Yeah right.. thats what I was looking for! 1 hour long sutras in chinese to make my day.. Who'd have imagined, I'd be listening to those today. So how did it happen - eh... Its like I'm finally organising my music - I really don't know how to make sense of Window's Media Player still.. nd organising music is sooo difficult for me, never got around to doing it right all these years. But now today, doing it right. What I want to listen to - love - I keep.. others I delete.. Simpler way.. no ambiguities. Like is not good enough. 5 stars or the bin.. thats simpler way to do it.
Nyway I am going through songs.. enjoying.. from J'lo and Beyonce, to Motzart and Beethovan, Bally sagoo, to abhijeet, rehman and others... Awesome time.. Some surprises were to be expected.. but believe me, no way I had factored in 1 hour of sutras into the picture.
Nyway I just finished listening to Ohayoo Ohio - Pink martini from Splendor in the grass on my playlist lineup ~ just trumpet and instrumentals.. When up comes this bell ringing like the cycle bell tingling.. and starts Wu Shang Shan Wu Liang wa................ accompanied with light tapping on a drum in the background keeping beat. Beat keeps increasing in tempo steadily, as does the recitation. Recitation it is obvious is not repetiative. Rather it undulates, navigating through smooth rythmic syllables, words seemingly of same lenght and structure, but different sounding. And it meanders through your senses, rising and falling ,like a tide.. tempo steadily increasing until it reaches fever pitch at which stage it starts decreasing again.
What, Why and how this came about I cannot imagine. Never had heard of it before now, and now ofcourse me being me, I have far too much information about it. Its the sutra of Pure Land Buddhism. Practise of Buddhism via chanting, visualisation and meditation with 3 basic approaches - Hui- Yuan practise of the contemplating Buddha or Master San- Dao's sect with belief of vows and mercy in heart to beseech rebirth into Amitaba Buddha Land, Master Hui-Jih's idea to combine both practise of contemplation and practise of beseeching.
In english its called Visualisation sutra, as Wu Liang Sou Jiang contains within a subset Guan Wu Liang Sou Jiang, Guan which is meant to pertain to Visualisation, although we'd rather consider it to be referring to Dhyan in indian context which has much deeper meaning then just Visualisation.
So to cut a very long story short ( and long long story it is) Wu Liang Shou Jiang is story of Sakhyamuni Buddha's preachings to Vaidehi regarding attaining rebirth to Amitabha Land via power of visualisation.
He describes in detail the technique for visualisations about 15 steps culminating in the person achieving enlightned status and being ensured rebirth into pure land.
Crazy thing about it is, having heard it once already, here I'm listening to it again, twice in a row on the same day.. this thing is like a bug.. catches u and difficult to shake off!!
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