Transforming the Attachment to the Five Desires and Six Sense Objects into Attachment to the Name

To hear and believe, to believe and aspire—this is what makes one willing to uphold. Without belief or aspiration, it is the same as not having heard. Though it may serve as a distant cause, it is not called the wisdom of hearing. Upholding means recollecting the Buddha's name in every thought, so it is the wisdom of contemplation. There is upholding through practice and upholding through principle. Upholding through practice means believing that Amitabha Buddha of the West exists, without yet penetrating that "this mind creates the Buddha, this mind is the Buddha," but with a resolved will to seek rebirth—like a child remembering its mother, never forgetting for a moment. Upholding through principle means believing that Amitabha Buddha of the West is inherent within my own mind, created by my own mind, and using the great name—inherent in and created by my own mind—as the focus of the mind, never letting it slip from awareness for a moment.

Good, take a look at this passage. It explains the upholding of the name. Faith, aspiration, and the upholding of the name together embody the threefold wisdom of hearing, contemplation, and cultivation. Hearing this Sutra of Amitabha, the wisdom of hearing arises, and from faith, aspiration follows. Only when you truly believe can you give rise to the resolve to weary of the Saha world and delight in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. With deep faith and earnest aspiration, you become willing to take up the name and uphold it faithfully. This is why the patriarchs of China's Pure Land school have constantly taught that the three requisites of faith, aspiration, and practice are like the three legs of a tripod—each one indispensable, each lifting the others.

The Pure Land teaching is the hardest of all to believe. Once faith breaks through, aspiration naturally emerges. With faith and aspiration, the practice of upholding the name arises. And through this practice, you verify and embody your faith and aspiration. The three form a positive, mutually reinforcing relationship—none can be missing. Suppose someone has heard the Sutra of Amitabha but does not believe...

And indeed, many people in the world, reading how the Sutra describes the seven-jeweled pools, the eight-fold exquisite waters, and the like, will think: "Oh, that's surely a product of fantasy, idle country talk, the kind of literary or aesthetic embellishment—or maybe just a cheap ticket to heaven." They simply don't believe it.

And not only that—they may slander it as well: "How could such a world possibly exist?" It's genuinely hard to accept. The Western Land of Ultimate Bliss, on the far shore beyond the three realms, has such a world, and one so intimately connected to us? It's not easy. Sometimes when visitors come to Donglin Temple, I'll walk with them and deliberately talk about the Western Land of Ultimate Bliss—especially in the Patriarch's Hall, explaining why Master Huiyuan cultivated the practice of reciting the Buddha's name to seek rebirth. I watch their reactions, and eight or nine out of ten simply chuckle. They're polite about it. It goes in one ear and out the other. It reaches their ears but can't stir reverence or belief, can't touch the spirit. They smile but don't object either—after all, you're a religious figure, and they want to respect your feelings. I can see they're completely unmoved.

Those who can hear it and respond with something like "Oh, this..."—deeply moved, genuinely astonished—are extremely rare. Most will say, "Mm, good, that's nice. Is there really such a thing?" These reactions arise on the spot. So it's not easy. If they don't believe, they won't think of rebirth at all. A heart aspiring to rebirth is hard to bring forth. There are so many things for people to do in this world, so many fine goals to pursue—how could they possibly spare room in their hearts for talk of seeking rebirth? Still less anything else. So if they neither believe nor aspire, though they've heard the sutra, it's the same as never having heard it.

Still, even so, a vajra seed has been planted—a distant cause for their liberation many lives and many eons from now. Like a vajra seed in the ground: if they don't believe this lifetime, that's fine. A second life, a third, a fourth—still not believing. Then perhaps after countless eons, the seed suddenly ripens. Faith is born. They believe, they aspire, they recite, and they can be reborn. So in such a case, though they've heard the teaching, if it cannot enter the heart or touch the spirit, if they don't believe or aspire, it isn't called the wisdom of hearing. To hear the sutra while possessing faith and aspiration—that is the wisdom of hearing, with wisdom truly present within.

This wisdom is the wisdom of prajna. Without a prajna wisdom that transcends the ordinary mind's emotional attachments, it's very hard to believe in this Dharma door. This is precisely why the Sutra of Amitabha is spoken to Sariputra, who is foremost in wisdom. It tells us that only one foremost in wisdom can accept it immediately, without doubt, and shoulder the burden. Within the Mahayana teachings, when the Dharma is spoken to great bodhisattvas like Manjushri and Samantabhadra, they too can accept directly without doubt, for they all possess the profound wisdom of hearing.

Good. Then what is the wisdom of contemplation? Contemplation—we generally mean that upon hearing something, we have to inwardly think it through, examine it, weighing what is right and what is wrong, what runs shallow and what runs deep. Buddhism, after all, is about wisdom; it requires the wisdom of contemplation. Where does this wisdom of contemplation show up directly within the Pure Land Dharma door? In the upholding of the name. The word "uphold" itself holds quite deep meaning.

To "uphold" means that once you've grasped hold of something, you keep it firm, you hold it close within your heart. You keep thinking of it and never lose it—then you can uphold it. It's the way we cling to something we can't put down. Like a hen hatching her eggs—she has to keep her warmth over them. She can't leave, can't forget, she has to hold on. With that holding, she can maintain, and maintaining means not losing. Now "holding" also carries the sense of attachment. In cultivation, we generally say you must break attachment. Yet in the Pure Land Dharma door, sometimes attachment is emphasized—what are you to be attached to? This name.

Confucianism says, "Choose what is good and hold firmly to it." Can an ordinary person really manage to be free of attachment? They can't. If you don't let them be attached to the name of Amitabha, they'll be attached to the five desires and six sense objects—attached to all those things that keep us cycling through samsara, that bring us the bitter fruits of suffering. So simply switch the object of attachment: don't cling to the five desires and six sense objects—cling instead to this name. Clinging to the name can lead us to liberation, because within this name, this provisional designation, lies the merit of suchness itself. So in the Pure Land Dharma door, please, by no means claim it's about formlessness, about non-abiding, about no-thought, about being free of attachment.

All right, if you insist on being free of attachment—then why is it that some people, especially those Chan practitioners who are all pride and no substance, always say to the Pure Land school: "You're too attached. Seeking the Dharma outside the mind, attached to the name, attached to rebirth." Well, the Pure Land Dharma door sets out from wondrous existence, from the skillful forms established as teaching devices—it necessarily involves attachment. That's what single-minded recitation means: the mind tied in one-pointed recollection, recollecting the Buddha, reciting the Buddha, thinking of this every day. That kind of attachment is what lets you go deep, what lets your practice get on the path. If you keep talking about non-attachment and then ask someone to recite ten thousand recitations, they'll say: "Why attach to ten thousand recitations of the Buddha's name?" They won't even want to do ten if it means clinging to them.

Fine. If you're not attached, you won't solve anything. So as Master Ouyi explains, this "upholding" means that in every single thought, one recollects the merit of Amitabha's name—and that is the wisdom of contemplation. Now, the Pure Land Dharma door has a wonderful quality. The object of our attachment is the great name that embodies Amitabha Buddha's myriad virtues, and the skillful means within it work in an extraordinarily inconceivable way.

Because the minds of sentient beings are all like monkeys and wild horses, even when you claim you're not attached, at that very moment you're attached to your so-called non-attachment. There's no way for them to escape attachment, because every thought is a grasping after objects—their minds of arising and ceasing simply work that way.

So changing the object of attachment is a skillful expedient. This is why Amitabha Buddha, contemplating the nature of sentient beings, devised this name as His finest method for saving them.

Good. The mind that recites—originally it recited the five desires and six sense objects, every thought running outward. Now the object the mind is tied to is the Buddha's realm, the merit of suchness. The conditioning here is of an entirely different nature. Before, the object of focus—the five desires and six sense objects—was conditioning our mind with ignorance. Now this name is true suchness, and suchness itself is conditioning our own mind. So the more attached you are, the brighter your mind becomes. The more attached to the still samadhi of Infinite Life, the more the illuminating function of Infinite Light comes forth.

Through this very attachment, you eventually arrive at non-attachment, ultimately attaining the realm of the Dharma-nature's principle-body—free of abiding, free of form, free of thought. This is a very important point. We must focus on and uphold the realm of Amitabha's true suchness to transform our ordinary mind of arising and ceasing, our deluded mind. This is the wisdom of contemplation.

Next comes the wisdom of cultivation. Hearing, contemplation, cultivation. Once you have the wisdom of hearing and the wisdom of contemplation, you commit to practice. That is upholding the name, reciting the name.