Forms of Buddhist Teaching
Fifth, there are the forms of the Buddhist teaching in this sutra to explain.
The sutra is contained in the Mahayana canon, Bodhisattva vehicle, and is "self-spoken" -- delivered by the Buddha without being asked.
This sutra enables sentient beings with many karmic obstructions who live the Dharma-Ending Age to make a direct ascent toward enlightenment without falling back.
Thus, in the future when all the other sutras have perished, only this Amitabha Sutra will survive for another century, to bring deliverance on a wide scale to sentient beings.
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The Amitabha Sutra is a remedy for all sicknesses. It is beyond relativities, a perfect fusion, with inconceivable power. The mystic treasury of the Flower Ornament (Avatamsaka) Sutra, the secret gist of the Lotus Sutra, the essential teachings on mind of all the Buddhas, the compass of all the Bodhisattvas' myriad practices -- none of them is outside of this sutra. If I wanted to praise it at length, at the end of time I still would not be finished. Those with wisdom must know this sutra for themselves.
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