The Sutra of Only Leaving One Sutra says: “If there are sentient beings who hear the Buddha’s voice, from a pure heart they become joyful and happy, their hair stands on end, or tears flow, all because they practiced the Buddha’s way in their previous lives, they are not ordinary people. If they hear the Buddha’s name, but have doubts in their hearts about the Buddha’s teachings, and do not believe, they all come from evil paths, and the disasters of their previous lives have not yet ended or been liberated, so their minds are doubtful and they do not believe.”

The phrase “to hear the Buddha’s voice” here means to hear the name of Amitabha Buddha. The word “to hear” includes hearing the Buddha’s name and upholding it. Because the Buddha’s name has all the ten thousand virtues, the listener must start from a pure heart to listen, that is, from a sincere heart and a deep faith to give rise to a great mind. “Pure” means pure and spotless. “Joyful” means inner joy. “Joyful” means joy and excitement expressed in appearance and speech. “Hair standing on end” means that the pores all over the body are dilated, and all the hair and hair are standing on end. “Tears flowing” means tears flowing. Those who hear the name of Amitabha Buddha and naturally manifest such signs are all people who come from the Buddha path. Those people all have good roots, blessings, and rare causes and conditions, as this sutra says: “Difficult among difficulties, nothing is more difficult”.

The Expedient Means chapter in the Lotus Sutra says: “Those World-Honored Ones all speak the Dharma of the One Vehicle, teaching countless living beings to enter the Buddha path”. So, the word “Buddha path” here means the Supreme Bodhi that the Buddha has attained. Buddha path is also the ten thousand virtues cultivated to reach Buddhahood. So, the phrase “ever practicing Buddha path, not ordinary people” is the Buddha’s praise for those who believe, understand, and uphold the Infinite Life Sutra. The Diamond Sutra also praises: “In the future, five hundred years from now, if there are living beings who hear this sutra, believe, understand, and uphold it, then that person will be the most rare. Why is that? Because that person has no self-image, no person-image, no living being-image, and no life-existence-image.” In the work Pha Khong Luan, Great Master Linh Phong explained as follows: “This is the Great Fruit of Faith and Practice. If there is still the slightest image of self, person, living being, or life-existence, then one will definitely not believe this sutra. If one believes, understands, and upholds this sutra, one will definitely understand that the self-image, person-image, living being-image, and life-existence are essentially formless.” Therefore, those who believe, understand, and uphold the Infinite Life Sutra are also those who are in accordance with the meaning of the Diamond Sutra: “Seeing all forms as non-forms, that is seeing the Tathagata” and “Leaving all forms, that is Buddha.”

According to these teachings, the Infinite Life Sutra is a Dharma that is difficult for all in the world to believe and understand. If anyone can give rise to a heart of faith and understanding toward this Dharma, then one should know that he is not an ordinary person, but the rarest person in all the world. If one can give rise to a heart of true faith in the Perfect Teaching, understand it completely, and practice it completely, then one is worthy of being called a person of sudden enlightenment. A person of sudden enlightenment practices in one day as an ordinary person practices in an entire lifetime. On the contrary, if one is skeptical and does not believe in this sutra, the sutra says: “If one hears the Buddha’s name and has doubts in his heart, and does not believe in the Buddha’s teachings, it is because he is in the evil path and has not yet ended the disasters of his previous life and has not yet been liberated, so his mind is skeptical and he does not believe.” People who have just escaped from the three evil paths have not yet ended the disasters of their past lives, and in this life they have not yet reached the time to attain liberation, so they cannot believe in this sutra. This is also what the Diamond Sutra says: “In the future, if there is someone who upholds and recites this sutra, if I tell them all the merits they have attained, there will certainly be someone who, upon hearing it, will immediately become crazy and doubtful and will not believe.” We see clearly that: The more excellent the Dharma door is, the more difficult it is for people in the world to believe. Therefore, it is only normal for people in the world to doubt and not believe in this sudden perfect dharma. On the contrary, those who believe and understand this sutra are all because in their previous lives, they have practiced the Buddha's path, and are not ordinary people.

In the chapter on the Need to Practice and Persevere, the World-Honored One entrusted the assembly to protect and propagate this sutra to save sentient beings from the sea of suffering of birth and death. Next, the Buddha also taught that practice must correspond to faith and understanding, that is, one must practice what one believes and understands from this sutra to seek rebirth in the Pure Land. The sutra records the words of the World-Honored One entrusting the assembly to protect the Infinite Life Sutra as follows: “The Buddha told Maitreya: The unsurpassed Dharma of the Tathagata Buddhas, the ten powers of fearlessness, of no hindrance and no attachment, the very profound Dharma, the Dharma of Paramita, of the Bodhisattvas, is not easy to encounter. Those who often speak the Dharma are also difficult to explain, those who firmly believe deeply are also difficult to encounter. I now, according to reason, declare such vast and wonderful Dharma doors, the praise of all the Buddhas, entrusting you to be the great protector.”

The unsurpassed Dharma of the Tathagata Buddhas is the Dharma of the same principle, of the ultimate nature, there is no Dharma higher than it. Why? Because that unsurpassed Dharma is Great Nirvana, and there is no Dharma superior to Great Nirvana. The Buddha has ten powers of wisdom, so he can transform living beings to attain Great Nirvana without fear in their minds, so it is called “the ten powers of fearlessness.” The ten fearless powers are the ten intellectual powers of the Tathagata, including: The wisdom of seeing the place and not the place, the wisdom of karma, the wisdom of concentration, the wisdom of the roots, the wisdom of desire, the wisdom of morality, the wisdom of the place of will, the wisdom of past lives, the wisdom of the heavenly eye, and the wisdom of the destruction of asavas.

1) The wisdom of seeing the place and not the place: Place means the doctrine. The wisdom of seeing the place and not the place is the wisdom of knowing the moral and non-moral principles of living beings, and is also the wisdom of knowing all the causes and effects of living beings. Creating any happy karma will bring about a happy result, and the cause and effect are in accordance with each other, which is called the wisdom of seeing the place. Creating evil karma and then seeking happy results, the cause and effect are contradictory, so it is called phi xu (contrary to morality), as people often say: "Vo hu thi xu", meaning there is no such reason.

2) Karma wisdom power is the wisdom power that knows the cause and effect, the karmic retribution in the three lives of all sentient beings, whether good or bad, with outflows or without outflows, etc.

3) Concentration wisdom power is the wisdom power that knows all the methods of meditation and liberation samadhi.

4) Root wisdom power is the wisdom power that knows the root natures of sentient beings, whether superior or inferior, clearly knows the illness of each sentient being, knows the right medicine to treat each illness, knows how to educate sentient beings according to their roots.

5) Desire wisdom power is the wisdom power that knows all the different understandings and preferences of sentient beings, each person is different, not the same.

6) Precept wisdom power is the wisdom power that knows all the realms of sentient beings, with respect to all the different realms of All living beings in the world know the truth.

7) The power of knowing the place of attainment of all paths is the power of knowing the characteristics of the places of attainment of all paths, knowing which teachings and which path will lead to which position. For example, practicing the Five Precepts and Ten Good Deeds will lead to human and heavenly realms, practicing the pure Eightfold Path will lead to Nirvana, etc.

8) The power of knowing past lives is the power of knowing clearly from one life to hundreds of thousands of lives of living beings; Name, longevity, suffering, happiness, etc. are all clearly understood.

9) The power of the heavenly eye is the power of seeing sentient beings' birth, rebirth, life, death, where they are born, where they will be born, and the karmic conditions of good and evil, suffering, or happiness, without hindrance.

10) The power of the wisdom of the cessation of outflows is the power of permanently cutting off all delusions and habits, knowing truly, no longer receiving a body with outflows.

“Unobstructed” means freely communicating, penetrating each other, communicating with each other to become one. The Buddha's unobstructed wisdom is like different lights shining on each other without hindrance. The Commentary on the Treatise on Rebirth says: “Unobstructed means knowing that birth and death are exactly Nirvana, equally entering into the unobstructed, non-dual form like that.” The Huayan sect established four dharma realms; According to the Great Ming Dharma Number, the four dharma realms are: the Dharma realm of phenomena, the Dharma realm of principles, the Dharma realm of principles and phenomena without hindrance, and the Dharma realm of phenomena without hindrance. The Dharma realm of phenomena is that dharmas such as living beings, form, mind, etc., each dharma is different, not identical in appearance. The Dharma realm of principles is that dharmas such as living beings, form, mind, etc., although different in appearance, all have the same nature. The Dharma realm of principles and phenomena without hindrance means that principle and matter mutually contain each other: reason manifests, matter is accomplished through principle. The Dharma realm of phenomena without hindrance, also called the Dharma realm of non-hindrance, means that although all things are different, in terms of nature they are all perfectly harmonized: one is many, many is one, large and small contain each other, endlessly overlapping. The things preached by the Infinite Life Sutra are very profound and wonderful Dharmas, the Dharma of the Unobstructed Dharma Realm of Principle and Event, the Unobstructed Dharma Realm of Event and Event of the Tathagata, which the sutra generally calls the unobstructed Dharma.

“Unobstructed” means having no notion of attachment. The Diamond Sutra records: “There is no definite Dharma called Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, nor is there any definite Dharma that the Tathagata can speak of. Why is that? The Dharma that the Tathagata has spoken of is neither obtainable nor expoundable, neither is it a Dharma nor is it non-Dharma.” The book Phap Khong Luan explains this sutra as follows: “The unsurpassed Bodhi that transcends all views and emotions is the ultimate other shore. Not only is there nothing that is not a Dharma form, but there is also no Dharma form that can be obtained, so it is said that ‘there is no definite Dharma called Unsurpassed Bodhi.’” Therefore, if the listener of the Dharma has the notion of attachment to language, letters, and mental conditions, which is also attachment to form, feeling, perception, action, and consciousness, then he cannot understand the true meaning of the Tathagata. Why? Because as the Diamond Sutra says: “There is no definite dharma that the Tathagata can speak of.” Because what is realized is beyond the realm of views, and what is spoken is also beyond the realm of views, as the Diamond Sutra says: “There is no definite dharma that the Tathagata can speak of.” Because the other shore is the True Nature, language ceases, mind and behavior cease, and cannot be taken or spoken of. Because the Tathagata’s dharma cannot be spoken of in ordinary language, the Tathagata must use the Four Tathagatas as causes and conditions to interpret the inexpressible into the speakable. However, the dharma that is spoken is only in accordance with the Four Tathagatas, so every sentence, every word is beyond the realm of views, beyond the realm of the four fruits, and absolutely beyond all non-dharma. In other words, the profound dharma that the Tathagata speaks is neither dharma nor non-dharma, so that dharma cannot be taken of nor abandoned. The sutra calls that dharma the dharma of no attachment.

The Diamond Sutra explains the word “no attachment” as follows: “It is like a lotus flower that is not stained by water, like the sun and moon that do not stay in the sky.” That is, only with no attachment can the miraculous lotus flower with all its virtues bloom. Without staying in the void, the sun and the moon can operate without rest, shining their light everywhere. So, if you want to understand the Tathagata’s dharma of no obstruction and no attachment, your mind must also be unobstructed and no attachment, that is, without obstacles and without attachment. In the lecture “Practicing the Flower Adornment Robe and Only by Turning Back the Original Contemplation” by Venerable Master Chin Kung, he teaches living beings in a flexible way, tearing apart the obstacles of difficult words and terminology with a simpler, easier-to-understand explanation of the Tathagata’s dharma of no attachment. He said: Regarding the Tathagata’s supreme, profound, and wonderful dharma, if we cling to language, names, mind connections, and our own thoughts to understand, then that knowledge is only our own knowledge, not the Tathagata’s true meaning. If one wants to understand the true meaning of the Tathagata, one must keep one's mind empty and quiet, not give rise to thoughts, leave all appearances, and not dwell on form, sound, smell, taste, or touch in order to understand.

The sutra says that the profound and wonderful dharmas of the Tathagata are all dharmas of the Bodhisattvas, so they are not easy to encounter. If anyone hears and understands them, it is because in previous lives they have practiced the Buddha Way, and are not ordinary people. Furthermore, this is the dharma of the Bodhisattvas, so even if someone is skillful in expounding the dharma, it is difficult to use language and writing to manifest this profound and inconceivable dharma door that transcends emotions and views. Having said that, what should one do if one wants to penetrate the true meaning of the Infinite Life Sutra? The title of this sutra clearly teaches: "Pure and Equal Enlightenment." We must use a mind of pure and equal enlightenment to penetrate and understand this profound and wonderful dharma door of the Tathagata that transcends emotions and views. However, after understanding it, it is still difficult to use language and writing to explain it, so the sutra says: "Those who often speak the Dharma are also difficult to explain." The sutra also says, if we see a practitioner who firmly believes deeply in this Dharma, we must know that he is not an ordinary person, in previous lives he had practiced the Buddha's path. Those who can give rise to deep faith in this Dharma that is difficult to believe and difficult to understand in all worlds are due to the good roots they planted in many previous lives. In this life, when the causes and conditions for their enlightenment come to maturity, those good roots that have been planted naturally come together and are thus able to firmly believe in this Dharma door. It is not that they can know it from language, names, distinctions, and interpretations. Therefore, those who hear this sutra and give rise to a heart of firm and deep faith are truly a rare cause and condition that is difficult to encounter and difficult to see in ten thousand kalpas and thousands of lives. Therefore, the sutra says, “To firmly believe deeply is also difficult to encounter.”

Because of such a great cause and condition, good roots, and blessings that are rare to encounter and difficult to see, the Buddha said, “I now properly declare such vast and wonderful Dharma doors, the praise of all Buddhas, and entrust you to be the great protectors.” This statement is the Buddha’s entrustment to the assembly in the Dharma assembly to protect this sutra. Because this Dharma door is in accordance with reason, the sutra calls it “as reason.” Because this Dharma door is complete with ten thousand virtues, and saves all capacities, the sutra calls it “vast.” Because through reciting the Buddha’s name, one’s good roots and blessings quickly become equal to the Buddha’s, and its miraculousness is beyond imagination, the sutra calls it “wonderful.” Because this Dharma door is so miraculous, the sutra calls it “the place of praise of all Buddhas.” “The place of praise of all Buddhas” means that all Buddhas of the ten directions praise the two Great Teachers Amitabha Buddha and Shakyamuni Buddha, praise this sutra, and praise all those who firmly believe in this Dharma that is difficult to encounter and difficult to believe.

The chapter on the Praises of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions states: “Each of the immeasurable Buddhas of the ten directions praises the inconceivable merits of Amitabha Buddha.” The Amitabha Sutra records: “Those Buddhas also praised my inconceivable merits, saying as follows: Shakyamuni Buddha performed rare and very difficult things, being able to stay in the Saha world in the evil age of the five turbidities for the sake of all living beings to preach the Dharma that is hard to believe in this world.” The Supreme Life Sutra says: “To believe, to accept and uphold is the most difficult of all difficulties, there is nothing more difficult.” Moreover, the Amitabha Sutra was originally called the Inconceivable Merits, the Sutra of All Buddhas, the Sutra of Protection and Remembrance of All Buddhas; this has already let us know that such a Dharma sutra is truly praised and protected by all Buddhas. Because this Dharma door is the most rare, Shakyamuni Buddha entrusted great Bodhisattvas such as Maitreya Bodhisattva to carry out the great protection of this sutra teaching. Because preserving this Dharma is more important than preserving one's own head and eyes, it is called the great guardian. The World-Honored One respectfully entrusted beings like Maitreya Bodhisattva to carefully preserve this Dharma. Tu Thi Bodhisattva accepted the Buddha's mandate. In the future, when he descends to become a Buddha and opens the Long Hoa Dharma Assembly, he will certainly follow the Shakyamuni's holy command to propagate this sutra.