If You Want Middle-Grade Upper Rebirth, You Cannot Abandon the Precepts

The Middle Grade of Upper Birth arises from the causes and practices cultivated during one's lifetime. This primarily refers to a person of the Shravaka disposition who receives the precepts and begins with the merit of keeping them. One must observe the Five Precepts, the Eight Precepts, and other Lesser Vehicle precepts without transgression.

Therefore, if you wish to attain the Middle Grade of Upper Birth, you absolutely cannot abandon the precepts. I have heard that nowadays some lay practitioners, after receiving the Five Precepts, later renounce them. Is this not the height of delusion and confusion? If you cast away the Five Precepts, how can you hope for rebirth in the Middle Grade? Therefore, once you have received the Five Precepts, guard them as carefully as you would protect the apple of your eye. This is the very provision for your Middle Grade of Upper Birth.

Second, one must refrain from committing the Five Heinous Sins and keep away from all faults and troubles.

You must not commit the grave offenses of the Five Heinous Sins, and you should also strive to avoid the lighter transgressions of the Ten Unwholesome Actions. Then, with the merit of such precept observance, dedicate it toward rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. In this age of the Dharma's decline, when the minds and natures of beings grow increasingly coarse and their behavior becomes ever more reckless of rules and propriety, the nobility of virtuous conduct shines forth all the more. All of you must uphold the precepts. If a practitioner of Buddha-recitation were to claim that keeping the precepts is unnecessary, such words could only come from the offspring of demons. The proper Dharma of Buddhism must always speak of upholding the precepts.

At the moment of death, Amitabha Buddha appears together with a sangha of bhikshus. Because the practitioner is of the Shravaka disposition, what he sees is not a host of bodhisattvas but bhikshus. Amitabha emits light that touches this practitioner's body, and he expounds the Shravaka Dharma, praising the renunciate life and commending him: "How rare and precious you are! In accordance with the teachings of the Buddhas, you have been able to leave the household and abandon all faults," extolling the merit of monastic practice.

When the Buddha teaches the Dharma, there must be the benefit of the World Siddhanta—bringing joy and gladness to all beings. Only when beings are delighted can they truly listen to what is being said. Joy awakens their wholesome roots. Once they have drawn near and are ready to bear the rod and the shout, then the sharp reproaches may be applied. But if no karmic connection has even been formed, how can one simply scold them? They would only grow resentful instead. Therefore, one must always maintain a heart that praises and rejoices in others.

Such a reciter of the Buddha's name, upon hearing the Buddha's commendation, feels great joy. He sees his own body seated upon a lotus platform. The moment he sits upon the lotus and lowers his head to bow to the Buddha, before he even raises his head again, he has already arrived in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. How swift this is! You may ask: where exactly is the Land of Ultimate Bliss? If it lies far across a hundred billion Buddha-lands, through such a vast expanse of space, even traveling at the speed of light or beyond, one could not possibly arrive in the time between lowering and raising one's head. Does this not show that the Land of Ultimate Bliss is right here in the present moment? The Pure Land does not depart from the Saha world—only the dimension of space is different.

In truth, one arrives almost instantly, right in the present moment. The moment he arrives, his Middle Grade of Upper Birth lotus immediately opens. Once it opens, he is able to hear the Dharma being taught through both the primary and dependent attributes. What he hears accords with his own habitual tendencies, for he had always delighted in the Shravaka teachings. Thus, once there, he hears the Dharma of the Four Noble Truths—suffering, origination, cessation, and the path. Upon hearing it, he immediately attains the fruit of arhatship, for the highest goal pointed to by the Shravaka vehicle is the arhat: severing the afflictions of views and thoughts, bidding a long farewell to the rounds of birth and death, never again taking on a future existence, and with pure conduct established. He attains the fruit of arhatship.

Having attained arhatship, he manifests the Three Knowledges: the Knowledge of Past Lives, the Knowledge of the Exhaustion of Defilements, and the Knowledge of the Divine Eye. He also gains the six supernatural powers and the eight liberations. The eight liberations refer to the attainment of the eight dhyānas.

Since this is the Middle Grade of Upper Birth, he has attained arhatship. Yet you must understand that the designation "arhat" is made in terms of the degree to which his afflictions are severed. Once he arrives in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, he will certainly not remain at the level of an arhat. He will surely turn toward the Dharma of the Mahayana—the Great Vehicle—and proceed directly toward the fruit of Buddhahood in the greater path.

How does the Contemplation Sutra describe the Middle Grade of Upper Birth? It says: "If there are sentient beings who receive and uphold the Five Precepts and the Eight Precepts, who cultivate various precepts, who do not commit the Five Heinous Sins, and who are free from numerous faults and troubles." This refers to practitioners of the precepts.

To receive and uphold the Five Precepts means that, as a layperson, you have taken the precepts against killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants. The same holds for the Eight Precepts. To cultivate various precepts includes monastic precepts: the ten precepts of a shramanera, and the full precepts of bhikshus and bhikshunis. You do not commit the grave offenses of the Five Heinous Sins, and you are also free from numerous faults. In short, you have done well in the matter of upholding precepts in your conduct.

Then you dedicate the merit from such precept observance toward rebirth. At the moment of death, Amitabha Buddha arrives together with a sangha of bhikshus. Because the three types of the middle grade are of the Shravaka capacity, the principle that "all dharmas are born from mind alone" holds true for them as well. What manifests is not a host of bodhisattvas coming forth, but bhikshus accompanying the Buddha. At that time, Amitabha emits light and simultaneously teaches the Dharma, praising the practitioner's merit in leaving home and cultivating the Way. When this pure-karma practitioner sees Amitabha's emission of light, hears the Dharma, and witnesses the scene of being guided forth, his mind is filled with joy. He sees his own consciousness enter the lotus pedestal, which closes upon him, and he follows the Buddha to rebirth. From these passages in the Contemplation Sutra, one can confirm that this refers to an ordinary being in the Lesser Vehicle who upholds precepts after the passing of Shakyamuni Buddha.

Look at the causes he cultivated: the text only mentions that he upholds precepts; it does not say that he has severed his afflictions. If one were to speak of severing afflictions, one would have to cultivate the path: from the outer common stages, to the inner common stages. Within the inner common stages are the seven expedient stages, where severing the views afflictions is likened to cutting through a rushing stream forty li in length, leading to the first fruit. After the first fruit, one must return to the human and heavenly realms seven more times, attain the second fruit, the third fruit, and then in the Five Pure Abodes cultivate the intermediate dhyāna, as well as the nine successive samadhis. This process is extraordinarily difficult.

Therefore, since the text does not speak of severing afflictions but only of upholding precepts, this shows that it refers to an ordinary being of the Lesser Vehicle who keeps the precepts after the Buddha's nirvana, and not to a sage of the Lesser Vehicle.