For those who wish to become Buddhas swiftly, it is necessary to pray for rebirth in a pure Buddha-Land. There are differing Pure Lands beyond number, and it has been declared that they are difficult to delimit in speech.

Among them, in order to be born in the other superior Lands excepting Sukhavati, you must attain at least the eighth bhumi , having entirely cut off the two obscurations. Even to be born in the middling Lands, you must entirely cut off even the most subtle aspects of the obscuration of the afflictions and attain at least the first moment on the path of contemplative cultivation. And for even the least of the Lands, you must cut off attachment to self from the roots, and attain the path of seeing —that is, selflessness, the real truth. Until you’ve attained the path of seeing, though you pray for re-birth in a Buddha-Land, you’ll not achieve it.

But even without attaining the path of seeing, should you strive at prayer, while not engaging even in the most subtle disciplinary faults with respect to your commitments and moral training, and purifying sins and gathering the profits of virtue, you may just be born in some of the trifling Lands such as Tushita, and even that will be difficult. Because in those Lands there is no room for the births of common, ordinary persons (prithagjana), who wallow in the afflictions, from now on you must pray at length! Therefore, it would seem that afflicted, common persons will not be born in the Land of a Buddha.

Nevertheless, through the power of Buddha Amideva’s prayers, birth in Sukhavati has been vouchsafed by Lord Amideva himself, for which reason you must by all means strive at prayer for rebirth in Sukhavati (Dewachen)! Without doubt, suspicion, laziness, or irresolution, and by means of certainty and with ardent exertion you must pray, while recollecting the array of Sukhavati and its qualities.

Because even common, ordinary persons, who are burdened with the afflictions, may be born in Sukhavati, it is exceptional. And having been born there, all of your wishes will be realized just as soon as you conceive them, and you will not be tainted by the merest obscuration of affliction.

Moreover, because you are permitted to journey to whichever among the Buddha-Lands you wish, it is exceptional; and it is exceptional because Buddhahood is swifter that in other Lands. Because there is nowhere another Land that is closer to being attained than Sukhavati, which is endowed with the aforementioned and other qualities beyond all conception, it is exceedingly important that you strive in prayer for birth in Sukhavati.

—Machig Labdrön

Machig Labdrön (1055 – 1149) was a renowned 11th century Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist practitioner and teacher. She was a great yogini who originated several Tibetan lineages of the Indian tantric practice of Chöd.