If a Child Remembers the Mother: A Rare and Precious Moment Encountered Once in Countless Eons

This phrase, “if a child remembers the mother,” points to a moment so rare it is seldom encountered even across hundreds of millions of lifetimes. It is like wandering a long, wearisome path: worn thin in body and mind, suffering so deeply you see no way forward, no way back — when suddenly you receive a letter from home. The letter is from your own mother, and it reads: “My child, come home quickly. We are waiting for you. There is more than enough wealth and land here for you. You don’t have to work for wages anymore, or beg for your next meal.” The second he reads it, the memory floods back. Why now, when he had forgotten for so long? Because he had simply forgotten.

In an instant, it all comes clear: “Ah, my true home is that rich, sacred land. This place I’ve been wandering is just a guesthouse, a temporary stop — it is not my home. Back home, my compassionate mother is waiting for me, with immeasurable treasures to her name. I don’t have to grind away here, or beg for scraps.” At that moment, he turns his heart back to her, and holds her in his mind.

This is an analogy for sentient beings who have wandered the six realms of existence for eons without end, now turning their minds to call Amitabha Buddha to mind — the Buddha of their true home, the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

If this wandering son — ruo (若), meaning “if” — can turn his heart back to remember his compassionate mother, the connection is made at once. For eons untold, that compassionate mother has never once stopped holding her lost son in her thoughts. This “if [the child] remembers” is the sentient being’s capacity to receive the Buddha’s response. As she holds him in her mind, the Buddha responds to this mindfulness immediately, and a spiritual resonance springs up between them — a true, unmediated communion. The bond between mother and son is inherent, as natural as a magnet drawing iron. From that very first moment of shared mindfulness, shared resonance, shared communion, mother and son are never parted again, not for a single lifetime. This is the same for sentient beings trapped in the cycle of birth and death: through faith, vows, and reciting the Buddha’s name, they resonate with Amitabha Buddha’s Forty-Eight Great Vows. Anchored in the ocean-like reality of Amitabha’s great vows, and rooted in the supreme, true path of his name, we sentient beings will never be parted from Amitabha Buddha again.

To never be parted is to never turn against one another again. This is what we mean when we say we are now turning away from the dust of sense objects and uniting with awakening. Our initial awakening now begins its return to our original, inherent awakening. Before, we were like the prodigal son who turned his back on his father and fled. Our original awakening was not expressing itself as initial awakening. Instead, it was running wild toward the five desires and six sensory dusts, creating all kinds of unwholesome karma. In truth, even the force we use to create this unwholesome karma comes from the power of original awakening. But that power is being used in a distorted way, pointed in the wrong direction, with no right view or right understanding to guide it. When our initial awakening merges back into our original, inherent awakening, we will never go against it again, and will never be far from it.

Here, the sense of the shared essence of sentient beings and the Buddha — their fundamental oneness — is established. Spiritual resonance and communion, the non-duality of sentient beings and the Buddha: this is the core principle at the heart of this teaching.