The White Lotus of Compassion Sutra 悲华经
Introduction
The White Lotus of Compassion Sutra (Karuṇāpuṇḍarīka Sūtra) offers a remarkable window into one of Amitabha Buddha and Shakyamuni Buddha’s past lives, when the former was King Aranemin (无诤念), a Chakravartin King, and the latter was Samudrarenu (宝海梵志), the king’s chief court priest. In the presence of Ratnagarbha Tathagata (宝藏如来), King Aranemin, the king’s thousand sons, Samudrarenu, and numerous others each made their aspirations for Buddhahood and received predictions of their eventual Enlightenment.
The sutra reveals that Amitabha Buddha, as King Aranemin, vowed to establish a wondrous Pure Land with countless inconceivably sublime qualities (just as he did in his lifetime as Bhikshu Dharmakara). Ratnagarbha Tathagata praised him and prophesised that in the west, “beyond a trillion buddha realms,” there was a world that would in the future be known as Sukhavati:
“Great king, you will attain the complete enlightenment of perfect buddhahood there. You will become the tathāgata arhat samyaksambuddha named Amitāyus [Sanskrit for “Infinite Life,” another of Amitabha Buddha’s names].”
We also learn of the vows made by his thousand sons, who are now known as the great Bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara, Mahasthamaprapta, Manjushri, and Samantabhadra, and so on. Ratnagarbha Tathagata foretold that after Amitabha Buddha enters Parinirvana in his Western Pure Land, he will be succeeded by Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva:
“You, Avalokiteśvara, will free many hundreds of thousands of millions of trillions of beings from suffering. Noble son, being a bodhisattva, you will accomplish the deeds of a buddha. Noble son, after the Tathāgata Amitābha has passed into nirvāṇa, his Dharma will come to an end at dusk one day in the latter part of the second incalculable eon, in which there are as many years as there are grains of sand in the Ganges River. The following dawn you will attain the complete enlightenment of perfect buddhahood while sitting on a vajra seat, at a Bodhi tree, in a manifold array. You will become the tathāgata arhat samyaksambuddha named Samantaraśmyabhyudgataśrīkūṭarāja. Your lifespan will be ninety-six hundred thousand million trillion eons. After you have passed into parinirvāṇa your Dharma will continue for 630,000,000 eons.”
Following Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s prophecy, Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva then made his own aspiration for Buddhahood and vowed to practice the conduct of a Bodhisattva during the reign of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s Buddha-dharma and to succeed him as the Buddha of that world after his Dharma ceased to exist. The Tathagata gave him the following prediction:
“Noble son, you wish to attain great power. Noble son, you will attain the same power that I have attained. Noble son, in that buddha realm you will attain the complete enlightenment of perfect buddhahood. You will be the tathāgata named Supratiṣṭhitaguṇamaṇikūṭarāja. Noble son, you will obtain that great power and therefore, noble son, may you become Mahāsthāmaprāpta.”
Thus, for practitioners of the Pure Land path, this sutra serves to illuminate some of the foundational vows of the Three Sages of the West and deepen our understanding of their enduring compassionate activity.
Among the assembly, Samudrarenu, now Shakyamuni Buddha, distinguished himself by making five hundred great vows, choosing to attain Buddhahood not in a pure Buddha-land, but within this very Saha world, for the sake of its suffering beings. It is this extraordinary resolve that gives the sutra its title, the “White Lotus of Compassion."
Namo Amitabha Buddha!
Namo Amituofo!
南无阿弥陀佛!
-
All of the sutra text on this page is sourced from 84000’s Translation.
You can read and download a PDF of 84000’s English Translation here.
A Chinese version can be found here.
