Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (224)

The Golden Wheel King had already made offerings to immeasurable honored Buddhas and planted so many good roots, yet he only became a Golden Wheel King. If we do not cultivate diligently, but merely recite the Buddha's name and, at the end of our lives, get reborn in the Land of Bliss (Sukhāvatī) to wait there for attaining buddhahood—can we really become a Buddha? We have only made offerings to Śākyamuni Buddha, and even that not well; upon arriving in the Land of Bliss, we would have encountered only one Buddha, Amitābha—can we thereby attain buddhahood? Even becoming a Golden Wheel King required making offerings to immeasurable Buddhas, let alone achieving the far more supreme retribution of accomplishing the Buddha Way. The Buddha said in the sūtras that for sentient beings to attain buddhahood, they must all make offerings to immeasurable, boundless numbers of Buddhas, must listen to the sūtras and hear the Dharma beside every one of those Buddhas, and must make offerings to the Buddhas life after life before their merit becomes complete, enabling them to become the World-Honored One who is doubly sufficient in merit and wisdom. Therefore, it is impossible to say that by merely reciting the Buddha's name one goes to the Land of Bliss and becomes a Buddha. One would not even have sufficient experience in liberating sentient beings. The Buddha-Dharma has never taught this, and such merit has not been cultivated—buddhahood cannot be attained so easily.

If there really were such an effortless matter—becoming a Buddha by reciting the Buddha's name—then if disciples wished to listen to the Dharma, yet one could not even expound the Hīnayāna teachings, let alone the Mahāyāna teachings, how could one liberate sentient beings? Moreover, where would these disciple-sentient beings come from? Having never liberated any disciples and never formed affinities with sentient beings, how could one possibly have disciples? Without having liberated sentient beings, there are no disciples; without the assistance of disciples, one cannot establish a Buddha-land, nor can one attain buddhahood. It is like being a king: without ministers and without subjects, one cannot be a king. Having only been to the Land of Bliss, without having liberated sentient beings, one's merit is insufficient; unable to expound the sūtras and preach the Dharma, one's wisdom is insufficient; with neither merit nor wisdom complete, one cannot attain buddhahood.

At the time of attaining buddhahood, one must have immeasurable, boundless disciples assisting in propagating the Dharma. First, the two great disciples on the left and right are bodhisattvas of equanimity-stage (sattvākṛtya) who attend and protect the Buddha at His side; there are also the many bodhisattvas from the first bhūmi to the ninth bhūmi, as well as bodhisattvas who have just awakened, ordinary bodhisattvas, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, and so forth. These disciples must all be immeasurable and boundless in number in order to establish a Buddha-land. Therefore, one who wishes to attain buddhahood must make offerings to immeasurable Buddhas and constantly follow immeasurable Buddhas to study the Dharma, so that one's merit may soon be perfectly complete.

There is much Buddha-Dharma to be learned before attaining buddhahood; it cannot all be learned at the side of a single Buddha. The Tripiṭaka and twelve divisions of scriptures that remain in Jambudvīpa are only a very small portion of what the Buddha taught. The Dharma the Buddha proclaimed in the Sahā world is as scant as the soil beneath a fingernail, while the Dharma He did not teach in the Sahā world is as abundant as the soil of the great earth. Even so, the Tripiṭaka and twelve divisions preserved in Jambudvīpa already appear to sentient beings as vast as a boundless ocean; many people can only read one-tenth or one-twentieth of them—how much more so the enormous amount of Dharma that the Buddhas have not yet spoken. The Buddha-Dharma is truly vast and boundless. Therefore, we need to make offerings to immeasurable Buddhas, constantly follow the Buddhas to cultivate and study, and constantly cultivate merit, so that we may ultimately accomplish the Buddha Way.