1. The disciple who
has faith in Amida is protected and sustained by various spirits, gods and
unseen powers who are themselves followers of the Buddha-Dharma
2.The
disciple who has faith in Amida is protected by all Buddhas. They accompany him
day and night like his own shadow.
3.The
disciple who has faith in Amida is protected by the Light of this Buddha’s
heart. No demon, spirit or evil god can harm him.
Also, those who have faith in
Amida will never lose it.
We are stable and constant in our
faith due to Amida’s influence on us, His protection and the protection of all
Buddhas. Amida’s Power is always working inside our minds and keeping us on the
right Path to His Pure Land. A person who has genuine faith in Amida will never
fall back to non-Buddhist paths, never embrace wrong views or doubt Amida’s
salvation. On the contrary, he will, due to Amida’s protection and the
protection of all Buddhas, be constant in his profound understanding that
self-power is useless in attaining supreme Enlightenment, and so he will never
waver from true and real faith (shinjin) in Amida.
4.The disciple who
has faith in Amida receives the karmic merits of this Buddha in this very life
before birth in Amida’s Pure Land. The transfer of merits (good karma) from
Amida to the faithful has two aspects: it makes him enter the stage of those
assured of birth in the Pure Land where he will attain supreme Enlightenment,
and come back to this world, completely free and unaffected by worldly
conditions, to guide all beings to the same emancipation he has attained in
Amida’s Pure Land.
5.To better
understand the merit transference from Amida Buddha to us, we can compare it
with a blood transfusion, or an organ transplant. When a sick person receives
healthy blood or a healthy vital organ he can continue to live, even if until
then he was supposed to die. Thus, the blood or the organ he received becomes
part of his own body and will function as if it has always been there.In the
same way, we, who deserve to be born in the lower realms if we are left at the
mercy of our unenlightened karma, by entrusting ourselves to Amida Buddha we
receive His karmic merits which imbue our mindstream and leads us securely to
His Pure Land. Even if we continue to have delusions and blind passions until
we die and we are actually born in the Pure Land, we become united with Amida
Buddha from this very life (we enter the stage of non-retrogression), as His
own “blood” or enlightened karma circulates now through our veins.
6.
When faith enters our heart we receive the pure karmic energy of Amida Buddha.
In that instant, our evil karma is cut or sterilized and cannot plant its seed
into another life. No matter what we did in the past or will do in the future
due to our illusions and attachments, our evil becomes as good as non-existent
once we receive faith and say the Nembutsu of faith. Being ordinary people of
grave karmic evil brings us into the attention of Amida’s undiscriminating Compassion.
7.Also, due to the
influence of Amida we can transform an unpleasant experience into an
opportunity to understand life as it is and the Dharma. It doesn’t mean that we will no longer have
problems, experience lack of material things, or have various difficulties, but
that we can understand these unfortunate events as being the effects of our
karma, using them to become more aware that this is samsara, the world of
suffering, from which we must escape once and for all through birth in the Pure
Land. Bad events in our lives can thus be transformed through the light of the
Dharma into useful ones – useful for our understanding.
8.Those who have faith
inAmida are praised by all Buddhas. Shakyamuni calls them His true companions,
wonderful people or white lotus flowers.
9. Those who have
faith are happy that their emancipation from the repeated births and deaths does
not depend on them, but on Amida, which means this freedom is certain because
there is nobody more trustful than Amida.
10. Those who have
faith are aware of how hard it is to attain freedom from samsara and how great
is the debt of gratitude they owe to Amida who saves them as they are. This is
why they have genuine gratitude like somebody who is saved from a certain
death.
11.By receiving faith
(shinjin) we become part of the salvation work of Amida Buddha, a link in His
chain of Great Compassion. As people of faith, we can naturally influence
others towards faith if they are open enough, or at least we can help them make
a little connection with Amida. Every person, human or non-human, who knows
somebody who has genuine faith in Amida can make a little step further towards
Amida.
Not all those who have faith become teachers or priests, but
this doesn’t mean they can’t be living examples of faithful devotees. Also,
people of faith can do various activities in the benefit of Amida Dharma by sharing
texts related to Amida, supporting true teachers and temples. Any of the
actions above are a natural manifestation of the need to repay the benevolence
of Amida Buddha and they are also ways in which even ordinary people like us can
practice great compassion in this life.
12.
By receiving faith (shinjin) and saying the Name of Amida we enter, in this
life, in the stage of those assured of birth in the Pure Land, where we’ll
actually be born after death, and where we’ll immediately attain Buddhahood
(Nirvana/supreme Enlightenment). This is also called the stage of
non-retrogression.
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