MIKE'S G.C. BLOG
In my other book discussion group, Nihonshi, we are reading "A
History of Japanese Religion". I am struck by how similar some
versions of Reformation-era Protestant Christianity are to Pure Land
Buddhism and True Pure Land Buddhism (in Japanese, Joudo-shu
and Joudo Shin-shu, respectively). I was thinking about this in
reference to our readings of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the
Reformation theology that forms a back drop to Milton's writings.
In the Joudo-shu and Joudo-shin-shu sects (Pure Land sect and True
Pure Land sect), one did not have to earn one's way to salvation.
Instead, simple faith in Amita buddha, the buddha of the Pure Land in
the far West and calling on Amita in the form of the "nembutsu" chant
was considered adequate to salvation.
<<The faith preached by Shinran, the holy founder of the Joudo Shin
sect, does not concern itself with the degree of sinfulness of the
believer or whether the believer is still bound by worldly delusions and
attachments. It teaches simply that humans living in the world of
delusion should case aside all evil attachment to miscellaneous works
and practices and, taking refuge in the compassionate vow of Amida,
believe in it single-heartedly, without doubting. The moment they do
so, Amida will illuminate them with his radiance and save them without
fail. This is what is meant by the spirit of the other power --- salvation
coming to us from Amida. Furthermore, even the will to believe is itself
Amida's gift. Thus, once we have received the gift of faith, we must not
think "Save us, Amida" when we recite the nembutsu. We should
understand our nembutsu to be a spontaneous expression of thanks
to Amida for having already saved us from the first moment we felt
faith....>>
Rennyo (1415-1499), quoted from Kasahara, "A History of Japanese
Religion"
Change "Amida" to "Christ" and change "nembutsu" to "calling on the
name of the Lord to be saved" (which is what the nembutsu means),
and the above passage could almost be very similar to an altar call at a
evangelical Christian church.
Jan Nattier was kind enough to refer me to her academic paper she
wrote some time ago, on the evolution of Pure Land Buddhism. I highly
recommend the paper for anyone interested in the historical evolution
of Buddhist thought through to Mahayana and especially Pure Land
Buddhism, and how some of the ideas of Pure Land Buddhism have
some parallels to the Reformation theology of Luther, Calvin and Milton
and others. Just one example of a parallel. Just as Reformation
thinkers struggled to resolve the notions of salvation through God's
unmerited grace with the ideas of antinomianism (the idea that since
the elect are saved by grace alone, there is no need for Christians to
behave ethically...meaning, we might as well party like it's 1999...),
similarly, Pure Land Buddhism(s) struggled over the same theological
issues, for exactly the same theological reasons. Practitioners of Pure
Land Buddhism believe that it is only via the unmerited grace of Amida
Buddha that the Buddhist believer is able to be reborn in the world of
the Pure Land. So similarly, why should the Buddhist practitioner
behave ethically?
You can find the text of Nattier's paper at the following link.
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/publications/pwj/back/three.five.php
Here below is my shortened reader's digest version of the key points
of Nattier's essay.
I'm sure some of you have noted how unlike Pure Land Buddhism(s)
seems from Thervada buddhism and even how different Pure Land is
from even some sects of Mahayana Buddhism. Apparently some
scholars have suggested that because Pure Land is so different from
other Buddhist sects that perhaps Pure Land shouldn't be described
as Buddhism at all. According to this view, Pure Land Buddhisms are
likely amalgams of other religious traditions, such as Hinduism, and
thus Pure Land should be described as a religion different from
Buddhism.
In her essay, Ms Nattier relates the evidence to show that Pure Land
Buddhism did develop from the gradual evolution of Buddhist thought,
and as such, Pure Land is not essentially an amalgam of other
non-Buddhist religious traditions. Pure Land is thus a natural
outgrowth of Buddhism thought itself. She then shows how that
thought evolved.
I particularly found fascinating Ms Nattier description of how the
Theravada tradition of a single vehicle, the path to being an "arhat",
evolved out of the fact that gradually "the Buddha came to be
portrayed in increasingly glorified terms, the status of actual living
arhats, whether of the present or the past, began to decline. In such an
environment it became possible to speak of arhatship as a lesser
spiritual goal, one far less admirable than the supreme and perfect
awaking (anuttarasayaksambodhi) experienced by a buddha."
(An Arhat is a disciple of Gautama Buddha who follows the Buddha's
teaching and practice to give up attachments to the world and so the
arhat will no longer have to be reborn in the future into the world of
suffering. Generally a Buddha is one who follows the same path as the
arhat, but a Buddha has discovered the path for him/herself, without
the benefit of any teaching. The arhat, by contrast, learned the
buddhist path from a teacher whose lineage may be traced ultimately
back many generations to the Buddha.)
Nattier continues: "Not surprisingly, as the status of arhats declined
some Buddhists began to consider the possibility of choosing a higher
goal: that is, of attaining buddhahood rather than 'mere' arhatship. By
re-enacting in every detail the path that the bodhisattva who was
to become Sakyamuni Buddha had traversed -- not only in his final life
but in countless lives before -- an exceptional devotee might succeed
in becoming a world-redeeming Buddha himself..."
She then shows how the development of this idea led to a bit of a
problem. Buddhism has consistently taught that everything is
transitory and changing. Thus, it would be contradictory to believe that
the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha (a.k.a. Gautama Buddha) would
remain in existence on the earth for all eternity. Given the transitory,
changing nature of everything, eventually, even the teachings of
Sakyamuni Buddha would disappear from the earth. That is part of the
idea we've been reading about in Kasahara's "A History" about Mappo,
the period of the decay of the dharma, in which era many Japanese
Buddhist thinkers believed they were living.
Given that terrible scenario of the loss of Buddha's teachings, it
seemed to some Buddhist thinkers in India and China that some
individual somewhere must somehow carry the torch of the teachings
of the Buddha to future generations past the time when all Gautama's
teachings had disappeared from the earth. Thus was born the idea of
the bodhitsattva: the enlightened individual who would voluntarily
forgo nirvana and instead continue the cycle of rebirth to try to ensure
everyone else has a chance to be exposed to Buddha's teaching and
help all these souls exit the cycle of samsara.
But there is another catch. According to tradition, there can only be
one Buddha in the world at one time. And further, the time between
Gautama Buddha and the next Buddha (Maitreya) of the future is
supposed to be 5.6 billion years from now, in the very distant future. So
anyone who endeavored to become the next Buddha would have to
wait at least 5.6 billion years. Or, even worse yet, if he/she was beaten
out to become the next Buddha by some other enlightened individual,
he/she would have to get in line and wait another 5.6 billion years.
So the idea was developed that you could only have one Buddha per
world-system. However, Buddhist thinkers in India come up with the
idea that there could indeed be other Buddhas in the present time as
long as these other Buddhas were *not* in our world-system, but
existing in some other world-system. Thus was born the idea of a
Buddha called Aksobhya in another world far to the East of our world,
called Abhirati. Similarly, another different buddha. Amitabha buddha
exists in our present time, in the world far to the West of our own world,
which eventually came to be described as Pure Land.
There are lots of benefits to modifying the limitation of only one
Buddha at a time. That means if you are a bodhissatva wannabe, you
don't necessarily have to wait 5.6 billion years to get to be a
Buddha. So now you don't have to be reborn thousands or millions of
times before attaining the status of buddhahood. You might find a
distant world away from our own world with an immediate vacancy for
you, or if not an immediate vacancy, perhaps a vacancy in a just one or
two rebirths. Ms Nattier refers amusingly to this vacancy in a different
world as a "buddha-free zone". Also, having the possibility of a
buddha (or buddhas, plural) existing in a galaxy far far away means
that perhaps that you can accumulate merit more quickly in order to
achieve the status of buddhabood more
quickly through some kind of devotional contact with this far away
Buddha in another world-system.
Pure Land Buddhism, though, has the additional unusual feature that it
is *not* through personal merit that you are reborn in the Pure Land,
but through the grace freely offered by Amitabha. But that grace of
Amida is only available to us now BECAUSE the earlier developments
in the thought of
Buddhism that allowed for multiple Buddhas to exist in our present in
other world-systems.
There are many more fascinating ideas and information in Jan Nattier's
paper. These I have related are just some of the ideas I found most
interesting to me. I highly recommend the paper for anyone interested
in the historical evolution of Buddhist thought through to Mahayana
and especially Pure Land Buddhism, and those interested in how
some of the ideas of Pure Land Buddhism have some parallels to the
Reformation theology of Luther, Calvin and Milton and others.
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/publications/pwj/back/three.five.php
DATELINE: 2008 January 28, TOKYO
History of Japanese Religion". I am struck by how similar some
versions of Reformation-era Protestant Christianity are to Pure Land
Buddhism and True Pure Land Buddhism (in Japanese, Joudo-shu
and Joudo Shin-shu, respectively). I was thinking about this in
reference to our readings of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the
Reformation theology that forms a back drop to Milton's writings.
In the Joudo-shu and Joudo-shin-shu sects (Pure Land sect and True
Pure Land sect), one did not have to earn one's way to salvation.
Instead, simple faith in Amita buddha, the buddha of the Pure Land in
the far West and calling on Amita in the form of the "nembutsu" chant
was considered adequate to salvation.
<<The faith preached by Shinran, the holy founder of the Joudo Shin
sect, does not concern itself with the degree of sinfulness of the
believer or whether the believer is still bound by worldly delusions and
attachments. It teaches simply that humans living in the world of
delusion should case aside all evil attachment to miscellaneous works
and practices and, taking refuge in the compassionate vow of Amida,
believe in it single-heartedly, without doubting. The moment they do
so, Amida will illuminate them with his radiance and save them without
fail. This is what is meant by the spirit of the other power --- salvation
coming to us from Amida. Furthermore, even the will to believe is itself
Amida's gift. Thus, once we have received the gift of faith, we must not
think "Save us, Amida" when we recite the nembutsu. We should
understand our nembutsu to be a spontaneous expression of thanks
to Amida for having already saved us from the first moment we felt
faith....>>
Rennyo (1415-1499), quoted from Kasahara, "A History of Japanese
Religion"
Change "Amida" to "Christ" and change "nembutsu" to "calling on the
name of the Lord to be saved" (which is what the nembutsu means),
and the above passage could almost be very similar to an altar call at a
evangelical Christian church.
Jan Nattier was kind enough to refer me to her academic paper she
wrote some time ago, on the evolution of Pure Land Buddhism. I highly
recommend the paper for anyone interested in the historical evolution
of Buddhist thought through to Mahayana and especially Pure Land
Buddhism, and how some of the ideas of Pure Land Buddhism have
some parallels to the Reformation theology of Luther, Calvin and Milton
and others. Just one example of a parallel. Just as Reformation
thinkers struggled to resolve the notions of salvation through God's
unmerited grace with the ideas of antinomianism (the idea that since
the elect are saved by grace alone, there is no need for Christians to
behave ethically...meaning, we might as well party like it's 1999...),
similarly, Pure Land Buddhism(s) struggled over the same theological
issues, for exactly the same theological reasons. Practitioners of Pure
Land Buddhism believe that it is only via the unmerited grace of Amida
Buddha that the Buddhist believer is able to be reborn in the world of
the Pure Land. So similarly, why should the Buddhist practitioner
behave ethically?
You can find the text of Nattier's paper at the following link.
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/publications/pwj/back/three.five.php
Here below is my shortened reader's digest version of the key points
of Nattier's essay.
I'm sure some of you have noted how unlike Pure Land Buddhism(s)
seems from Thervada buddhism and even how different Pure Land is
from even some sects of Mahayana Buddhism. Apparently some
scholars have suggested that because Pure Land is so different from
other Buddhist sects that perhaps Pure Land shouldn't be described
as Buddhism at all. According to this view, Pure Land Buddhisms are
likely amalgams of other religious traditions, such as Hinduism, and
thus Pure Land should be described as a religion different from
Buddhism.
In her essay, Ms Nattier relates the evidence to show that Pure Land
Buddhism did develop from the gradual evolution of Buddhist thought,
and as such, Pure Land is not essentially an amalgam of other
non-Buddhist religious traditions. Pure Land is thus a natural
outgrowth of Buddhism thought itself. She then shows how that
thought evolved.
I particularly found fascinating Ms Nattier description of how the
Theravada tradition of a single vehicle, the path to being an "arhat",
evolved out of the fact that gradually "the Buddha came to be
portrayed in increasingly glorified terms, the status of actual living
arhats, whether of the present or the past, began to decline. In such an
environment it became possible to speak of arhatship as a lesser
spiritual goal, one far less admirable than the supreme and perfect
awaking (anuttarasayaksambodhi) experienced by a buddha."
(An Arhat is a disciple of Gautama Buddha who follows the Buddha's
teaching and practice to give up attachments to the world and so the
arhat will no longer have to be reborn in the future into the world of
suffering. Generally a Buddha is one who follows the same path as the
arhat, but a Buddha has discovered the path for him/herself, without
the benefit of any teaching. The arhat, by contrast, learned the
buddhist path from a teacher whose lineage may be traced ultimately
back many generations to the Buddha.)
Nattier continues: "Not surprisingly, as the status of arhats declined
some Buddhists began to consider the possibility of choosing a higher
goal: that is, of attaining buddhahood rather than 'mere' arhatship. By
re-enacting in every detail the path that the bodhisattva who was
to become Sakyamuni Buddha had traversed -- not only in his final life
but in countless lives before -- an exceptional devotee might succeed
in becoming a world-redeeming Buddha himself..."
She then shows how the development of this idea led to a bit of a
problem. Buddhism has consistently taught that everything is
transitory and changing. Thus, it would be contradictory to believe that
the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha (a.k.a. Gautama Buddha) would
remain in existence on the earth for all eternity. Given the transitory,
changing nature of everything, eventually, even the teachings of
Sakyamuni Buddha would disappear from the earth. That is part of the
idea we've been reading about in Kasahara's "A History" about Mappo,
the period of the decay of the dharma, in which era many Japanese
Buddhist thinkers believed they were living.
Given that terrible scenario of the loss of Buddha's teachings, it
seemed to some Buddhist thinkers in India and China that some
individual somewhere must somehow carry the torch of the teachings
of the Buddha to future generations past the time when all Gautama's
teachings had disappeared from the earth. Thus was born the idea of
the bodhitsattva: the enlightened individual who would voluntarily
forgo nirvana and instead continue the cycle of rebirth to try to ensure
everyone else has a chance to be exposed to Buddha's teaching and
help all these souls exit the cycle of samsara.
But there is another catch. According to tradition, there can only be
one Buddha in the world at one time. And further, the time between
Gautama Buddha and the next Buddha (Maitreya) of the future is
supposed to be 5.6 billion years from now, in the very distant future. So
anyone who endeavored to become the next Buddha would have to
wait at least 5.6 billion years. Or, even worse yet, if he/she was beaten
out to become the next Buddha by some other enlightened individual,
he/she would have to get in line and wait another 5.6 billion years.
So the idea was developed that you could only have one Buddha per
world-system. However, Buddhist thinkers in India come up with the
idea that there could indeed be other Buddhas in the present time as
long as these other Buddhas were *not* in our world-system, but
existing in some other world-system. Thus was born the idea of a
Buddha called Aksobhya in another world far to the East of our world,
called Abhirati. Similarly, another different buddha. Amitabha buddha
exists in our present time, in the world far to the West of our own world,
which eventually came to be described as Pure Land.
There are lots of benefits to modifying the limitation of only one
Buddha at a time. That means if you are a bodhissatva wannabe, you
don't necessarily have to wait 5.6 billion years to get to be a
Buddha. So now you don't have to be reborn thousands or millions of
times before attaining the status of buddhahood. You might find a
distant world away from our own world with an immediate vacancy for
you, or if not an immediate vacancy, perhaps a vacancy in a just one or
two rebirths. Ms Nattier refers amusingly to this vacancy in a different
world as a "buddha-free zone". Also, having the possibility of a
buddha (or buddhas, plural) existing in a galaxy far far away means
that perhaps that you can accumulate merit more quickly in order to
achieve the status of buddhabood more
quickly through some kind of devotional contact with this far away
Buddha in another world-system.
Pure Land Buddhism, though, has the additional unusual feature that it
is *not* through personal merit that you are reborn in the Pure Land,
but through the grace freely offered by Amitabha. But that grace of
Amida is only available to us now BECAUSE the earlier developments
in the thought of
Buddhism that allowed for multiple Buddhas to exist in our present in
other world-systems.
There are many more fascinating ideas and information in Jan Nattier's
paper. These I have related are just some of the ideas I found most
interesting to me. I highly recommend the paper for anyone interested
in the historical evolution of Buddhist thought through to Mahayana
and especially Pure Land Buddhism, and those interested in how
some of the ideas of Pure Land Buddhism have some parallels to the
Reformation theology of Luther, Calvin and Milton and others.
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/publications/pwj/back/three.five.php
DATELINE: 2008 January 28, TOKYO
The Great Conversation
reading group
reading group
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