All sentient beings are from the very beginning the Buddhas: It is like ice and water; Apart from water no ice can exist, Outside sentient beings, where do we seek the Buddhas? Not knowing how near the Truth is, People seek it far away,—what a pity! They are like him who, in the midst of water, Cries in thirst so imploringly; They are like the son of a rich man Who wandered away among the poor. The reason why we transmigrate through the six worlds, Is because we are lost in the darkness of ignorance; Going astray further and further in the darkness, When are we able to get away from birth-and-death? As regards the Meditation practised in the Mahayana, We have no words to praise it fully, The Virtues of Perfection such as charity and morality, And the invocation of the Buddha’s name, confession, and ascetic discipline, And many other good deeds of merit,— All these issue from the practise of Meditation. Even those who have attained it even for one sitting, Will see all their evil karma wiped clean; Nowhere they will find the evil paths, But the Pure Land will be near at hand. With a reverential heart, let them to this Truth Listen even for once. And let them praise it, and gladly embrace it, And they will surely be blessed most infinitely. For such as, reflecting within themselves, Testify to the Truth of Self-nature, To the Truth that Self-nature is no-nature, They have really gone beyond the ken of sophistry. For them opens the gate of the oneness of cause and effect, And straight runs the path of non-duality and non-trinity. Abiding with the Not-particular in particulars, Whether going or returning, they remain for ever unmoved; Taking hold of the Not-thought in thoughts, In every act of theirs they hear the voice of Truth. How boundless the sky of Samadhi unfettered! How transparent the perfect moon-light of the Fourfold Wisdom! At that moment what do they lack? As the Truth eternally calm reveals itself to them, This very earth is the Lotus Land of Purity, And this body is the body of the Buddha. The lecture lasts about an hour. It is quite different from an ordinary lecture on a religious subject. Nothing is explained, no arguments are set forward, no apologetics, no reasonings. The master is supposed simply to reproduce in words what is treated in the textbook before him. When the lecture ends, the Four Great Vows are repeated three times, and the monks retire to their quarters. The Vows are: “How innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them all; How inexhaustible our evil passions are, I vow to exterminate them; How immeasurable the holy doctrines are, I vow to study them; How inaccessible the path of Buddhas is, I vow to attain it.” VII.