I analyzed Pure Land Buddhism in Fo-Guo-Pin(「佛國品」) of Wei-Mo-Jing(『維摩經』) in this research. Fo-Guo-Pin, by presenting the ideal world of Pure Land(kṣetra), emphasizes that this very world contaminated with enmity and conflicts due to self-centered selfishness is the pure land itself. It is not the pre-perfected dream world that we go and arrive at, but the world we build and construct together.
The intent of this research is to put the Pure Land practices of Fo-Guo-Pin into action and thereby build the real Buddha World, the Pure Land. Fo-Guo-Pin, the introductory part of Wei-Mo-Jing is suggesting how to construct the Pure Land and showing the content of Wei-Mo-Jing through the layman Buddhist (upāsaka) Wei-Mo (維摩).
Mahayana sūtras were preached to more effectively spread teachings of the Buddha and guide all living beings. They were compiled to share the ideals and causes of edifying mankind and suggest bodhisattva thoughts and ways of practicing. As a means to amplify the effect, the sūtra presents a layman Buddhist and develop a dramatic scene, but we should remember that it is still based on teachings of the Buddha and is intended to promote the practice of them. Wei-Mo is not a monk, but he is highly-proficient with teachings of the Buddha, renounced all the worldly desires and delusions. Even though he lives in the secular society with a wife and children, he is an examplary figure diligently practicing pure and undefiled career of bodhisattvas.
This sūtra shows that practicing teachings of the Buddha is not just exclusive to monks but anybody can obtain enlightenment. This is well versed in the Ru-Bu-Er-Fa-Men-Pin(「入不二法門品」): Buddhis is intactly all living beings; defilement(kleśa) is intactly enlightenment; life and death is intactly nirvaṇa. It preaches the teaching of advaita(不二).
Teachings of Buddhism aim to see right, listen right, observe right, analyze, understand and practice right and in the end liberalize your mind and reach the delieverance from worldly existence. the Buddha himself saw through the reality of this world by six year asceticism and obtain the enlightenment and preach the free and boundless life to the public transcending time and space.
The only way to escape from all the sufferings from futility of this world is to see the relation between the subject and object as they are, to destroy all delusions and to know that cognition of the reality of one-ness of the subject and object is the widom itself. This wisdom is demanded more in modern days full of agonies and sufferings since it enables people to control their minds and achieve inner peace of self-control and balance.
Hence the insight of knowing was explained as nirvaṇa and "knowing things as they are"(如實之見) in early Buddhism and extended as prajñā-pāramitā in mahāyāna Buddhism. The expediential teachings to achieve ultimate enlightenment were applied in various ways in 3 yāna-s with respect to midtown practices. Amongst those, the wisdom of bodhisattvas practicing mahāyāna aims to achieve prajñā-pāramitā and through obtaining it, great mercy(mahā-karuṇa) is manifested. The ethics of relieving all living beings is transformed to merits (puṇya) and the pledge of bodhisattvas shapes up as altruistic doings. Bodhisattvas set a goal of "benefiting themselves and the others" (自利利他) and pursue enlightenment of self and others at the same time through the bodhisattva career. Hence bodhisattvas set the virtue of "seeking the enlightenment upward and edifying all living beings downward" (上求菩堤 下化衆生) and the wisdom and mercy are the two inseparable axes of mahāyāna Buddhism.
We should know that wisdom in Wei-Mo-Jing is the wisdom of prajñā-pāramitā working as perception of śūnyatā-nirvaṇa(空解脫). We should observe how merciful practices of Bodhisattvas act as the working of Middle Way view and how wisdom(prajñā) and mercy(karuṇa) were explained and practiced in the time of the Buddha. In the highly mechanized civilization of modern days, in the crisis of humanity due to the competition for survival, we have to ruminate on how wisdom and mercy can affect this world.