Provisions Appear at the Mere Thought of Them — This Truly Inspires Our Longing

Let’s turn to the Thirty-Eighth Vow. The Thirty-Eighth Vow is "The Vow That Wonderful Garments Appear Spontaneously on One's Body." These ‘wonderful garments’ are the kāṣāya, the monastic robe worn by bhikkhus. If, when I attain buddhahood, any deva or human being reborn in my pure land wishes for clothing, it will drape itself over them the instant the thought arises.

This spontaneous fulfillment is much like the story from the time of Śākyamuni Buddha, when there was a bhikkhu named Shanlai (善来, “Come Well”). His roots of goodness from past lives were deep and profound, so when he wished to leave the household life and ordain, he did not need to undergo the formal full ordination ritual on the platform, including the four-part poṣadha ceremony of the Fourfold Remainder. The Buddha simply said, “Come well, bhikkhu,” and the moment the words left his mouth, the kāṣāya settled onto the man naturally, his hair and beard fell away on their own, and an alms bowl appeared in his hand — a bhikkhu whose appearance was completely pure and in accordance with the precepts. All of this is truly inconceivable: the robe came to him naturally, with no effort required.

In the Buddha’s time, some bhikkhus had such deep roots of goodness from previous lives that they were born already draped in the kāṣāya. The phrase “wonderful garments appear spontaneously on the body” illustrates the devas and humans of the Land of Ultimate Bliss by comparison — just as the robe settled on bhikkhu Shanlai the instant the Buddha spoke. Thus the clothing worn by beings in the Western Pure Land requires no weaving of cloth, no tailoring, no dyeing, and no laundering when soiled: none of these processes are needed at all.

Think of it: the garments of Pure Land beings are all made of the seven treasures. If you wish for a golden robe, it drapes over you; if you wish for a lapis lazuli robe, that is what you wear… Woven from the seven treasures, they are nonetheless extraordinarily soft, glowing with light and color. Whatever cut or fit you want appears: looser, slimmer, tailored to your frame — the garment shifts to match exactly what you wish for. What’s more, clothing in the Western Pure Land never gets dirty. Why do our clothes get dirty? Because the world outside is full of dust, and our own bodies are not clean either — we produce foul sweat and grime, so we have to wash them every few days.

In the Western Pure Land, the external environment is free of all defilement, and internally, beings have a vajra-nārāyaṇa body that does not produce foul sweat and is free of the eighty-four thousand corpse worms. How could their clothes ever get dirty? They never do. Say you are wearing a robe of one material, and after a while you wish to change into something else — a robe of a different precious substance, or a different cut. The instant the thought arises, the old robe disappears and the new one settles over you.

What we commonly call the ‘necessities of life’ here refers first to clothing, but it actually includes food and drink, housing, and bedding — all of these are included. So not only do garments appear the instant you think of them — food and drink manifest just as quickly, the moment you wish for them. When you wish to eat, seven-treasure vessels appear before you naturally, and a hundred-flavor feast fills them naturally — right there in front of your eyes. You savor the meal in your mind, feeling your body grow strong and full of vigor; when you have the sense that “I have finished eating,” the seven-treasure vessels and the hundred-flavor food vanish of their own accord. There is no cooking, no dishwashing, no wiping down of tables — none of that is needed at all.

How wonderfully unburdened this freedom is! This is the power of the mind to transform all phenomena: the great freedom of a realm where energy becomes mass and mass becomes energy, at will. The same is true of food and drink, and of the palaces and homes where beings dwell. Whatever material you wish for your palace, it appears right before you. A palace of gold, a palace of silver, a crystal hall, or a hall made of a single precious material, or several combined, or even immeasurable precious substances woven together — all appear naturally. If you wish it to rest on the ground, there it stays; for those with more advanced practice, if you wish to rise into empty space, you can do so. If you wish the palace to be larger, it grows; if you wish it smaller, it shrinks. Beside each palace and home grow countless trees, along with seven-jewel ponds and water of eight excellent qualities. The grandest mansions of the wealthiest people in our world pale in comparison to the dwellings of the beings in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

So what does this vow offer us? The fact that all our necessities appear the moment we think of them — this fills us with deep longing.

This is why the Western Pure Land is a realm of supreme virtue: there is no pressure to eke out a living there, for whatever you want, you have. Why does the moral standard of our Sahā World decline steadily with each passing day? A key reason is that we can’t have our wishes fulfilled the instant we think of them. To get even a little grain, we have to toil in the fields; to get even a simple set of clothes, we have to work hard to weave the cloth; to have a place to live, we are slaves to the bank for our entire lives, taking out mortgage loans. Even getting the basic necessities of life is extremely hard. As the population grows and survival resources grow more scarce by the day, competition grows fiercer, and the collective merit of the world declines.

As a result, to get these basic necessities — which are the external lifeline of all sentient beings, without which we cannot survive — people will stop at nothing to seize these so-called survival resources. In such circumstances, people cast all restraint aside and show no consideration for one another; human relationships become no different from those between wolves.

Look at the way people in the world fight over the smallest scrap of gain — the pattern of mutual strife is truly frightening to behold, and it all comes down to these basic, bodily things: food, drink, shelter, travel, and the cravings of the body. Yet people are trapped in this state: survival resources are so hard to come by, and yet they are essential, so competition grows brutally fierce. In conditions like these, talking to people about morality or about giving way is almost impossible.

I remember once lecturing on the Analects at a school, when a student pushed back against what I was saying. “Teacher,” he said, “what you teach is all well and good, but this is an era of market competition. If we all lived the way Confucius describes in the Analects, how would I survive?” He was convinced that this kind of teaching had no place in a competitive age. This is because he had no sense of karmic cause and effect. Modern education does not allow for any loss at all — it demands constant gain and advancement. It has no room for the idea of giving way. Our traditional national learning once included this value, but it is rarely taught today. This is the key objective factor behind the steady decline of our moral standards.

It is clear, then, that changing this state of affairs is extremely difficult in our world. The Western Pure Land — the pure realm established for us by Bodhisattva Dharmākara — is a place with no survival pressure at all, so no one competes with anyone else over material goods or sensual pleasures. In the Western Pure Land, all beings rejoice in each other’s progress on the path, offer each other gentle counsel, and support one another. Could there be a finer, more excellent land than this?