The White Lotus Among Human Beings
Whoever sustains mindfulness of the Buddha without a single interruption is beyond ordinary comparison — Shandao reaches instead for the puṇḍarīka, the rarest of flowers, to name what such a person has become. And then, closing the palace transmission, this commentary states as plainly as it ever will what the Buddha's own vow was truly built to reward.
The Puṇḍarīka Among Human Beings
五、從若念佛者下，至生諸佛家已來，正顯念佛三昧功能超絕，實非雜善得為比類。即有其五。一明專念彌陀佛名。二明指讚能念之人。三明若能相續念佛者，此人甚為希有，更無物可以方之，故引分陀利為喻。言分陀利者，名人中好華，亦名希有華，亦名人中上上華，亦名人中妙好華，此華相傳名蔡華是。若念佛者，即是人中好人，人中妙好人，人中上上人，人中希有人，人中最勝人也。四明專念彌陀名者，即觀音、勢至常隨影護，亦如親友知識也。五明今生既蒙此益，捨命即入諸佛之家，即淨土是也。到彼長時聞法，歷事供養，因圓果滿，道場之座豈賖。
Fifth, from "should there be one mindful of the Buddha" down through "is born into the household of the buddhas," this directly reveals that the merit and power of this samādhi of mindfulness of the Buddha stands utterly transcendent, truly incomparable to any mixed practice of goodness. There are five points within it.
First, this makes plain single-minded mindfulness of Amitābha's own name. Second, this makes plain singling out and praising this person able to be so mindful. Third, this makes plain that, should one be able to sustain this mindfulness of the Buddha without interruption, such a person is exceedingly rare indeed — there is nothing else that could serve as a fitting comparison, and so the puṇḍarīka is drawn upon as this comparison's own image. As for the puṇḍarīka: it is called the fine flower among human beings, also called the rare flower, also called the very finest flower among human beings, also called the exquisite and fine flower among human beings — this flower, according to what has been handed down, is also named the Cai flower. If one is mindful of the Buddha in this way, one is then the fine person among human beings, the exquisite and fine person among human beings, the very finest person among human beings, the rare person among human beings, the most excellent person among human beings.
Fourth, this makes plain that whoever is single-mindedly mindful of Amitābha's own name is constantly followed and protected, as if by their own shadow, by Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta — just as though by a close friend, a good companion. Fifth, this makes plain that, having already received this benefit within this present life, at the moment life is relinquished one enters directly into the household of the buddhas — this is itself the pure land. Having reached that land, one hears the Dharma across a long span of time, attends upon and makes offerings without cease, and, the cause thus fulfilled and the fruit thus ripened, how could the very seat of awakening then remain far off?
The puṇḍarīka is reached for here precisely because no ordinary comparison will do: this is not a flower graded merely as "good" among others, but named five separate times in five overlapping superlatives — fine, rare, finest, exquisite, most excellent — each phrase circling back to insist that no single word is quite sufficient. Shandao then transfers every one of those five names directly onto the person who sustains this practice, making the comparison total rather than merely decorative: this is not a person like a fine flower, but a person who has themselves become the rarest flower among human beings.
What the Vow Was Truly Built to Reward
六、從佛告阿難汝好持是語已下，正明付屬彌陀名號，流通於遐代。上來雖說定散兩門之益，望佛本願，意在眾生一向專稱彌陀佛名。七、從佛說此語時已下，正明能請能傳等聞所未聞，見所未見，遇飡甘露，喜躍無以自勝也。上來雖有七句不同，廣解王宮流通分竟。
Sixth, from "the Buddha told Ānanda, you should carefully uphold these words" onward, this makes plain the entrusting of Amitābha's own name, for its transmission across the distant ages yet to come. Though the benefits of these two gates, the contemplative and the dispersed, have been expounded above, when one looks to the Buddha's own original vow, its true intent lies in this: that sentient beings should single-mindedly and exclusively call upon Amitābha's own name.
Seventh, from "when the Buddha had spoken these words" onward, this makes plain that Vaidehī, who made this request, and Ānanda, who would carry this teaching forward, together with the rest, heard what they had never before heard, and saw what they had never before seen; encountering and partaking of this ambrosia, their own joy overflowed beyond what they themselves could contain.
Though the above has unfolded across seven distinct points, this concludes the full explanation of the palace transmission section.
"That sentient beings should single-mindedly and exclusively call upon Amitābha's own name" (一向專稱彌陀佛名) is stated here as plainly as this entire four-fascicle commentary ever states anything — not as one valid option among the contemplative and dispersed practices just spent three fascicles expounding in careful detail, but as what those very practices, taken together, were always pointing toward. Everything this commentary has translated up to this point — the thirteen contemplations, the three blessings, the nine grades, each grade's own precepts or precepts' absence — is here gathered up and named as scaffolding around this single, central act. This sentence would become, in the centuries after Shandao, the foundational credo of an entire tradition of Pure Land practice built on exactly these words.
Part 106 Complete
This closes Part 106, and with it the palace transmission section. Part 107 turns to the sūtra's second transmission, at Vulture Peak, and to Shandao's own five-part structural summary of the entire sūtra from beginning to end — completing his account of the Contemplation Sūtra's full text and meaning.
Continue to Part 107 — The Whole Sūtra, in Five Parts →