The Differences Between the Land of Bliss (Sukhāvatī) and the Saha World

Question: Venerable master, could you please introduce what life and work are like in a Buddha-land, a pure land, or the Land of Bliss (Sukhāvatī)?

Answer: In a pure land similar to the Land of Bliss, if there were still daily life and work, it would be a worldly land of laypeople 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 it would inevitably be necessary to divide them into two major groups—monastics and laypeople—making it no different from the Sahā world.

Because in a tranquil Buddha-land, everything arises through transformation; there is no need to toil, no need for livelihood or work. Only then can people's minds be tranquil and undefiled, without selfish desire, without male and female, without family—utterly tranquil—and thus there is no distinction between monastics and laypeople; 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 make a living, is there the distinction between monastics and laypeople. Therefore, the Buddha established that in the Sahā world the monastic Saṅgha takes the leading role, guiding the multitude in cultivating the Buddha-Dharma, and Buddhism is spread by the monastic Saṅgha. When the Buddha was about to enter parinirvāṇa, the lay bodhisattvas asked to inherit the treasury of the Dharma and to propagate the Dharma on the Buddha's behalf, but the Buddha did not permit it; He instead instructed the monastic Saṅgha to propagate the Dharma on His behalf and to protect and uphold the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of the Buddhist canon.

In tranquil Buddha-lands, as well as in the heavenly realms, sentient beings are not divided into male and female, and they have no families; therefore they are all monastic practitioners, and there is no need for them to leave home. With no family, how could there be any talk of leaving home?

The sentient beings in the pure lands, as well as the great bodhisattvas, all the way up to the bodhisattvas of equal enlightenment, 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 appearance of a monastic. They are all monastics, and moreover bodhisattva-monastics. Therefore, none of them need to shave their heads bald, none need to wear monastic robes, and none need to receive and keep the precepts of leaving home.