July 28, 2019
Master Huijing’s Short Dharma Teachings about the Infinite Life Sutra
《佛說無量壽經》
Since the translation of the Infinite Life Sutra in China, several great masters wrote commentaries; but, they are not specialists in the Pure Land teachings. After the era of Master Shandao, there were commentaries on the Infinite Life Sutra in Japan, particularly the explanations on the 18th Vow were plentiful. Overall they were different in meanings and in explanations, and some of them were contradictory.
Among them, we take Master Shandao’s “general meaning of the Fundamental Vow” as our most pristine reference, principle, and benchmark. That means, anything that matches the explanation of Master Shandao is correct, and is taken as our reference. Otherwise, it is not correct, and is not taken as our reference.
In this respect, as we have the explanation of Master Shandao, we don’t need to spend time and effort in reading the explanations of others. Because we have no teacher to guide us, and we have no capacity to differentiate which one is correct, we may produce incorrect interpretations in our minds, which is not very good.
(to be continued tomorrow)
《無量壽經》自從在中國翻譯出來以後,有好幾位古代大德為《無量壽經》做註解,而他們並非都是專修淨土的,乃至善導大師之後,在日本對《無量壽經》的註解,對第十八願的闡釋也非常的多。綜觀這一些解釋, 可說是異義多端, 各有不同, 甚至彼此相反。
在這當中,我們只可以善導大師的「本願取意文」作為指針,作為原則,作為衡量的標準。也就是跟善導大師的解釋吻合, 就是正確的, 可以參考; 不然的話, 就不是正確的, 不可以參考。
不過,既然有善導大師的解釋,我們就不必再另外花費時間精神去看其他的解釋了。因為, 既沒有人來引導, 而我們又沒有能力去分辨正訛, 看了之後, 反而會在我們的腦海中起了分歧的見解, 那就非常的不好。
Namo Amituofo!
