Dual-belonging and Pure Land Buddhism
Dual-belonging and Pure Land Buddhism
Caroline Brazier
Book chapter for compendium on Buddhist-Christian dual belonging
Why would a person want to be Pure Land Buddhist and Christian? In the discussion of dual-belonging, the dialogue between these two faith-based traditions offers a tantalising glimpse of possibilities which are, perhaps, different from those commonly identified in the conversation between Buddhism and Christianity. In this chapter I will identify areas of commonality and differences which may challenge or complement a Christian viewpoint as well as exploring some controversies within Pure Land which mirror dilemmas between the two faiths. As a Pure Land Buddhist, descended from a family of non-conformist Christian clergy, my position is not unbiased. I do not personally pretend to dual-belonging, and do not feel particularly qualified to comment on details of Christian doctrine, but nevertheless I am interested to explore what contribution to the dialogue Pure Land can offer.
The question of dual-belonging itself brings questions. Why does anyone wish to inhabit the borderlands between faiths, or indeed between any belief systems or ideologies?
Let me hypothesise three possibilities:
Firstly, a person may wish to belong to two faiths in order to reconcile conflicting areas of his or her life. Often this kind of dual-belonging is pragmatic. Finding common ground with a partner, or parents, or reconciling one’s adoptive culture with one’s past may give reason to discover commonalities and smooth over discordances. This process might well involve multiple religious participation, as described by Catherine Cornille in her chapter[1], but does not necessarily lead to the achievement of a more doctrinally consistent position. The dual-participation is nevertheless important to the person, establishing personal coherence and integration in their religious life, and giving them the opportunity to participate in spiritual community with loved ones.
Secondly, a person may want to live in the borderlands, fully committed to neither position, a maverick within each. A second affiliation, here, offers other ground from which to critique and challenge. This can be fruitful. In many ways it is the modern, or post-modern, position; a response to a world in which global communication and the resultant diversity of cultures disallows the idea that any particular way of construing things is uniquely right. At best this position produces a creative tension between worlds in which light is shone into the dark corners of each tradition and new angles emerge, but at worst it leads to a cat-and-mouse game of scepticism and a kind of circling groundlessness which never commits to anything but its own constant reinvention.
Thirdly, a person may find complementarity between the two faiths in which elements from each throw light on a greater whole. Each faith offers a perspective. These may be seen as different roads up the mountain, or different parts of the elephant, to use two well-worn metaphors. In the Buddhist-Christian arena, for example, a Christian may learn Buddhist meditation to develop inner calm so that the voice of the (Christian) God can be better heard.
As we can see from this example, the integration of two faiths need not be made on an equal footing. A person may stay broadly located within one tradition, but draw on features of another to deepen their insight. Thus in my own work as a psychotherapist, I work basically from a Buddhist model, but have no difficulty in integrating Western psychodynamic or behavioural concepts into my practice where these offer ways to expand and deepen my work. The integrating frame is provided by my core model, and other concepts are added, often stripped of their accompanying context.
Sometimes, too, despite achieving a deep understanding and appreciation of another religious framework, a person may conclude their studies feeling confirmed in their own position. For example, in encountering Pure Land, though he reached a deep appreciation of the insight of its founder, Shinran, Karl Barth[2] ultimately confirmed his own view that Christianity was the only true path.
Nor are people internally consistent. Even the most philosophically astute among us live with contradictions as the layers of personal history, unconscious process, and other circumstantial influences create habits and reactions of which we are often hardly aware. Inconsistency is part of the human psyche. As humans we seem capable of living with mentalities constructed upon a huge array of unexamined assumptions. Indeed, as Janet Williams suggests[3], it is often in enquiring into such anomalies that we deepen and develop our religious experience.
Considering this complexity of motivations and experiences which is brought to the question of dual-belonging, it is apparent that any exploration of the subject must take into account both the subjective experience of the practitioner and the doctrinal boundaries of the two traditions involved. In this chapter I will explore what benefits dual-belonging might bring for those interested in the interface between Pure Land Buddhism and Christianity. How can these two traditions, which both put salvific faith at their centre, together provide a framework for religious practice which is, at least for some, a better or truer prospect than practising one individually?
Context of Pure Land Buddhism
Pure Land Buddhism is not well-known in the West. Although Japanese Pure Land has made some inroads in North America due to Japanese immigration to that continent, even there, temples remain predominantly Japanese in ethnicity. Whilst small numbers of Caucasian converts are gradually joining these groups, many do so because they have Japanese partners, and relatively few discover this branch of Buddhism independently. In the UK the longest established temple is Three Wheels in Acton, founded by Rev Kemmyo Sato in 1994. Another longstanding group of Pure Land practitioners grew up around Rev Jack Austin (1917-1993), who was closely involved with The Buddhist Society. He was active in establishing Pure Land interest in the UK since the fifties, joined by Jim Pym, for many years editor of the newsletter, Pure Land Notes.
Pure Land is a devotional strand of Buddhism. Originating in India, it developed into separate schools in China and, particularly, Japan. It centres on devotion to Amida Buddha, an amalgamation of two other Buddhist figures: Amitabha, Buddha of infinite light, and Amitayus, Buddha of infinite Life. Amida literally means ‘without measure’, thus representing infinite time and space, or, more symbolically, the presence of Buddha in the world for all time.
Pure Land Buddhism draws inspiration from three main texts[4]: the Greater and Lesser Pure Land Sutras and the Contemplation Sutra. In the Greater Pure Land Sutra, Dharmakara, a devotee of a previous Buddha, made an aspiration to Buddhahood conditional on forty eight vows. In the eighteenth vow, he vowed that he would create a Pure Land where anyone who called on his name might be reborn. There people would automatically become enlightened. After long ascetic practices, Dharmakara finally attained enlightenment and became Amida Buddha. In the process he created the Pure Land on which the traditions of that name are centred.
In Pure Land Buddhism the primary practice is nembutsu. Nembutsu literally means mindfulness of Buddha. The practice usually involves reciting the phrase ‘Namo Amida Bu’ or ‘Namu Amida Butsu’. This phrase literally means ‘I call on measureless Buddha’.
Pure Land in the Context of Buddhism
Whilst in the past, scholars within Japanese Pure Land had little interest in linking the movement to other Buddhist traditions, since the mid-nineteenth century, factions within Jodo Shinshu (Shin), the largest Japanese Pure Land school, became keen to understand the roots of the tradition in its Indian and Chinese precursors. Some Jodo Shinshu scholars began studying Pali and Sanskrit, locating the Pure Land doctrines within the corpus of Buddhist teachings. Others travelled to Europe to study European philosophy and religious thought. For example, Kiyozawa Manshi, played a leading role in integrating Western and Buddhist ideas within Jodo Shinshu by synthesising Hegelianism and Amidaism[5]. This contextualisation of the teachings challenges those who would link Pure Land and Christianity on the basis of superficial similarities since it embeds the tradition in Buddhist thought which is broadly non-theistic.
Recently, whilst some remain convincedly literalist in their interpretation of Pure Land[6], others, perhaps in response to the popularity of Zen in the West, have been keen to link the tradition more firmly with Mahayana. Shigaraki[7], Suzuki[8] and Innagaki[9] all explore the relationship between Shin and Zen, emphasising the provisional nature of its traditional teachings and ultimate emptiness which lies behind them. Meanwhile Tanaka links Pure Land teachings to tathagata-garba traditions, comparing the experience of shinjin (faith) to Mahayana concepts of Buddha-nature by recognising the intrinsic capacity for enlightenment[10].
Hirota also contextualises Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu, within mainstream Buddhism. Here, in discussing Shinran’s view of evil, Hirota sees links to core Buddhist doctrine regarding the nature of attachment and aversion, as set out in the teaching of the Four Noble Truths: Evil in Shinran’s sense is one’s personal inability to eradicate delusional thought and perception that gives rise to the reification of self and other, the passions of self-attachment, and the pain experienced and inflicted, that characterises unenlightened existence[11]
Buddhism asserts the insubstantiality of the self. Its core teachings show how a state of inauthenticity or delusion is created and maintained through distorted perception and processes of mental attachment and clinging. The path to liberation is the transcendence of these falsities. One of these teachings, The Four Noble Truths, addresses this process.
The first Noble Truth is affliction (dukkha). Among those things listed as dukkha are sickness, ageing, death and disappointment. Knowing that we cannot escape from dukkha evokes feelings of fear and dread, which understandably people want to avoid experiencing. As a result, they tend to cling to things which give comfort, seeking stability and permanence in the familiar, even though, in fact, life is uncertain and loss inevitable. Clinging is habitual and leads to unskilful actions. These in turn create a false sense of security and an illusion that life is controllable and predictable. As part of this process, they tend to reify a sense of identity or self.
The process of ‘becoming’, or self-building is itself a source of dukkha. Driven by the senses, the mind grasps at experience, building a world-view in which objects are experienced as indicators of the self. The perceptual process exists in a mutually conditioning relationship with the identity[12], creating a kind of psychological bubble which protects the person from seeing the anomalies in their world-view. This state of delusion, avidya, is the source of human misery, not least because it is unreal and disappointing.
Enlightenment is liberation from this ordinary, conditioned relationship with phenomena. It is the state in which self, the process of conditioned thought, perception and action, is abandoned. A quality of enlightenment is non-self (anatta). All Buddhist schools are concerned with enlightenment, but different schools have different approaches to it.
Pure Land as Other-Power Buddhism
Pure Land Buddhism is considered to be an other-power school. This makes it particularly interesting to dual-belongers, however an understanding of the concept of other-power requires a contextualisation of the doctrine within Buddhism as a whole, and an appreciation of its relationship to the teaching of non-self.
Nagarjuna, who lived around the second century CE, is often considered to be the most significant figure in Indian Buddhist philosophy after the Buddha himself. He is listed amongst the patriarchs of many Mahayana schools of Buddhism, including Pure Land. Nagarjuna wrote the Commentary on the Ten Bodhisattva Stages, a text only existent in the Chinese, in which he distinguished two paths of practice: the difficult path, known as the path of sages, and the easy path[13]. The latter, which became the nembutsu path, was likened to travelling by boat on the ocean instead of walking on foot. Thus other-power Buddhism meant reliance upon the power of the Buddha rather than on one’s own efforts. From these roots, two distinct styles of practice emerged, which came to be called self-power and other-power Buddhism, jiriki and tariki in Japanese.
Self-power practice focuses on dismantling delusion (avidya) through meditation, insight, and ethical living. It reveals the insubstantiality of self-structures and eradicates their foundations. Other-power practice, as found in Pure Land schools, focuses on the futility of effort and, rather, invites direct experience of Buddha. This experience, an experience of grace, is seen as the saving embrace of that which lies beyond human limits. Other-power practice can thus be conceived as direct engagement with anatta.
In my book, Other Buddhism, I explained the distinction between self-power and other-power using the analogy of a person caught in a snowdrift[14]. This person might free himself by digging away the snow. This is self-power. Alternatively, he may catch a rope thrown by somebody on the outside of the snowdrift, and be hauled out. This is other-power.
In looking at this analogy of the man in the snow drift from a perspective of dual-belonging we might ask whether the conception of a rescue is valid for both religions, and if so, whether the rescuer outside the snowdrift is construed in the same way in the two traditions. At the same time, even within the religious traditions, different practitioners may have different views about what it is that rescues us from ourselves. Between traditions the problem becomes even more complex.
The Concept of Faith in Pure Land Buddhism
The faith experience of Pure Land, shinjin, is described as absolute and unwavering. This term, though often translated as faith, is probably better understood when translated as entrustment[15]. Pure Land Buddhism recognises the limitations of human understanding in its emphasis on the fallibility of the unenlightened person. People are enmeshed in their karma and caught by their passions, a state which is referred to as bombu-nature.
As limited beings, human understanding of the limitless is only partial. This kind of agnosticism can be seen as a feature of Pure Land faith. As in Buddhism generally, faith of this kind enables uncertainty. For example, in the Tannisho, Shinran says: I have no idea whether the nembutsu is truly the seed for my being born in the Pure Land or whether it is the karmic act for which I must fall into hell. Should I have been deceived by Master Honen and, saying the nembutsu, were to fall into hell, even then I would have no regrets.[16]Shinran is making the point here that he is not omniscient and his faith is not founded on certainty or beliefs. He follows the teaching and his teachers, trusting that they will lead him better than he can lead himself.
This idea of faith as trust is echoed in the relationship to Amida. According to Pure Land Scholar, Alfred Bloom,[17] shinjin is a spontaneous arising of faith in response to hearing the Buddha’s teachings, not achieved through the will. Monshu Koshin Ohtani[18] also emphasises the receptive nature of this process. [[[Shinjin]]] means my heart has been transformed into a heart that entrusts. It points to a change that has come over my heart.[19] Such discussion of entrustment leaves space for dual-belonging in as much as we recognise the limited capacity of the practitioner to conceptualise Amida, however we will return to this central matter in a later section.
Language, Metaphor and Concept
One of the difficulties in discussing religious philosophy is the restriction introduced by language and conceptual thought. Doctrinal anomalies can be debated theoretically, but attempts to describe actual religious experience often create confused or paradoxical statements. Religious practitioners live comfortably enough with such illogical or opposing belief-statements, but when they need to define doctrinal underpinnings, language becomes a barrier. As a human construct, inadequate and agenda-laden, language struggles in explaining the divine.
Language is a mediating phenomenon, standing between experience and communication. The words that are used to describe particular experiences are drawn from the culture and personal frameworks of the speaker. We cannot therefore assume that because two people use similar language, the things they describe are the same. Conversely, when people use different language and imagery, or even logical constructions, they are not necessarily describing different things.
Words are also particular to context, adapted to the listener and the subject being conveyed. Two people in conversation either move towards convergence, creating common ground or differentiate their positions through argument on fine detail. Where there is a will to integrate, integration will probably be found. Conversely, at other times, differentiation may establish clarity and individuality. Such complexities create all manner of complication in the relationship between the adherents of different faiths, as well as for those who wish to cross boundaries between them. In religious dialogue, doctrinal alignment or differentiation may owe as much to issues of identity as to real differences of religious understanding. Some, including some dual-belongers who might seek equivalence between Amida and God, may be motivated by a desire to reconcile conflicting identifications rather than to find objectively recognised parallels. It is easy enough to find linguistic precedents for such a discovery.
Language is slippery. A statement written in one context may be reinterpreted by a new generation or a different social setting. Meaning evolves. A person may even adjust the meaning of their words mid-sentence in response to the listeners’ reaction, using tricks of the tongue to re-focus their argument. Behind apparent clarity there is often uncertainty. Experience itself is only partially conveyed in words, and even in our own minds we tell ourselves half-truths.
Buddhism explores language as medium. The paradoxical nature of concept and word is deliberately employed in Zen koan methods, for example. In this practice, the reasoning mind of ego-centric thought is challenged by its own processes until it gives up the attempt to conceptualise and breaks through to direct experiencing.
Conversely, words in their uninterpretable depths can provide a bridge to the mystical just because they cannot be fully fathomed. In Pure Land speaking the Name, or listening to it, is the salvific element. Highly personal, and yet, like love and grief, universal in their quality, religious experiences are often approached in the language of poetry. So it is that monastics from Buddhist, Christian or other faith traditions can meet and find resonance in each other’s deepest experiences. Something in the raw, undefined encounter with the sacred seems to be universal.
Words of this kind are metaphors, and the heart of the spiritual life is often alluded to through metaphor and symbol. Metaphor, like poetry, has the capacity to hold multiple meanings simultaneously. This is its richness and its power. To take a metaphor literally is to mistake its nature. Religious doctrine is also metaphor. Even the doctrinal centre-pieces of religious life, like the figure of Christ or the Eucharist or Amida Buddha, are metaphoric. It is, however, the nature of these metaphors to point towards the truth. Metaphor is a window. Engaging with metaphor or symbol, we are invited to go beyond picture or story, entering into an experiential relationship with the unspoken mystery. For dual-belongers the question arises of whether the metaphors of two religions are compatible. Do the two sources provide enriching counter-part stories or do they lead in conflicting directions?
Provisional Truth and the Role of Uncertainty
In his book, Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path[20], Takamaro Shigaraki draws on a popular Mahayana image to discuss the role of metaphor in religious thought. Nagarjuna’s doctrine of two truths is illustrated by the image of a finger pointing to the moon. If absolute truth is unknowable, the moon represents that truth, and the finger the metaphor, not the truth itself.
Shigaraki sees the figure of Amida Buddha and the stories in the Pure Land Sutras as symbolic[21]. The realm of awakening or enlightenment, which Gautama Buddha realised in his life, as well as ultimate truth and value, constitute the moon. The teaching of Buddhism is always expressed by the relationship between the finger and the moon, between the words of the teaching and suchness or truth itself, which is the essence of that teaching.[22]
This understanding of metaphor and its relationship with ultimate truth is relevant to dual-belonging, since it provides a frame which allows the practitioner to draw on metaphors of both traditions to point towards a common truth which is beyond words. Buddhism overtly discusses this kind of metaphor in its scriptures, for example in the parable of the raft in the Pali texts[23] or the apparitional city in the Lotus Sutra[24].
Nagarjuna’s image of provisional truth serves Buddhism well in its relationship with other faiths. All religious assertions potentially point towards the same moon. Buddhism has historically tended to incorporate indigenous religions of the countries which it spread to into itself, creating doctrinal anomalies which have always been accepted because they lie in the domain of provisional truth. With this precedent, a Buddhist might practise Christianity, believing it to offer provisional truth, conducive to the path. Within Buddhism, contradictory statements are common and not regarded as problematic. Teachings tend to be regarded as skilful means, evoking particular behaviours and perspectives, rather than absolute truth-claims.
In Mahayana Buddhism the issue of provisional and absolute truth, and the role of metaphor as a bridge between them, is addressed by the teaching known as the three bodies. According to this teaching, Buddhas take three forms or bodies. These bodies represent three types of spiritual encounter. They are:
Nirmanakaya: the embodied Buddha, exemplified by the historic Buddha, Gautama.
Dharmakaya: the absolute essence of Buddha-ness; the heart of the spiritual mystery
Sambhogakaya: the symbolic level which mediates the pure essence, making it accessible to people living in the world now.
In Mahayana Buddhism, celestial bodhisattvas such as Amitabha and Amitayus are considered to be Sambhogakaya figures. Many Mahayana practices centre on devotion to such Buddhas. A Sambhogakaya Buddha, like other spiritual representations, is symbolic. This does not make it less important or ‘real’ than the pure essence of Dharmakaya. All three bodies are considered to be true facets of Buddha, and each has its function. By making the religious experience perceivable, the Sambhogakaya creates a bridge between the Dharmakaya and the ordinary person. Shigeraki says: We are able to see the moon because of the finger. However, it is because of the light of the moon that we are able to see the finger and the finger is able to function as a finger. The finger is something connected to this earth, and yet at the same time is also an extension of the light of the moon. In other words, the teaching – as symbol – points toward ultimate value and truth, which transcends the secular world. Conversely, that which transcends the secular world also draws near to this world.[25]
The Sambhogakaya reveals the Dharmakaya. It points towards the ultimate truth which is expressed inadequately in words. Dharma, personified in the Dharmakaya, is the foundational order of things, universally available, but not directly perceivable by ordinary people. In Jodo Shinshu, the three bodies are commonly viewed as aspects of a whole, as for example, we see in this explanation: Trikaya, meaning Three Bodies, is not three separate bodies but three aspects of the one body of Buddhahood. Buddha as Dharmakaya resides in everything. The Dharmakaya is impersonal law, principle, ultimate reality the Truth of the Universe. It is indescribable and inexpressible. The Buddha as Sambhogaka is personal and appears before our religious awareness as Amida Buddha of Wisdom and Compassion. Buddha as Nirmanakaya refers to the historical Buddha Sakyamuni who appeared on earth 2500 years ago.[26]
This interpretation of the teaching has a precedent in Shinran’s thought. He equated Amida with all three bodies, and particularly with Dharmakaya. Shinran wrote: The highest perfect enlightenment is none other than the realm of nirvana. The realm of nirvana is the ultimate Dharmakaya. To realise the ultimate Dharmakaya is to reach the ultimate end of the one vehicle [[[Mahayana]]]. There is no other Tathagata, there is no other Dharmkaya. Tathagata is itself Dharmkaya[27]. In his understanding of the intimate relationship between the symbolic and the ultimate, Shinran often speaks of the three bodies as facets of the one. The symbolic is no less real than the absolute. Rather, it enables understanding of reality. According to Shinran, in a manner of speaking, this dharmakaya that does not have colour or form works for us continually in our world and delusion…. Amida has all three bodies but his distinctive characteristics are those of a Sambhogakaya Buddha….Amida represents ultimate reality which is beyond time and space[28].
Whilst Shinran’s writing explores the close relationship between symbol and reality, other Pure Land Buddhists refuse to accept that Amida might be seen as symbolic. Shigaraki critiques this view as superficial literalism, which he sees in the traditionalist views found in some Jodo Shinshu temples. Traditional Shin Buddhist doctrine is not clear on this point [the symbolic nature of Amida], and often confounds the finger and the moon.[29]
Pure Land Buddhism, with its reverence for Amida Buddha, is particularly open to literalism. This is not necessarily a difficulty. Despite the doctrinal injunction to distinguish between symbol and essence, with a central emphasis on entrustment, intellectual clarity is not the foremost quality of the practitioner. Too much cleverness in doctrinal interpretation can itself be a barrier to recognising bombu-nature and other-power, and the ideal-type figure of Pure Land is the person of simple faith, known as the myokonin, or ‘shiny person’. Myokonins are often uneducated, and live ordinary working lives whilst showing absolute devotion to Amida Buddha. Shinjin, as Kemmyo Sato points out[30], is beyond morality or intellect. Entrustment involves relinquishing intent. Accepting the gift of Other-Power we should let Amida Buddha work to save us just as he will[31].
God and Amida: Can Pure Land Buddhism be Theistic?
Westerner converts to Buddhism often have ambivalent feelings about questions of faith. They have often been attracted to the tradition because it offers spiritual practice without requiring beliefs[32]. Whilst a minority are happy to consider or even embrace dual-belonging, many are wary of anything suggesting theism and so are wary of Pure Land, fearing the re-introduction of a god-figure into the otherwise tidy landscape of emptiness. In the past, and in recent times, such concerns led Buddhist writers in the West to consider Pure Land an inferior form of Buddhism.
Because Buddhism is generally practice-based rather than belief-based, Buddhists can remain agnostic regarding metaphysics. This agnosticism reflects the Buddha’s own teaching which warned against preoccupation with speculative questions. The Buddhist sources include a list of ‘unanswerable questions[33]’ about which the Buddha declined to teach. These included questions on the origins or extent of the universe and on what happens to a Buddha after death. They were deemed unconducive to the spiritual path and likely to lead to speculative thinking. Buddhist practice focused on observing immediate experience and testing knowledge against these observations[34] rather than on exploring the practitioner’s relationship to the spiritual realm.
This focus on practice has created a difference of emphasis between Buddhism and theistic religions which is felt in a different weighting given in the balance between doctrine and practice. Whilst Buddhism has spawned schools of philosophy and engaged in doctrinal argument, its main concern has nearly always been with practice and direct experience. Even the most significant thinkers like Nagarjuna were practitioners first and foremost, grounding their sophisticated arguments in meditation and devotional practices. For this reason, Buddhists have often been flexible in their doctrinal interpretations, accommodating contradictions and differences of interpretation without great concern, differences being simply explained in terms of two-truth doctrine. This pre-eminence of direct experience does not, however, negate some doctrinal limits. As we will see, some points of Buddhist doctrine, common to all schools, are problematic to dual belonging and, while not insurmountable, cannot be ignored.
Pure Land Buddhism with its strong mythos of salvation can appear very different from popular secular Buddhism[35] of the West. The founders of the Japanese traditions wrote books and letters which are filled with expressions of gratitude for Amida’s compassion and confidence in the power of Amida Buddha to rescue the practitioner from the pit of samsara. Similar devotional sentiments are apparent in Pure Land writings from China and India since at least the time of Nargarjuna[36]. All of these writings centre on the salvific relationship between Amida Buddha and the practitioner, which is commonly referred to as a relationship of grace. Shinjin and the consequent promise of birth in the Pureland are described as gifts, originating without effort or intention from Amida Buddha, who offers the only hope of salvation for the ordinary person. With such a structure of ideas, can parallels be made between Pure Land and Christianity which are strong enough to support dual-belonging? Can Amida Buddha be viewed as a God figure?
The devotional nature of Pure Land Buddhism suggests potential for dual-belonging. It is hard to believe, reading the passionate devotion of such texts, that their authors did not feel inspired by a felt connection to the ultimate which has strong similarities to that experienced by theistic practitioners. To the Pure Land practitioner, Amida is a mysterious embodiment of love and generosity, sometimes viewed so infinitely powerful as to be only partially viewed[37], and other times as an intimate embrace[38]. In the immediacy of this experience, it can be tempting to simply exchange the name Amida for God and bridge the two traditions.
As we have already seen, experience is often expressed in metaphor and imagery. Metaphor can express spiritual experience which is not necessarily easily conceptualised. The common imagery can be one starting point for those who wish to practise between traditions. For example, Pure Land Buddhist and Quaker, Jim Pym, finds parallels between images of light in both religions. The Buddha tells us the story of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, while the Christian Epistle of John states that, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”....“Can there be two Infinite Lights?” (Jim Pym[39]). For Pym, the rhetorical question invokes commonalities of imagery and experience to create a comfortable synthesis of both his allegiances. To call on the infinite light to call on the absolute, whatever form it takes.
The simplicity of nembutsu practice, however, belies the theological depth of the writings of Shinran and Honen, and, as Pure Land scholars seek doctrinal convergence with other Buddhist schools, doctrinal differences between the tradition and Christianity become more apparent. Some writers, like Denis Hirota are keen to point out that simplistic assumptions of commonality may be ill-founded. Because shin Buddhist statements about reality and human engagement with it had seemed so similar in some respects to some Christian doctrines, it has been assumed that the conceptions of truth are the same, and therefore such problems as the nature of religious engagement or the ontological status of a supreme being are the same[40].
The difference which Hirota refers to in particular is the difference in ontological status between God and Buddha. In Christianity, God in essence is never man. In Buddhism, the Buddha and man are the same in essence. For example, the humanity of the Buddha is central and consequential to Jodoshu priest, Sho-on Hattori [41]. He asserts: ‘The difference between God and Buddha in relation to man would be as follows: God is different from man epistemologically and ontologically, whereas Buddha is different from man epistemologically but not ontologically.[42]’ Hirota agrees: while the concept of faith stands on the duality of God (creator) and man (created), shinjin is the oneness of Buddha and man, or man’s becoming a Buddha. [43] The humanity of Buddhas applies to Amida Buddha as much as to Shakyamuni. Those arguing this position point to the fact that although Amida Buddha, and other Sambhogakaya figures may appear to be treated as gods in Buddhist devotional practices, the Pure Land sutras are clear that even Amida Buddha was once a human being, Dharmakara, who achieved enlightenment through diligence and devotion.
Ignorance and Apophatic Approaches
The pragmatic nature of the Buddhist approach creates an asymmetric attitude to dual-belonging. Since Buddhism remains a religion more grounded in practice than conceptualisation, assertions about the nature of God, Buddhas and humans are less important to most Buddhists than they are to those of other faiths. They rest in religious discourse that is founded in reason. The Pure Land conception of bombu-nature, undermines reliance upon the intellect conversely, resting as it does on an understanding of our basic nature as one of fallibility and ignorance. Even when wisdom (prajna) is sought in Buddhism, it comes by cutting through ordinary kinds of knowing (samjna).
Enlightenment does not come about through seeking omniscience, but rather through exploring ‘what is not’. The fundamental non-self nature of being, anatta, is realised, according to the Pali suttas, through recognising 'This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self[44]'. This recognition, at the heart of Buddhist experience, expressed in Mahayana Buddhism through the concept of shunyata (emptiness), involves the elimination of the personal and a transcendence of ordinary mind and its conceptualisations. The experience of anatta is not simply an experience of nothingness, however. As self-factors are removed, they are replaced by experience of other-factors, described by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh as the fullness of all things[45]. The experience of this spiritual breakthrough is commonly described in terms of radiance or clarity, love or wisdom. It is the ‘unborn’ state, referred to in The Udana[46], an unconditioned space where self-attachments are eliminated. This is the goal of the Buddhist path.
Shinran suggests that terms like nirvana, shunyata, Dharmakaya, and the unborn all refer to this being that lies beyond ordinary being. All these terms describe the same phenomenon, albeit nuanced in different ways. Mysterious and undefined, this ultimate state transcends the duality of self and other; a state more clearly defined by what it is not, than by what it is.
The focus on what is not shares ground with the apophatic approach in Christianity. In this approach, explored in more detail in Janet Williams’[47] chapter of this volume, truth is explored through an interrogation of assumption and a creative pursuit of doubt. Apophatic theology addresses unknowability in particular by clarifying what is not so. The negative statements and unanswerable questions at the centre of the Buddhist thought have been located within this apophatic discourse. This apophatic path in Christianity has often focused on the direct experience of the mystical, exploring personal encounter with the unknowable, as can be seen in what is perhaps the best known example, the medieval Christian mystical writing, The Cloud of Unknowing[48]. The ineffable is only experienced indirectly, interpreted through symbolic representation. If we draw parallels with Pure Land it seems possible to view the representation of Amida Buddha, the measureless light and life, as a representation of unknowability.
Under attack from both the new scientific knowledge and the complex cultural and spiritual perspectives of modern society, some religion has turned to fundamentalism and the assertion of one truth, but other traditions have embraced pluralism and a deeper appreciation of the unknowable. In this spirit, some modern thinkers, particularly within the more liberal branches of their traditions, are exploring common ground between faiths. As science has challenged the literal interpretation of the religious mythos, they have adjusted their discourse to embrace uncertainty and pluralism. John Hick, the theologian and philosopher, in his paper The Buddha’s Undetermined Questions and the Religions[49] discusses how both Buddhism and Christianity can find common ground in the rejection of certainty.
Duality and Non-Duality
In Mahayana Buddhism, the ultimate state is commonly described as non-dual. When self is transcended, all is Buddha. There is one-ness. Christianity is necessarily dualistic. God and human form an irreducible dyad: Creator and created. Buddha and humanity are of one nature, God and humanity are not. Whilst similarities of faith experience might make the synthesis of Pure Land Buddhism and Christianity attractive to some, the difference in conception of the relationship with the spiritual source in the two traditions creates doctrinal distinctions which are hard to eliminate. Non-duality is therefore problematic to dual-belonging.
Pure Land is ultimately non-dualistic in its understanding, but it remains dualistic in its commonly practiced form. This paradox can be perplexing. Describing the nature of shinjin, Kemmyo Sato suggests that the relationship between Buddha and practitioner is neither one nor two[50]. In the embrace of Amida, there is unity, but in the bombu humanity of the practitioner there is separation. The two coexist. At a relational level, nembutsu practice and the experience of shinjin bridge the psychological walls created by the ordinary grasping mind, but at absolute level, through shinjin, in Amida’s embrace, the duality between person and Buddha disappears.
In this way, despite its promise to the dual-belonger, Pure Land Buddhism does not represent an easy bed-fellow for Christian affiliates. Doctrinally its roots are generally now seen as firmly within the Mahayana non-dual tradition, though not all traditionalist writers agree with this emphasis. At the same time, at the level of practice and experience, the ordinary devotee may feel a close affinity with theistic traditions and this opens up the possibility of finding common ground in worship through the felt connection to the immeasurable.
The Question of Evil
Perhaps the most significant contribution which Pure Land Buddhism makes to the field of religious belonging is its view on the matter of evil. The Pure Land traditions propose a radically non-judgemental framework of religious experience which goes beyond anything found in Christianity. In this, Pure Land is more radical than other Buddhist schools, since its other-power position relies upon an exposition of the futility of personal effort and the bombu-nature of human beings. Shinran in particular emphasised that it was only through the recognition of one’s evil nature that one could appreciate the immensity of Amida’s power. He commonly lamented the immeasurable depths of his own bad karma, accumulated over lifetimes, and the hopelessness of his case. Pure Land texts are filled with references to sinfulness, to an extent which makes modern people quite uneasy.
What has to be understood, however, in reading these texts, is that in Pure Land Buddhism sinfulness is not a barrier to salvation, but, rather, the route to it. By recognising the depths of his bad karma, the practitioner sees his complete incapacity to help himself and simultaneously realises the absolute compassion of Amida. These twin realisations are the ground of Pure Land faith. Far from being a source of divine judgement, Amida is universally portrayed as a source of indiscriminate love and compassion. There is no concept of forgiveness within Pure Land because none is needed. Amida does not discriminate between good and bad, so he does not need to forgive. For the person who is mostly deeply enmeshed in bad karma, Amida’s help is most needed. As Shinran’s famous statement in the Tannisho states: Even the good person attains birth in the Pure Land, how much more so the evil person[51].
This view of negative karma is not substantially different from that of other Buddhist schools, though the solution proposed in Pure Land is more radical. Self-power Buddhism emphasises the route of mind training and ethical frameworks as the means to escape its influence. Pure Land emphasises reliance on what is beyond the self. Buddhism understands karma as natural forces, operating in the world, effecting consequences when people act unskilfully. This action-and-consequence model does not involve an external judge, effecting retribution. It is thus sometimes described as non-ethical. We create our own karma and suffer its consequences through our own ignorance. Karma is the main mechanism by which the structures of the conditioned mind and the self are maintained. It influences our actions and our perceptions.
Recognising the depth of bombu-nature leads to salvation. Realising total dependence on Amida’s care, the practitioner sees the futility of self-rescuing and is embraced by complete faith. The self tries to find independence, but in Pure Land practice there is only dependence. Recognising one’s sinfulness therefore evokes gratitude and joy, as well as regret, in the practitioner, but it does not evoke fear. As D.T. Suzuki suggests, without self, nothing need be subdued. He writes: as there is no self, no crucifixion is needed, no sadism is to be practised, no shocking sight is to be displayed by the roadside. According to Buddhism, the world is the network of cosmic interrelationships and there is no agent behind the net who holds it for his wilful management.[52]
The removal of judgement from the central paradigm of the religious process is radical in its impact. Western Buddhists, steeped in habits of guilt-based thinking, often fail to recognise how ideas of judgement have infiltrated their spiritual mind-set. Yet in Pure Land, Shinran’s provocative language of sin and evil provides a direct challenge to such self-related patterns of thinking. The result is freeing. Without judgement, there is no need to hide aspects of behaviour or experience. Without judgement, there is no need to fabricate self-importance or an inflated personal image. Without judgement, there is no need to put oneself up and others down.
For dual-belongers, the Pure Land view of evil is a provocative challenge. Those who lean towards this position in all probability draw on a liberal form of Christianity which is less concerned with judgement than with forgiveness, but either of these positions is founded on a dualistic paradigm, which in its essence seems difficult to transcend. As Kemmyo Sato suggests in the ideas quoted earlier, in the paradoxical relationship between the practitioner and Amida, it is possible to see both duality, from the bombu perspective, and non-duality, from Amida’s perspective, but neither perspective has any possibility of external sources of judgement implied.
Conclusions
Pure Land Buddhism has often been hailed as offering the potential for dual-belonging. In this chapter, I have set out some of its basic framework of ideas, locating these within the wider frame of Buddhist thought. As a living religious tradition, interpretation of Pure Land doctrine has evolved in modern times to accommodate both the broader arena of religious and philosophical thought, and the political position of the school in relationship to other Buddhist traditions. This process creates a richly nuanced milieu in which dialogue and exchange can happen. Whether this dialogue can extend to dual membership of Pure Land and Christianity is, however, less clear.
Core to this investigation is the location of Pure Land Buddhism within the non-dual paradigm of Mahayana Buddhism. Many modern Pure Land thinkers referred to in this chapter consider that this position is a correct understanding of Pure Land doctrine. If this position is insisted upon, then at a doctrinal level, a true integration of the two traditions can never be achieved.
As Kemmyo Sato suggests, however, aspects of Pure Land can be seen as dualistic. The experience of the practitioner is of a separation between himself, embedded in karmic perspectives, and Amida, as the source of salvation. At this level, an experiential amalgamation of the two traditions becomes possible, but from a Pure Land perspective this would need to be provisional. Just as, for the Roman Catholic Magisterium[53], involvement with Buddhist practice would need to lead ultimately to a fuller relationship with Christ, from a Pure Land perspective, in order to achieve doctrinal consistency, dual-belonging needs to lead to the non-dual and to enlightenment and nirvana.
Despite these difficulties, however, the tantalising similarities of experience between the two traditions offer the potential for enrichment and dialogue. At the level of practice, there seems plenty of opportunity for shared direction and worship, and opportunities for learning and deepening of respective faiths through conversation. From the side of bombu-nature, our limited capacity to grasp the ultimate leaves space for uncertainty, and it is perhaps within this space of not knowing that the most effective meeting between the traditions can happen. In this process, an understanding grounded in an appreciation of metaphor and the poetic can be facilitative. This understanding with its multi–levelled capacity to hold paradox, combined with apophatic enquiry into the nature of the religious encounter can establish a solid, ever-changing alliance between the two parent religions.
[1] Ref Catherine Cornille’s chapter
[2] Barth K Church Dogmatics
[3] Ref Janet Williams’ chapter
[4] Skt. Larger Sukhavativyuha sutra, Skt. Smaller Sukhavativyuha sutra, Kuan wu-liang-shou ching
[5] Kitagawa J On Understanding Japanese Religion (Princeton 1966 p215)
[6] See particularly views of Adrian Cirlea and Eiken Kobai http://amida-ji-retreat-temple-romania.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/kobai-senseis-statement-amida-is-true.html
[7] Shigaraki Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path: A Life of Awakening (Hozokan, 2005)
[8] D T Suzuki Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (Allen & Unwin 1957)
[9] Innagaki Z in 1971letter to Jack Austin, http://www.nembutsu.info/horai/letters_ja1.htm
[10] Tannaka Kenneth Ocean (Wisdom 1997)
[11] Hirota D Shinran, Barth, and Religion: Engagement With Religious Language as an Issue of Comparative Theology (http://www.shindharmanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/pdf/Hirota-Barth.pdf downloaded 1/5/14)
[12] Brazier C Buddhist Psychology (Constable Robinson, 2003)
[13] Stewart, H Reflections on the Dharma (http://www.nembutsu.info/hsrnagarjuna.htm)
[14] Brazier C Other Buddhism (O-Books, 2007 pp76-80)
[15] Hirota D Shinran, Barth, and Religion: Engagement With Religious Language as an Issue of Comparative Theology (http://www.shindharmanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/pdf/Hirota-Barth.pdf downloaded 1/5/14 page1)
[16] Tannisho II
[17] Bloom A Strategies For Modern Living; A Commentary With the Text of the Tannisho (Numata,1992)p124
[18] Ohtani K The Buddha's Wish for the World (American Buddhist Study Centre Press, 2009)
[19] Ibid p121
[20] Shigaraki T Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path: A Life of Awakening (Hozokan, 2005)
[21] Ibid p27-29
[22] Ibid p27-28
[23] Majjhima Nikaya 22
[24] The Lotus Sutra VII
[25] Shigaraki T Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path: A Life of Awakening (Hozokan, 2005) p29
[26] http://shinmission_sg.tripod.com/id12.html
[27] Collected Works of Shinran vol 1 pp60-61
[28] Jodo Shinshu a Guide (Hongwanji)
[29]Shigaraki T Heart of the Shin Buddhist Path: A Life of Awakening (Wisdom 2005) p28
[30] Sato, K T Great Living; In the Pure Encounter Between Master And Disciple (American Buddhist Studies Centre, 2010)
[31] Ibid p121
[32] Batchelor S Buddhism Without Beliefs (Riverhead, 1997)
[33] This list appear in two Suttas: Majjhima Nikaya 63 and 72
[34] The Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 3.63
[35] Bachelor, S Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (Spiegel and Grau 2011)
[36] The Stanzas of Nagarjuna on the Amida Buddha and His Pure Land, Translated from The Pure Land, Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 1979, from the French, by Franny Sime, August, 1980. First published by the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd, Newsletter No. 5, September, 1981.
[37] This view would tend to be more common in Jodoshu Schools
[38] An expression more typical of Jodo Shinshu
[39] Pym, J on-line article, Buddha and God, (Contemplative Consciousness Network http://c-c-n.org/buddha-and-god-by-jim-pym/ downloaded April 21 2014)
[40]Hirota D Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism (University of New York 2000 p34)
[41] Hattori S A Raft from The Other Shore Honen and the Way of Pure Land Buddhism (Jodo Shu Press, 2001)
[42] Ibid quoted on web http://www.jodo.org/about_plb/what_plb.html
[43] Paraphrasing Yoshifumi Ueda in Hirota D Shinran, Barth, and Religion: Engagement With Religious Language as an Issue of Comparative Theology (http://www.shindharmanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/pdf/Hirota-Barth.pdf downloaded 1/5/14 page1)
[44] This refrain is found in many suttas of the Pali Canon.
[45] Hanh, N Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries (Parallax Press , 2012)
[46] Udana, Khuddaka Nikaya 3
[47] Ref Janet Williams chapter
[48] The Cloud of Unknowing is an anonymous work of Christian mysticism written in the late 14th century
[49] Hick, J The Buddha’s Undetermined Questions and the Religions (http://www.johnhick.org.uk/article8.html, 2004)
[50] Sato, K T Great Living; In the Pure Encounter Between Master And Disciple (American Buddhist Studies Centre, 2010)
[51] Tannisho 3
[52] D T Suzuki Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (Allen & Unwin 1957 P120)
[53] Ref Gavin’s paper
