Will Amitabha Save Someone with Such Heavy Karma as Me? | Master Jingben
【Q&A Series】
Will Amitabha Save Someone with Such Heavy Karma as Me?
In my youth, not understanding karmic cause and effect, I committed many wrongs in matters of the heart, which has led to years of constant illness and physical suffering. I am now deeply, deeply remorseful.
For someone with such heavy karmic wrongs as myself, who now practices vegetarianism and recites the Name — am I worthy of being reborn in the radiant Land of Ultimate Bliss? Kindly request Master's guidance. Namo Amitabha Buddha.
Master Jingben Answers: Namo Amitabha Buddha. I have received your message, and I deeply feel your heart of repentance. My heart goes out to you for all the bodily and mental suffering you have borne along the way.
Please first ease your heart, and read on slowly — for Master must say this to you most solemnly: someone like you is not only worthy of being reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss, but is in fact the very one whom Amitabha Buddha calls out to day and night, the one whom Amitabha most longs to save.
Please understand this clearly: Amitabha Buddha's Great Vow was made precisely for us — for those of us who are sin-laden ordinary beings, powerless to free ourselves by our own strength. If rebirth in the Pure Land required us first to cultivate ourselves into pure, faultless beings, then not a single ordinary being in this world could ever attain rebirth. It is precisely because we cannot do this that Amitabha Buddha took the initiative to make the Vow, took the initiative to come and save us. This is the most supreme, most compassionate aspect of the Pure Land path — "deliverance by Other-Power." Our rebirth depends not upon our own purity, but upon the power of Amitabha Buddha's Vow.
Master Shan-dao taught us to have the "Twofold Deep Faith": first, to deeply believe that we ourselves are ordinary beings caught in the cycle of birth and death because of our wrongdoings, powerless to save ourselves; and second, to deeply believe that Amitabha Buddha's Vow-Power is precisely meant to save beings such as us — that, riding upon Amitabha's Vow-Power, we are certain to be reborn.
That you can now so deeply perceive your past and give rise to a heart of repentance — this very awareness of "knowing oneself to be a sin-laden ordinary being" is precisely the true deep faith that Master Shan-dao spoke of. It is most rare, most precious.
Moreover, the Buddha clearly stated in the sutras that Amitabha Buddha can save and receive into the Pure Land even those who have committed the "Five Heinous Sins and Ten Evil Deeds" — beings of the very heaviest karmic wrongs — provided they recite the Name with a sincere heart at the end of life. How much more, then, will Amitabha save you? The wrongs you committed in your youth, in the darkness of not understanding karma, cannot compare with such gravest of wrongdoings. How could Amitabha's compassion possibly abandon you? Amitabha's light illuminates all ten directions, embracing every being who recites the Name. Amitabha never picks and chooses, never abandons a single one who is willing to turn back and recite.
As for repentance — that you understand repentance is wonderful. But please do not sink into guilt to the point of being unable to lift yourself out. Excessive self-blame becomes another form of clinging and attachment. For those who recite the Name, the very finest, the most ultimate form of repentance is to call this single Name, "Namo Amitabha Buddha." Master Shan-dao said: "Each recitation of the Name is itself constant repentance." A single utterance of the Buddha's Name can dissolve the karmic wrongs of many kalpas. So rather than blame yourself again and again, turn that heart into recitation — for in each moment of recitation, Amitabha's light is already cleansing and soothing your body and mind.
As for your body, please follow your medical treatment well and take good care of yourself. Although the suffering of illness is bitter, it is precisely through this that we come to truly feel the impermanence and suffering of this Saha world — and so our resolve to be reborn in the Pure Land becomes ever firmer. In the Land of Ultimate Bliss there is no suffering, no illness — that is our true home.
Please set down the weight in your heart, and recite the Name with peace. Amitabha Buddha has never looked down upon you, has never left you. He is right beside you, waiting to receive you back to that radiant Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. Namo Amitabha Buddha
微信分享
扫描二维码，或复制链接分享
