offering consolation and teaching this being to be mindful of the Buddha. Fifth, this makes plain that, this offender being pressed upon by the suffering of death, there is no way for them to succeed in being mindful of the Buddha's own name. Sixth, this makes plain that this good friend, knowing this suffering has caused this being to lose their own mindfulness, instead teaches them simply to speak Amitābha's name aloud. Seventh, this makes plain that, whatever the number of these recitations, each utterance follows the last without interruption. Eighth, this makes plain that many kalpas of offense are thereby removed. Ninth, this makes plain that, at the moment of death, right mindfulness having been achieved, a golden flower at once appears in answer. Tenth, this makes plain the speed with which this being then departs, arriving directly at the land to which they now return.
The good friend's teaching does not stay fixed on a single method once it fails: point four teaches mindful recollection of the Buddha (念佛), point five reports that this being cannot sustain it, and point six has the same good friend pivot at once to vocal recitation of the name (口稱). This small narrative hinge — a teacher adjusting the practice to what a dying mind can actually still do — is among the passages later Pure Land teachers would return to again and again in arguing that spoken recitation, not visualization or contemplative recollection, is this teaching's own most universally accessible practice.
Part 102 Complete
This closes Part 102. Part 103 completes the ninth and final grade — the lotus opening only after twelve full kalpas, the longest wait among all nine grades, and the benefits gained once it opens — before Shandao closes the entire lower rank, and with it the nine grades in their entirety, with a single summary verse.
Continue to Part 103 — The Nine Grades Complete →