Jigage Translated by Leon Hurvitz
"Since I have realized Buddhahood,
the eons through which I have passed
are immeasurable hundreds of thousands of millions of billions.
Continuously have I voiced the Dharma,
teaching untold billions of beings
how to turn their hearts around
that they might enter the Buddha's path;
to ferry these sentient beings to the Other Shore
I reveal to them, by skillful means,
my parinirvana
yet truly I am not extinct
but always abiding here
giving voice to the Dharma.
I continue to abide in this world,
using my spiritual powers
to make confused creatures not see me,
though I am near,
so that they may look on me as extinct
and make offerings to my relics,
cherishing longing desires
and giving rise to hearts thirsting for hope.
When these sentient beings in faith and humility,
honest and forthright in manner,
gentle in thought,
wholeheartedly yearn to see the Buddha,
not begrudging even their own lives,
then I, with all the Sangha,
appear together on the Divine Vulture Peak.
I then tell these sentient beings
that I continue to abide here without extinction;
by the power of my skillful methods
I show myself as extinct,
even though [I am] not extinct.
If in some other region
there are beings reverent and with faith beseeching,
again I am in their midst
to proclaim the unsurpassed Dharma,
though you who do not hear this
will say that I am extinct.
When I behold sentient beings
sunk in their suffering and distress,
I do not show myself
but set them all to look up in their thirsting
and, when their hearts are filled with fervent longing,
I then appear and proclaim the Dharma.
Such are my spiritually pervading powers
that, throughout the boundless eons,
I abide on the Divine Vulture Peak
as well as in every other dwelling place.
When sentient beings see, at kalpa's ending,
the raging fires consuming all,
tranquil will this realm of mine be,
ever filled with devas and humans
in parks and groves,
among towers and palaces
bedecked with gems of every kind.
Under bejewelled trees,
heavy with blossoms and fruit,
may these beings take their delight and play,
while devas beat their heavenly drums,
ever making pleasing music,
and showering down coral tree flowers
upon the Buddha and His great assembly.
My Pure Land will not be destroyed,
though sentient beings may see it as utterly consumed by fire,
letting themselves be filled
with grief and horror, distress and fear.
All these besmirched creatures
pass through countless eons,
hearing not the name of the Triple Treasure
due to their wretched karma.
Those who practice deeds of merit
and are gentle, honest and forthright,
all see me in body
and hear me voice the Dharma.
At times for the sake of that assembly
I tell them that a Buddha's life is immeasurable,
then to those who, at long last, see a Buddha
I say that a Buddha is rarely met.
Such is the power of my wisdom and intelligence
that my light of insight shines forth beyond measure,
my life of countless eons
is due to the karma of long practice and training.
You who have intelligence and wit,
do not let doubts arise in this regard,
but sever them from yourself
and bring them forever to an end,
for the Buddha's Words are true,
not something that is empty and vain.
Just as the physician
who would cure his demented sons
by clever and skillful methods
proclaims his own death
while, in fact, he is alive,
and none can say he willfully lies,
I, too, being as a parent to this world,
as one who helps all those in misery and affliction
because of the topsy-turvy views of these ordinary people,
say I am extinct, though I am truly alive.
I do this lest, by always seeing me,
they should beget hearts unrestrained and self-indulgent,
be dissolute and only fixed upon the five forms of desire
and thereby fall into evil ways.
I know at all times
whether a sentient being is treading the Path
or walks in other ways
and, according to what needs to be done to aid that one,
voice Teachings of various kinds,
making for each this, my intention,
'How may I help this being
enter the unsurpassed Way
and quickly realize Buddhahood?'"