What Kind of Life Is the Pure Land?

In a pure land similar to the land of bliss (sukhāvatī), if there were still daily life and work, it would be a worldly realm of laypeople just like the Sahā world, and thus would not be a pure land at all. Sentient beings would inevitably have the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and would inevitably be divided into two major groups—the monastics and the laity—no different from the Sahā world.

Because in a tranquil Buddha land, everything arises through transformation; there is no need for labor, no need for living and working, so that people's minds can remain tranquil and undefiled, without selfish desire, without distinctions of male and female, without family—utterly tranquil—and thus there is no distinction between monastics and laity; everyone is a practitioner. Only in a world similar to the Sahā world, where there is the division of male and female, the burden of family, and the need to work and live, is there the distinction between monastics and laity. Therefore, the Buddha established that in the Sahā world the monastic sangha takes the leading role, guiding the multitude in practicing the Buddha-dharma; Buddhism is upheld by the monastic sangha, and the Buddha-dharma is propagated by the monastic sangha. When the Buddha was about to enter parinirvāṇa, the great bodhisattvas who were laypeople requested to inherit the treasury of the Buddha-dharma and propagate the Dharma on behalf of the Buddha, but the Buddha did not permit it; He instead had the monastic sangha propagate the Dharma on His behalf and protect the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of the Buddha's teachings.

In tranquil Buddha lands as well as in the heavenly realms, sentient beings are not divided into male and female, and there are no families; therefore they are all monastic practitioners and need not leave home again. Without a family, how could there be any talk of leaving home? The sentient beings in pure lands and all the great bodhisattvas, up to and including bodhisattvas of the highest stage of attainment, have no families, and the forms they manifest are not divided into male and female; therefore none of them need to leave home or manifest the monastic form—they are all monastics, and moreover bodhisattva-monastics. Therefore, none of them need to shave their heads, none need to wear monastic robes, and none need to observe monastic precepts.