Toward the end of [Chapter 23, The Previous Life of Medicine-King Bodhisattva,] we read that if there is a woman who hears this Sutra and acts in accord with its teachings, she will become a bodhisattva, one who is becoming a fully awakened buddha, in the pure land of Amitabha Buddha. Because she has been able to “embrace, read and recite, and ponder over this sutra and teach it for others,” she will obtain boundless merit, be praised by countless buddhas throughout the universe, be protected by hundreds of thousands of buddhas, and become equal to the Buddha; in other words, she will become a buddha. Here, in a sense, we have an alternative vision to that of a paradise in which there are no women – one in which a woman becomes a buddha through embracing the Sutra, by living the Sutra in this world.

A great Taiwanese monk, Master Yin Shun, passed away at the age of 100 in June of 2005. Normally, in Taiwan, the name of Amitabha, the buddha who presides over the Western Paradise, the land of happiness and bliss, is chanted for the benefit of someone who has died. But shortly before he died, Master Yin Shun requested that the name of Shakyamuni Buddha be chanted after his death because Shakyamuni Buddha is the Buddha of the world in which we live now. Master Yin Shun wanted to be reborn into this world of suffering and hardship rather than in a world of eternal happiness and bliss, so that he could continue promoting Buddha Dharma where it is most needed.