The sūtra opens in Amrapali’s garden, with the Buddha surrounded by a vast assembly of arahants, bodhisattvas, gods, and celestial beings.
🌍 Key insight: The “Buddha-field” (Buddha-kṣetra) reflects the quality of the bodhisattva’s mind.
It is not a physical location but a dynamic projection of purified awareness.
The Parasol Vision: Mirroring Mind in Appearance
A young bodhisattva named Ratnākara and 500 Licchavi youths offer jeweled parasols. The Buddha merges these into one cosmic canopy, reflecting the entirety of the universe—innumerable world systems, Buddhas, beings, and teachings.
✨ This is not magic in the fantasy sense—it’s dharmic optics: the mind purified of self-clinging reveals the interconnected, multidimensional nature of reality.
Mind and Field Are Not-Two
The Buddha declares:
“The purification of a Buddha-field is the purification of the mind of the bodhisattva.”
In other words, what we perceive—our field of experience—is shaped by our mind’s conditioning.
A bodhisattva, by practicing generosity, patience, wisdom, etc., purifies their mind and transforms the world around them.
Dynamic Implication
This teaching directly illustrates dependent origination at the appearance level:
- Mind is not a static observer but an active participator.
- Appearances are not inert phenomena—they are shaped, filtered, and refracted through the dynamic flux of mental states, intentions, and vows.
🧠 If the mind is narrow, appearances are fragmented and self-centred.
💎 If the mind is vast and free, the world becomes a Buddha-land.
In the Language of Dharma Practice
Sangharakshita reads this as an allegory for our own life:
- The Buddha-land we inhabit is the resonance field of our mind.
- Dharma practice isn’t escape—it’s purification of appearance through purification of consciousness.
- The “canopy of parasols” is like our shared perceptual field—what we co-create through collective aspiration and ethical vision.
As a Practice Theme
- What are the habitual appearances in your own life (agitation, doubt, love, joy)?
- What dynamic mind patterns give rise to these?
- How might purification (ethics, generosity, meditation) reshape your “Buddha-field”?