l Newsletter Index l Chinese l

Issue 93 January 2004

The Pure Land is in the Mind
Amitabha is in One's Own Nature

►The Venerable Master Hua's Dharma Talk

►Excerpted from "Vajra Bodhi Sea", Issue 342

Your not having any deluded thoughts is already the Pure Land. See how convenient, how immediate it is. Simply clean up your deluded thoughts and you'll be in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. When you have no deluded thoughts, then you have no afflictions. That freedom from afflictions, that happiness, is itself the Land of Ultimate Bliss. So, don't go running all over the place!

The Pure Land teaches very clearly, "One definitely creates it: one doesn't really go anywhere." You create the Pure Land yourself by revealing the light of your own nature.

The Pure Land is in the mind.
Amitabha is in one's own nature.

You needn't look outside. Ordinary people think that the Pure Land is outside, but if you really want to study and cultivate Buddhism, you must understand that the Land of Ultimate Bliss and the Saha world are not beyond this very thought. A defiled thought is the Saha world, while a pure thought is the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Don't be attached to the fact of your teaching living beings or being reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Recite the Buddha's name without worrying about whether you will be reborn there. Just cultivate sincerely. If you are free of affliction, then the Land of Ultimate Bliss is right here, ready-made. If you become afflicted, then you are in the Saha world, with its unspeakable suffering.

 
 

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