Wonderful Metaphors in the Pure Land School
淨土宗妙喻
Metaphor 60: Genes for Perfect Enlightenment (1 /5)
According to genetics, our parents’ genes pass on to us and future generations. With Amitabha, the perfectly enlightened one as our parent, and through transformation birth via the Buddha’s Lotus Flowers of Enlightenment, what else would we become except perfectly enlightened beings? There are four implications of rebirth in the Land of Bliss by transformation:
Rebirth [in the Pure Land within a womb] is utterly different from a womb-birth [in the world of samsara].
First: Rebirth in the Pure Land is not a birth from a womb (as in the case of mammals in samsara). The Infinite Life Sutra refers to two kinds of birth in the Land of Bliss: womb-born and rebirth by transformation.
The former, however, is unlike birth from a womb as in the Three Domains and Six Realms, where beings are born in one of the four ways: in wombs, eggs, moisture, or by transformation. Those who are womb-born in the Land of Bliss refers to those reborn within a lotus flower, without being able to behold the Buddha or hear the Dharma for quite a while. Metaphorically it is like a baby still dwelling inside its mother’s womb and not yet ready to be born. The lotus flower in this case is called a lotus womb or lotus palace.
Why are some of the inhabitants of the Land of Bliss womb-born and the others born by transformation?
(to be continued tomorrow)
60. 基因喻 (1/5)
基因學認為，父母有什麼樣的基因，就會遺傳給子子孫孫。我們以阿彌陀佛 的正覺蓮花做為母胎、做為父母，從阿彌陀佛的正覺蓮花化生，當然除了跟 阿彌陀佛同一正覺以外，還會成為什麼呢？
極樂「化生」的四種含意 -
♦ 簡非胎生 - 第一，並非胎生，故說化生 ——《大經》說「疑惑胎生」。龍樹《易 行品》言：「若人種善根，疑則華不開；信心清淨者，華開則見佛。」
《無量壽經》裏談到「胎生」跟「化生」，這個「胎生」跟三界六道胎、卵、濕、化 的胎生是不一樣的，而是指在蓮花裏面，當下不能花開見佛聞法，好比在母 親胎中還沒有出生，所以比喻為胎生。「胎」也叫花胎、胎宮。極樂世界胎生跟 化生的因是什麼呢？
Namo Amituofo!
