The Differences Between the Land of Ultimate Bliss and the Saha World

Question: Master, could you please introduce what the ways of living and working are like in a Buddha's 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 realm of laypeople like the Saha world, and thus would not be a pure land. Sentient beings there would inevitably have the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and would inevitably be divided into two major groups—monastics and laypeople—no different from the Saha world.

Because in a tranquil Buddha-land, everything arises through transformation; there is no need for toil, no need for living and working. Only then can people's minds be tranquil and undefiled, without selfish desires, without distinctions of male and female, without families—utterly tranquil—and thus there is no distinction between those who have left home and those who have not; everyone is a spiritual practitioner. Only in a world similar to the Saha world, where there are divisions of male and female, the burdens of family, and the need to work and live, is there a distinction between monastics and laypeople. Therefore, the Buddha established that in the Saha world the monastic sangha takes the leading role, guiding the multitude in practicing the Buddha-dharma, and Buddhism is spread by the monastic sangha. When the Buddha was about to enter parinirvāṇa, the lay bodhisattvas requested to inherit the treasury of the Buddha-dharma and to spread the Dharma on behalf of the Buddha, but the Buddha did not permit it; He instead instructed the monastic sangha to spread the Dharma on His behalf and to protect and uphold the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of the Buddhist canon.

In a tranquil Buddha-land, 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 the pure land, 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 having left home—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 the precepts of leaving home.