08 August 2011

Contemplation: My Good Friend

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take this as your object of contemplation:

If you have heard the Dharma and do not forget it
But regard and revere it with great joy,
You are my good friend. For this reason,
You should awaken aspiration for Enlightenment.

Even if the whole world is on fire,
Be sure to pass through it to hear the Dharma;
Then you will surely enter the Path of the Buddha
And everywhere deliver beings from the river of birth-and-death.


Buddha Shakyamuni, in the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life (Larger Pure Land Sutra), published in Three Pure Land Sutras, p. 275

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