PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

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Pacific World
The meditator then visualizes the buddhas of the other nine directions
proceeding from the southeast to the northeast and concluding with the
zenith and nadir. Each of these nine sections builds on the visualization
of Bhadraśrī and his land but alters or augments the basic description to
indicate those features that are peculiar to each of the other nine lands.
Chapter 11 then concludes with a short section on how one should
venerate, make offerings to, and be mindful of the Buddha(s) when one
enters a pagoda, or stūpa, and venerates the Buddha image there. 90 Specifically
it mentions that to venerate one buddha is to venerate all buddhas,
a refrain often seen in the slightly later writings of the Huayan thinkers
beginning with Zhiyan (, 602–668). The passage also suggests briefly
how to integrate the visualization of the buddhas of the ten directions with
actual, and visualized, offerings of incense and flowers to the pagoda’s
Buddha image. Although here making offerings to and bowing before an
image of the Buddha takes place in a ritual setting, 91 it may also provide an
example of how to extend the visualization to more common settings. All
of this suggests that the visualization of the buddhas of the ten directions
is not just a visualization to be practiced during periods of formal, seated
meditation.
5. RECITATION
When Lingyu passed away in 605 at the age of eighty-eight, Daoxuan
recorded that that he did so while in the “meditative concentration of a
verbally supported Buddha mindfulness” (jing lü kouyuan nianfo,
). Whatever the content of Lingyu’s meditation, Daoxuan indicates not
only that it was accompanied by a recitation of some sort, but also that it was
supported by this recitation. Since it was a nianfo, or Buddha mindfulness
(buddhānusmṛti) meditation, we would expect that the meditation would
have focused on a buddha or array(s) of buddhas together with a recitation
of their names. This expectation is strengthened by our considerations
above of the “Buddha Names in Seven Registers” repentance ritual and the
visualization practices it employed. A Pure Land emphasis is also obvious
in the long form of the “Buddha Names in Seven Registers” ritual preserved
in Zhisheng’s Ji zhujing lichanyi. As with the abridged form of the ritual that
precedes it, it was probably written by someone in the Ten Stages lineages,
possibly even by Lingyu himself. Of course, nianfo practices involving the
visualization of a buddha, particularly Amitābha or Maitreya, together with
the recitation of his name are known from this period and slightly later. The
visualization sutras, including the Ocean Sutra, however, are curiously silent
about recitation being a component of Buddha visualization practice.
Evidence for recitation as a support for visualization practice does,
however, appear in at least one Indian Buddhist meditation manual, the