Chapter Twenty-Four · The Sutras We Chant · 地藏经
地藏经 The Ksitigarbha Sutra — the vow that waits for us
"As long as the hells are not empty, I vow not to become a Buddha." That is the vow of Kṣitigarbha, 地藏菩萨 — Earth Treasury, Earth Store — and it is why his sutra is the one SG/MY temples chant most during the seventh month, at memorial services, and when we want to repay our parents. Here is the text we recite: the Juelin verse, the great vow, the praise, and the dedication.
What it is
The Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra (地藏菩薩本願經) — the sutra of Kṣitigarbha's original vows — was translated by Śikṣānanda in the Tang dynasty. Recitation traditionally begins with the Juelin Bodhisattva verse (覺林菩薩偈) from the Avataṃsaka Sūtra — popularly the "hell-breaking verse" — then the incense verse and opening gāthā. The sutra centres on Kṣitigarbha's vows and the rescue of beings from the hells.
— Alison's thoughts
Ksitigarbha is the sutra of the seventh month — the one my parents' generation pulls out when someone dies, when 清明 comes, when guilt about an elder won't let go. As a kid I found it gloomy. Now I see it's the most tender of the lot: a whole scripture built on the promise that no one is left behind. Śikṣānanda's translation opens with the Juelin verse — a painter poem — which tells you the whole frame before you start: this is about mind, not metaphysics. The sutra doesn't ask you to believe in hell. It asks you to notice who you're standing with.
The Juelin verse 覺林菩薩偈 (recited at the sutra's opening; the "hell-breaking verse")
譬如工画师 分布诸彩色 虚妄取异相 大种无差别
大种中无色 色中无大种 亦不离大种 而有色可得
心中无彩画 彩画中无心 然不离于心 有彩画可得
彼心恒不住 无量难思议 示现一切色 各各不相知
譬如工画师 不能知自心 而由心故画 诸法性如是
心如工画师 能画诸世间 五蕴悉从生 无法而不造
如心佛亦尔 如佛众生然 应知佛与心 体性皆无尽
若人知心行 普造诸世间 是人则见佛 了佛真实性
心不住于身 身亦不住心 而能作佛事 自在未曾有
若人欲了知 三世一切佛 应观法界性 一切唯心造
The mind is like a master painter, able to depict all worlds; all the five aggregates arise from it, nothing it does not create. Mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are one — know that Buddha and mind have no end. If you would know all Buddhas of the three times, contemplate the nature of the Dharma-realm: everything is created by mind alone. — the last four lines, 一切唯心造, "everything is created by mind alone," are the core of the chant: there is no fixed, solid hell "out there"; hell is made by mind, and awakening has the power to dissolve it.
— Alison's thoughts
"一切唯心造 — everything is created by mind alone." The "hell-breaking verse" isn't breaking hell with force; it's showing you the door was never locked from outside. The painter-poem says the mind colours everything, and the same mind can put down the brush. I used to think this meant "think positive" — cheap. But sitting with grieving families in the seventh month, I see it deeper: the terror we carry about the dead, about judgement, about what we failed to say — most of it is a picture the mind is painting, and the painting can be seen for what it is. Not denied. Just... seen. That's the breaking.
The great vow 大願
地狱不空，誓不成佛；众生度尽，方证菩提。
As long as the hells are not empty, I vow not to become a Buddha; only when all beings are saved will I realise Bodhi. — Kṣitigarbha's great vow made over countless past lives, and the vow reciters quietly make in their own hearts.
— Alison's thoughts
"地狱不空，誓不成佛" — as long as the hells are not empty, I vow not to become a Buddha. This is the vow that undid me the first time I really heard it. Not "I'll save everyone then rest," but "I will not rest while anyone suffers." Ksitigarbha stays in the worst places on purpose. That's not martyrdom — it's the clearest picture of love I know. It doesn't wait for the person to be loveable, clean, deserving. It shows up in the smoke and the mess. When I chant his name for someone I've lost, I'm not pleading with a judge. I'm saying: I'm here, in the dark, with you. The way he is.
The praise of Ksitigarbha 地藏讚 (used when reciting the full sutra)
地藏菩萨妙难伦 化现金容处处分 三涂六道闻妙法 四生十类蒙慈恩
明珠照彻天堂路 金锡振开地狱门 累劫亲姻蒙接引 九莲台畔礼慈尊
南无地藏王菩萨摩诃萨（三称）
Marvellous beyond compare is Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, manifesting his golden form everywhere. Beings of the three lower realms and six paths hear the wondrous Dharma; the four modes of birth and ten classes receive his compassionate grace. His bright pearl illuminates the road to heaven; his golden staff bursts open the gates of hell. Over countless kalpas, kin and friends are led across, bowing before the compassionate One by the nine-lotus terrace. Homage to King Kṣitigarbha, great bodhisattva (×3).
— Alison's thoughts
The praise says his golden staff "bursts open the gates of hell" and his pearl "illuminates the road to heaven." I won't pretend I see a staff or a pearl. But I know what it's like to be at a wake where the chanting has gone on for hours and something in the room finally softens — the relatives stop performing grief and just... breathe together. That's the staff opening a door. That's the pearl on the road. The image of "九莲台畔礼慈尊" — bowing before the compassionate one by the nine-lotus terrace — is just a picture of what arriving home feels like, after a long holding of someone else's pain. We get there too.
The dedication 回向偈 (after reciting the sutra)
愿以此功德 庄严佛净土 上报四重恩 下济三途苦 若有见闻者 悉发菩提心 尽此一报身 同生极乐国
May this merit adorn the Buddha's Pure Land; may it repay the fourfold kindness above and relieve the suffering of the three lower realms below. May all who see and hear give rise to the bodhi-mind, and in this very body be born together in the Land of Bliss. — the common closing dedication used across Mahāyāna services.
— Alison's thoughts
"上报四重恩，下济三途苦" — repay the fourfold kindness above, relieve the suffering below. The dedication turns the whole practice outward: this isn't about my own merit, it's about the parents who raised me, the beings who fed me, the nation that held me, the Triple Gem that taught me — and the suffering ones below, wherever they are. Chanting this at a parent's anniversary, I feel the chain of it: I am here because others carried me, and the only fitting reply is to carry someone else, even someone I can't see. That's the loop Ksitigarbha lives in. Same root, many flowers, everyone watered by the same river.
Where and when SG/MY Buddhists chant it
- 中元节 (the seventh month), 普度 and 清明 memorial services: the first-choice sutra for transferring merit to the departed and repaying parents — chanted most by SG/MY temples during the ghost-month.
- After an elder passes, the 七七 forty-nine days, and anniversaries: recited at home or in temples, dedicated to the deceased.
- Repaying parents' kindness: the sutra stresses 上报四重恩 — gratitude to parents, beings, nation and the Triple Gem — so it is often recited around Father's/Mother's Day and as home practice.
Ref: 地藏菩薩本願經, Śikṣānanda trans. — 覺林菩薩偈: 华严经 升夜摩天宫品 (观音村2.0, 百度百科); 大願: 百度百科 觉林菩萨偈, 佛光山法讯; 地藏讚: 福智全球资讯网, DRBA/CTTB 万佛城; 回向偈: 灵隐寺; cross-checked against 2+ sources per text.
— Alison's thoughts
"一切唯心造" — everything is created by mind alone. Growing up I heard the seventh month described like a horror film: gates opening, ghosts walking. This sutra tells a different story: whatever hell we fear is shaped by the mind that fears it, and the same mind has the power to turn it cool. I find that enormously tender. And then there's Ksitigarbha himself — the bodhisattva who refuses to leave the darkest places, "地狱不空，誓不成佛." That is the most beautiful thing I know about love: it doesn't wait for things to be clean before it shows up. When we chant this sutra for someone we've lost, we're not bargaining with a judge. We're standing in the dark with them, the way Ksitigarbha does.
— Chapter Twenty-Four · The Sutras We Chant · Metta 慈悲
© 2026 Eric Ho & Alison Goh · All roots, planted together.