妙?=MiaoXie; 《寶王三昧念佛直指》=“The Direct Guide on the Jewelled King Samā、dhi of the Mindfulness of the Buddha”; 念佛三昧=The Samadhi of the Mindfulness of the Buddha; 淨土十要=The Ten Essentials of Pure Land; 圓頓=Perfect Sudden
Miao Xie (presumably Hongwu Yihai 1395) was the great Chan (Jp. Zen) master of Yinjiang in the early Ming Dynasty. He realized the Chan Buddhism, has a deep thorough understanding of the teachings and principles, both in self-practice and transformation of others with a main focus on the Pure Land School. We can infer from these as sufficient evidence that he switched from Chan practice to Pure Land practice. During this period, most of the works related to the Pure Land Teachings was based on Tiantai Teaching Principles in expounding Pure Land thoughts merely from the mind perspective, and Amitabha from the innate nature. Though deeply influenced by Post-Yongming Yanshou (904-975), which advocated the dual cultivation of Chan and Pure Land, or sentimental poetry filled with the wish to willingly be reborn in Pure Land, however, they are mostly un-innovative. At that time, the burgeoning of integration thoughts from several parties, such as Zhu Hong (1535-1616) who advocated "Chan and Pure Land have the same destiny", Zhi Xu (1599-1655) who focused on "The Three Studies of Chan, Teaching, and Vinaya having the same origin" in an attempt to merge Chan and Pure Land, Tiantai and the mindfulness of the Buddha, syncretism is a major feature of Buddhism in the Ming Dynasty. “The Direct Guide on the Jewelled King Samādhi of the Mindfulness of the Buddha”collated by Miao Xie is dedicated to breaking the shackles of the misunderstandings of "One does not seek the Pure Land of Extreme Bliss in the West, but seek in the mind of conditions reflections and delusions", and dispel delusions to manifest the Truth. The True Mind breeds all Lands of “contamination”, being originally endowed with the reliance for Extreme Bliss, and the proper wish will definitely lead to the birth The World of Extreme Bliss. The World of Extreme Bliss is not in the reflections of the six types of objects of the mind (dusts) and Amitabha Buddha is not in the body of the five skandhas of all beings; because the six types of objects of the mind (dusts), the four big elements are all provisionally combined together, and they are all illusory. They originally do not have a “self”, if there is no self, then the mind has no place to attach to, then how can one even have the other Land, the other Buddha within the mind? However, in terms of the phenomena, there is a world named Extreme Bliss. It is stated in “The Sutra of Amitabha”: “From the West, over ten trillion Buddha Lands, there is a world named Extreme Bliss”. Miao Xie esteemed the Samādhi of the Mindfulness of the Buddha as the king of all Samadhis, and classified the method of the Mindfulness of the Buddhas to be the same status as the Perfection Teaching of “Avatamsaka” (Huayan) and “Saddharma Pundarika” (Fahua). In the same manner, he equated it with the Chan School’s linage of Direct Pointing. He also adopted “The Three Contemplations in One Mind” to explain the Sixteen Contemplations. In the text, the elaboration of ‘Contemplation of the Sun’ and ‘Contemplation of an image of the Buddha Bodhisattvas’ as the main focus, in order to manifest the Perfect Cultivation of the Pure Land. Miao Xie also proposed that the Samādhi of the Mindfulness of the Buddha is the same as the principle thesis of the Samād
