Visualise the Pure Land as the Contemplation Sutra describes

Begin the sutra’s sequence of contemplations — the setting sun, then water turning to ice and beryl — as the meditative side of Pure Land practice.

Perché funziona

In the Contemplation Sutra, Queen Vaidehī, imprisoned by her son and in despair, asks the Buddha for a land without sorrow and chooses Amitāyus’s Pure Land. For later generations he teaches thirteen contemplations, followed by three on the grades of beings born there. The first is the setting sun: sit facing west and fix the mind on it until it can be seen clearly “whether your eyes are open or closed.” The second turns the western region into water, then ice, then beryl ground. The translator notes that the eighth contemplation, on images of Amitāyus and his two attendant bodhisattvas, leads to the samādhi of mindfulness of the Buddha. The method trains the mind to hold the Pure Land as its object.

Come farlo

1. Find a teacher or temple that teaches Pure Land contemplation; the translator notes the full method is so precise and complex that simplified forms are what most people practise today.
2. Sit facing west in a stable posture.
3. Do not stare at the sun itself: look softly toward the western sky at sunset, or simply hold the image of a setting sun in mind.
4. Rest attention on that image until it is steady whether your eyes are open or closed.
5. Only when this is settled, and with guidance, go on to the next contemplation the sutra describes.

Prove scientifiche

The prelude, the thirteen contemplations and the three grades are outlined in the translator’s introduction to the Inagaki translation; the first contemplation is section 9. The introduction also notes that meditation on Amitābha and his land, based on this sutra and the Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sutra, has been practised since ancient times. The support is scriptural and practitioner-based; there is no outcome research on this practice. (anecdotal)

Pure Land schools read this sutra differently. Hōnen counts contemplation among the practices auxiliary to saying the Name, and the translator’s note records that Shinran read the sutra’s “meditating mind” as the entrusting mind given by the Buddha. Gazing directly at the sun can damage the eyes; the instruction is held here as an image, not a staring exercise.

Fonti

• Inagaki, H. (trans.), in collaboration with Stewart, H. The Three Pure Land Sutras: The Larger Sutra on Amitāyus, The Sutra on Contemplation of Amitāyus, The Smaller Sutra on Amitāyus. Revised second edition. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Berkeley/Moraga: BDK America, 2003 (first edition 1995).
• Hōnen (Genkū). Senchaku Hongan Nembutsu Shū: A Collection of Passages on the Nembutsu Chosen in the Original Vow, trans. Morris J. Augustine and Kondō Tesshō. BDK English Tripiṭaka Series. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1997.

Errore comune

Treating vivid imagery as the measure of success — the tradition’s own masters disagree about what the visions are, and in the Japanese schools visualisation is secondary to the Name, not a test the practitioner must pass.