Closing the Three Minds
Dedication, it turns out, points in two directions at once: forward, toward rebirth in that land, and back again, returning to this very world to teach others once that rebirth is attained. Shandao then closes this entire section with a claim that reframes everything already translated across Fascicle 3 — these three minds were never confined to the nine grades alone.
Dedication in Both Directions
又一切行者，行住坐臥，三業所修，無問晝夜時節，常作此解，常作此想，故名迴向發願心。又言迴向者，生彼國已還起大悲，迴入生死教化眾生，亦名迴向也。三心既具，無行不成。願行既成若不生者，無有是處也。又此三心亦通攝定善之義，應知。
Further, every practitioner, in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, through the karma of these three actions cultivated, without regard to day or night or the passage of time, should constantly form this very understanding, constantly form this very thought — hence this is called the mind of dedication and vowing. Further, as for "dedication": once reborn in that land, one returns and gives rise to great compassion once more, entering back into birth and death to teach and transform sentient beings — this too is called dedication.
Once these three minds are complete in full, there is no practice that fails to be accomplished. Once this vow and this practice are thus accomplished, should one still fail to attain rebirth, there could be no such case at all. Further, these three minds also comprehensively encompass the meaning of the contemplative good as well — this should be understood.
The second sense of "dedication" here completes a circle easy to miss on a first reading: the entire preceding argument has been oriented toward getting a suffering being out of this world and into the pure land, yet Shandao's own closing gloss defines dedication as including the return trip as well — "entering back into birth and death to teach and transform sentient beings." Rebirth in the pure land is thus framed here not as an escape from responsibility toward this world, but as the necessary first step toward being genuinely useful to it, since only a being no longer trapped by their own affliction can reliably help anyone else out of theirs.
The closing sentence carries even larger consequences: these three minds, developed here specifically as the correct cause for the very first of the nine grades, are declared to "comprehensively encompass the meaning of the contemplative good as well" — reaching back to govern every one of the sixteen contemplations already translated across the whole of Fascicle 3. Read this way, the sun contemplation's own settled attention, the jeweled tree's own patient visualization, and the true body contemplation's own awe were never separate from sincerity, deep faith, and dedication — they were always this same threefold structure, expressed through a different kind of practice. This closes the three minds, the correct cause of the highest grade of rebirth, in full.
The Three Minds Complete
This closes Part 84, and with it the three minds (三心) — the sincere mind, the deep mind, and the mind of dedication and vowing — in full, spanning Parts 72 through 84. Part 85 turns to the remaining structure of the highest grade of the upper rank: who is capable of receiving this teaching, and the specific practices this grade's own practitioner undertakes, before the nine grades continue through the full range of rebirth still to come.
Continue to Part 85 — Completing the Highest Grade →