Konchog1 wrote:I rarely hear of people praying to be reborn anywhere but Sukhavati. Although I have heard of people being reborn in their Yidam's (personal deity's) Pure Land, usually Padmasambhava's Pure Land or Vajrayogini's.
This is mostly because Sukhavati is vastly easier to reach, and from there one can visit any of the other pure realms with ease. One can be born there based on sincere faith in Buddha Amitabha alone, or the accumulation of his mantra, whereas in order to be born in most other Buddhafields one has to be
at least an 8th bhumi bodhisattva.
Amitabha knew how difficult it was for ordinary beings to get to the other buddhafields, and thus made a specific aspiration when he generated bodhicitta that all sentient beings would be able to be born in his paradise with the least prerequisites possible. Maybe you don't need to be on the 8th bhumi in the case of Zangdok Palri and Khechari, but for the vast majority this is the case.
I've heard it said that the vast majority of purelands are jewel-encrusted and there is little in the way of greenery, but that Tara's paradise is the exact opposite. Not sure what source Jayarava is quoting on his site (
http://www.wildmind.org/mantras/figures/greentara), but this is what he has to say (which is where I first heard of the distinction):
Green Tara is a forest goddess, and in one story is shown as being clad in leaves. Her Pure Land, in distinction to others that are composed of precious gems, is said to be lush and verdant:
Covered with manifold trees and creepers, resounding with the sound of many birds,
And with murmur of waterfalls, thronged with wild beasts of many kinds;
Many species of flowers grow everywhere.
Does anyone know if this is true, or have any links to resources that can confirm, deny, or give further details?
Seems like Yulokö would be the preference for tree-huggers, nature enthusiasts, eco-tourists, and generally anyone who likes flora --- or at least a place where they would visit after reaching Dewachen.
"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme
དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ