Quotes from the Virmalakirti Sutra

The Virmalakirti Sutra is among the oldest of the Mahayana Buddhist texts, but it’s one I’ve never really read. That is, until tonight, when I saw a passage of it quoted in Ou-I’s commentaries on the Amitabha Sutra, provided by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation based in Taiwan.

I thought I would pass a long a few notable interesting quotations as translated by Robert A. F. Thurman of Pennsylvania State University:

Vimalakirti: Reverend Sariputra, “death” is an end of performance, and “rebirth” is the continuation of performance. But, although a bodhisattva dies, he does not put an end to the performance of the roots of virtue, and although he is reborn, he does not adhere to the continuation of sin.

And this one:

“…should a bodhisattva, who knows full well that all things are like empty space, wish to build a buddha-field in order to develop living beings, he might go ahead, in spite of the fact that it is not possible to build or to adorn a buddha-field in empty space.

J.C. Cleary’s translation of the same passage (the one I originally found in the book) is:

“Although he knows that Buddha Lands are void like living beings he goes on practicing the Pure Land (Dharma) to teach and convert men.”

This passage I liked as well from the Sutra’s verse section:

They journey through all Buddha-fields
In order to bring benefit to living beings,
Yet they see those fields as just like empty space,
Free of any conceptual notions of “living beings.”

and:

Their [the Bodhisattvas'] wealth is the holy Dharma,
And their business is its teaching,
Their great income is pure practice,
And it is dedicated to the supreme enlightenment.

Their bed consists of the four contemplations,
And its spread is the pure livelihood,
And their awakening consists of gnosis,
Which is constant learning and meditation.

Their food is the ambrosia of the teachings,
And their drink is the juice of liberation.
Their bath is pure aspiration,
And morality their unguent and perfume.

May all beings be reborn in the Pure Land and may they all attain perfect peace.

Namu Amida Butsu