The Miscellaneous Contemplation, for Smaller Minds
Having built, contemplation after contemplation, toward Amitābha's own body of near-incomprehensible scale, the sūtra now steps back with visible compassion: a mind this small, facing an object this vast, may simply be unable to succeed. So a modest, sixteen-foot image is offered instead — not a lesser truth, but the same truth, sized to what a struggling practitioner can actually hold.
Any Setting, Always Forming This Thought
十三、就雜想觀中，亦先舉，次辨，後結。即有其十一。一、從佛告阿難已下，正明告命結勸生後。二、從先當觀於一丈六已下，正明觀像以表真、想水以表地。此是如來教諸眾生易境轉心入觀。或在池水華上，或在寶宮寶閣內，或在寶林寶樹下，或在寶臺寶殿中，或在虛空寶雲華蓋之內。如是等處一一住心想之，皆作化佛想，為令機境相稱易得成故也。
Thirteenth, within the miscellaneous contemplation, the text likewise first raises the matter, next distinguishes it in detail, and finally concludes it. There are eleven points in all.
First, from "the Buddha told Ānanda" onward, this makes plain the issuing of this command, concluding what precedes and exhorting toward what follows.
Second, from "one should first contemplate an image sixteen feet tall" onward, this makes plain that contemplating this image represents the true body, just as contemplating water earlier represented the ground itself. This is the Tathāgata teaching sentient beings to shift the object of contemplation, so as to turn the mind and enter this practice by an easier path. One may visualize this image seated upon a lotus flower atop the pond's own water, or within a jeweled palace or pavilion, or beneath a jeweled grove or jeweled tree, or upon a jeweled platform or within a jeweled hall, or suspended within empty space amid jeweled clouds and flowered canopies. In each and every one of these settings, one should settle the mind and visualize it there, always forming the thought of a transformation-buddha, so that the practitioner's own capacity and the object contemplated might correspond to one another, making accomplishment easier to attain.
Shandao's own framing — "contemplating this image represents the true body, just as contemplating water earlier represented the ground itself" — draws a deliberate structural parallel back to the very second contemplation of this entire fascicle. The water contemplation offered something graspable in place of the pure land's own lapis lazuli ground; this final contemplation offers a modest, human-scaled image in place of Amitābha's own body, measured in yojanas. Both are substitutes chosen not because the true object is somehow lesser, but because a workable substitute is what actually lets an ordinary practitioner begin.
Not Because Smallness Is Easier for the Sage
三、從如先所說下，至非心力所及已來，正明境大心小卒難成就。致使聖意悲傷勸觀於小。四、從然彼如來下，至必得成就已來，正明凡心狹小、聖量彌寬，注想無由，恐難成就。斯乃不以小故難成，不由大故不現，直是彌陀願重，致使想者皆成。
五、從但想佛像下，至具足身相已來，正明比校顯勝。想像尚自得福無量，何況觀於真佛者得益之功更甚。
Third, from "as already explained" down through "beyond what the power of the mind could reach," this makes plain that, the object being so vast and the mind so small, accomplishment is indeed difficult to attain suddenly — and it is for this very reason that the sage's own compassionate intent, moved to sorrow, exhorts contemplation of a smaller form instead.
Fourth, from "yet that Tathāgata" down through "shall without fail attain accomplishment," this makes plain that, the ordinary mind being so narrow and small, and the sage's own measure so vast and broad, fixing one's own thought upon it has no way to succeed, and accomplishment is feared to be difficult indeed. Yet this is not because smallness itself makes accomplishment difficult, nor is it that vastness itself fails to manifest — it is simply that Amitābha's own vow is so weighty that it causes whoever contemplates him, regardless of scale, to attain accomplishment all the same.
Fifth, from "one need only visualize an image of the Buddha" down through "possessing this bodily form in full," this makes plain a comparison revealing the greater excellence of the true contemplation. If even visualizing an image alone already brings immeasurable merit of its own, how much greater still must be the benefit gained by one who contemplates the true Buddha himself?
Shandao's careful denial — "this is not because smallness itself makes accomplishment difficult, nor is it that vastness itself fails to manifest" — matters because it rules out a misreading that would treat this modest sixteen-foot image as somehow easier for Amitābha to produce than his own true, immeasurable form. The actual variable is never the sage's own capacity, which is unlimited regardless of scale; it is the practitioner's own capacity, and the accommodation is made entirely on that side. The single cause of any success at any scale is stated plainly: "Amitābha's own vow is so weighty" that it grants accomplishment to whoever contemplates him, however modestly they must begin.
Part 68 Complete
This closes Part 68. Part 69 completes the miscellaneous contemplation, and Fascicle 3 in its entirety: the claim that a small image and the true body are equally real regardless of size, the light unchanged whatever form is contemplated, the specific marks distinguishing Avalokiteśvara from Mahāsthāmaprāpta, and the closing of all thirteen contemplations that make up this fascicle's own commentary on the sixteen visualizations.
Continue to Part 69 — Closing the Contemplative Good, and Fascicle 3 →