the pure land is here

7/28/2019 The Pure Land is Here

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The Pure Land Is HereBy Sister Annabel

[Sister Annabel Laity is the Abbess of Maple Forest Monasteryand Green Mountain Dharma Center in Hartland-Four Corners,Vermont. This article is based on a Dharma talk she gave in San Diego,California.]

One day, Queen Vaidehi asked the Buddha, "Is the place with nosuffering very far away?" The Buddha replied, "No, it is not far away."

And then the Buddha taught the queen how to touch the land of GreatHappiness in her own heart and in her own mind. We talk about "thePure Land." In Sanskrit, the word is "Sukhavati." "Sukha" meanshappiness; vati means having: "The Place Which Has Happiness." Inthe Chinese tradition, it is translated as the Pure Land, perhapsbecause of the nature of the writings about that place. These writingsput us in touch with things we call pure.

The Prajpramit writings were probably composed roundabout the same time as the Pure Land writing, and they say, "Nodefiled, no immaculate." And yet we talk about the Pure Land in

Buddhism. In the Pure Land, there are many kinds of wonderful birds.Let us think about a bird. The birdsong sounds very pure, verybeautiful. But we know the bird has to eat, and the food that the birdeats has waste matter, which we would consider impure. The sutradoes not tell us whether birds in the Pure Land eat or not. But if theydo, there must be bird droppings in the Pure Land, which means thatthe Pure Land would not be quite so pure. Perhaps that is why thepeople who composed the Heart of the Prajpramit say, "Nodefiled" and "No immaculate." We know that if there isnt defiled, therecant be immaculate.

To understand the teachings of the Pure Land, we need tounderstand about Buddhist psychology. We need to understand thatthe store consciousness contains all the seeds of purity and impurity,seeds of happiness and suffering. We need to learn skillful ways oftouching the seeds of happiness and purity in us, particularly when wefeel overwhelmed by impurity and suffering. The Buddha and otherspiritual ancestral teachers have helped us find ways to touch theseeds of purity.

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The Buddha gave teachings about places where there was a lot

of happiness. He sometimes pointed to a city like Kushinagara, the citywhere the Buddha passed away, and said that in former times, thisplace was a place of great happiness. He would describe how the

people lived there in a lot of happiness. Probably some ancestralteacher put together the Sukhavati Sutras based on some of the thingsthe Buddha had said about lands of great happiness. The SukhavatiSutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra may seem very strange when we readfor the first time. We read descriptions of trees that have jewels fortheir leaves, flowers, and fruit, and descriptions of water with eightvirtuous qualities, clarity, sweetness, purity, coolness, limpidity, etc.These descriptions are not for us to consider intellectually. We do notread the Pure Land sutras or the Avatamsaka Sutra with an intellectualmind. But when we read them, the descriptions touch the seeds ofpurity in us. For instance, we do not see leaves of jewels on the trees

here. In autumn, the leaves here fall to the earth, decompose, andbecome one with the Earth again, whereas, a jewel does notdecompose. But actually, if we look deeply into it, a jewel comes fromdecomposed material, because the mineral realms are also made up ofthe plant realms. When we walk among the trees in the autumn on thisplanet Earth, we see the beautiful red and yellow colors like jewelsshining in the sunlight. But sometimes, we dont bring our mind to thepresence of the trees, because we are lost in our worries or regrets.When we have been reading the Pure Land sutras on a regular basis,then something in our depth of our consciousness knows that a tree isvery precious, as precious as the most precious jewels. So whenever

we meet a tree in mindfulness, we remember that it is precious, andwe can be there with it in the present moment. And when we are reallytherein the present moment, we are already in the Pure Land.

There are different levels of belief in the Pure Land, and the

highest level of Pure Land teaching is that your mind is the Pure Land;the Pure Land is available in your mind. The ancestral teachers puttogether the Pure Land Sutras with a kind of wisdom that helps us bein touch. And helps us to have the deep aspiration to be in a Pure Landand also, to help to build a Pure Land. In Plum Village, we often have towrite assignments for Thay. One year, Thay gave us the assignment to

write about the Pure Land that we wanted to be part of. He told us togive a very clear description. What kind of trees would be there? Whatkind of activities would there be? Everybody wrote about a little bitdifferent Pure Land, so we know that there are hundreds of thousandsof Pure Lands. In each of our minds, there is the Pure Land, and we cango about establishing the Pure Land. You may like to write about thisalso. It is a very enjoyable assignment.

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When we think about our own Pure Land, we have to come backto Queen Vaidehis question. "Lord Buddha, is there a place wherethere is no suffering?" Out of compassion, the Buddha said, "Yes, thereis." Queen Vaidehis heartfelt aspiration to be in that place of nosuffering came about because she had suffered so much. If she hadnt

suffered, the idea of a place where there is no suffering would neverhave occurred to her. So suffering and no-suffering go together, in thesame way defiled and immaculate go together. They are not absoluterealities; they are only relative realities. And sometimes the Buddhahas to teach the relative truth in order to be compassionate and tohelp, and to encourage. And that is why the Buddha said there is aplace where there is no suffering. But we know that Queen Vaidehiwould also want to help those who are suffering.

In the Pure Land, we have many bodhisattvas. The great joy ofbeing in the Pure Land is that we are near many bodhisattvas. And if a

bodhisattva wants to help those who are suffering, there must bepeople who are suffering. Therefore, in the Pure Land, there are peoplewho are suffering for us to help. When we wrote about our Pure Land inPlum Village, many of us wrote about how the bodhisattvas helpedothers. One person even had a hospital in the Pure Land. When youcome to a Dharma talk, you feel very happy. Maybe you feel you aremost happy when you are sitting and listening to the Dharma, becausethe Dharma is deep and lovely. It is beautiful in the beginning; it isbeautiful in the middle; and beautiful at the end.

In the Sukhavati Sutra, they say that in the Pure Land, you are

always hearing teaching of the Dharma. But you dont just hear theBuddha Amitabha the Buddha Of Limitless Light, the Buddha whofounded the Pure Land. You dont just hear him giving teachings. Youhear the birds giving teachings; you hear the trees giving teachings.Every time the wind rustles in the trees that is a teaching of theDharma; and every time the birds sing, that is a teaching of theDharma. And when the people hear the wind rustling in the tree, theystop and remember the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, the SevenFactors of Awakening, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the otherteachings of the Buddha. There is a song written by Thay inVietnamese, and then translated into English and put to music "Here is

the Pure Land." I practice this song when I do jogging meditation. If Ising it in Vietnamese, then every syllable is one footstep. And I canalso sing it in English and jog at the same time. Its very wonderful tobe jogging in the Pure Land.

The first words of the song are "Here is the Pure Land." And thesecond sentence is "The Pure Land is here." This is in the tradition ofthe ancestral teachers. "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." We say

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things twice like that because our consciousness receives the firstword of a sentence as the most important word. So if we just said,"Form is emptiness," our mind concentrates more on the word "form"than it does on "emptiness." So we then say "Emptiness is form," soour mind is equally concentrated on form and emptiness. In the same

way, if we say, "Here is the Pure Land," our mind is more concentratedon the word "here." And if we say, "The Pure Land is here," our mind ismore concentrated on "the Pure Land." So the words of the song allowus to be concentrated on both. Watering the seeds of purity in ourstore consciousness helps establish a good balance between purity andimpurity. We have the tendency sometimes to look on everything asbeing impure and we need to put the balance right. We practicewatering the seeds of happiness for the same reason. We have thetendency to look on the planet Earth as a place that is suffering, andwe need to put the balance right by seeing the happiness also.

When the Buddha taught Queen Vaidehi, she asked him "If thePure Land is not very far away, if it is right here, how do I practice tobe there?" The Buddha gave her a guided meditation in which shecould touch the Pure Land. It is a little bit like the guided meditation"Breathing in, I am a flower; Breathing out, I feel fresh." He taught herto be in touch with the lotus flower in her own consciousness, the lotusflower blooming. He taught her to be in touch with the lake of the mostclear, sweet water in her consciousness. In that way, she could beginby touching the seeds of happiness in her own consciousness. Then,when she was outside, walking in nature, she would also touch thatworld and feel happy.

Each of us has the capacity to build Pure Land a little bit in theirown home, or by building a practice center, or by joining a practicecenter, or in their local Sangha. The local Sangha where we only meeteach other once a week, or perhaps a bit more, is also a place wherewe can build Pure Land together. We can decide what kind ofenvironment we can make. How can we arrange the sitting meditationhall in order to water the seeds of Right Attention in everyone whocomes into the meditation hall.

The idea of attention in Buddhist psychology is quite important. It

is called manaskara in Sanskrit, and is one of the 51 mentalformations. It is one of the first five mental formations, which we call"the universal mental formations." Universal means that they arealways occurring they are always there. We are always giving ourattention to something. We know that we can give our attention in anappropriate way, or we can give our attention to what is inappropriate.So we have Appropriate Attention and Inappropriate Attention. Whenwe go into the town or turn on the television, we need to be very

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careful what we give our attention to. You may see newspapers withwords and images on them, and even though you dont stop to readthem, if you give your attention to them, they can sometimes waterthe seeds in your consciousness that are not altogether wholesome. Allkinds of information can flow into our consciousness through our eyes

and our ears. We dont have to intentionally receive that information; itmay still flow in. This is the meaning of universal mental formation(sarvatiaga); it is happening all the time. So, we should make ourenvironment a place where everything surrounding us helps nurturethe best, the most refreshing things in us, things that can make us andother people happy. We can all do a little bit of this work in our garden,in our home, in our school, in the place where we work. This is part ofmaking a Pure Land.

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the pure land is here

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