Amitabha Sutra - A Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua 14
Channel: Chánh Pháp Minh
Date: 2020-11-14

Amitabha Sutra - A Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua 14

A sutra is called a “tallying text.” It tallies with the wonderful principles of all Buddhas above and with the opportunities for teaching living beings below. Each time I explain a sutra, I add more meanings to the word. If I told you all of the meanings at once, you would never remember them, or if you did, the next time I spoke about it you would say, “I know all about it, a sutra strings together, attracts, is permanent, and is a method. The Master certainly is repetitious.” So I explain the term “sutra” bit by bit. In this commentary on the Amitabha Sutra I will discuss five of its meanings:

Basic Dharma. The Buddha reveals the origin of Dharma with his teaching by means of Four Kinds of Complete Giving:
a) Mundane Complete Giving, using ordinary methods of expression,

b) Curative Complete Giving, curing each living being of his particular problem,

c) Complete Giving that is for everyone, teaching for the sake of all living beings,

d) The Complete Giving of the Primary Meaning, giving the highest principle to all beings.

Ultimately, the Dharma cannot be spoken because there is no Dharma to speak; but by practicing the Four Kinds of Complete Giving, the Buddha reveals it. Thus the word sutra has the meaning of Basic Dharma.

Subtle Dharma. Unless the profound and wonderful doctrines are elucidated in the sutras, no one can know of them.
Bubbling Spring. Principles flow from sutras like gushing water from artesian wells.
Guideline. To make guidelines, ancient carpenters and stonemasons used a string covered with black ink, held the string taut, pulled it up, let it snap and made a straight, black line. A sutra is also like a compass and square, used for guiding people.
A Garland. The principles are linked together in the sutras like flowers woven into a garland.
The word sutra also has four additional meanings:

Strings Together. Sutras string together the principles of the Buddhadharma.
Attracts. Sutras attract living beings who are in need of the teaching.
Method. The methods used in cultivation which have been employed from ancient times right up until the present are set forth in the sutras.
Permanent. Sutras are permanent and unchanging; not one word can be left out or added to them, and heavenly demons and non-Buddhist religions cannot harm them.
The word sutra also means “a path.” If you wanted, for example, to go to New York and didn’t know the way, you might run west instead of east. You could run all your life, but you would never get to New York. Cultivating is also like this. Unless you know the road, you may practice forever, but will never arrive at Buddhahood. 

Sutras are also a canon, fixed documents to rely upon when cultivating according to Dharma. Sutras also explain worldly dharmas. You can find any doctrine you wish in the sutras.

Sutras are everyone’s breath; without them men are lost. We should step outside of our stuffy rooms to breathe the fresh air of the sutras. People can’t live without air or sutras. 

You ask, “I don’t study sutras or the Dharma, so I don’t breathe that air, do I?” 

Your breathe it, too, because the Dharma air fills the world, and whether or not you study it, you breathe it all the same. Everyone shares the air. Students of the Buddhadharma exhale Buddhadharma air and non-students breathe it in. You can’t avoid this relationship. 

Sutras are also food for the spirit, and have many uses. When you’re melancholy or depressed, recite sutras, for they explain the doctrines in a wonderful way, which dispels your gloom and opens your heart.