MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Misconceptions of the Pure Land doctrine
For those who have gone astray in the modern secular wilderness but are desperately seeking some way out of their existential predicament, the main obstruction often proves to be the seeker's own struggle to find and follow some spiritual method. Our self-applauding vanity invariably induces us to choose the most difficult and complex methods, those usually reserved in the Orient for disciples of exceptional quality and talent, while we remain self-complacently unaware that such practices are probably far beyond our very limited capabilities. We are too proud to renounce all ego-motivated effort and too impatient to wait till the Path of Liberation opens up spontaneously, when the moment is opportune and the pilgrim is ready. For the Way chooses the wayfarer, the wayfarer does not choose the Way. Ultimately the right path may well turn out to be the very one that the pilgrim has always ignored or rejected, the last and least that he would ever have chosen to follow. But sooner or later the aspirant must dedicate his life wholly to one Tradition, that which offers him a spiritual path. One can only reach the Centre from the circumference by travelling along a single radius, never by leaping from spoke to spoke, and still less by wandering around the rim.
The West has been misled to believe that the Pure Land teachings are 'mere popular religion', whereas Zen is the only intellectually respectable form of Buddhism. But if intellectual content is to be our criterion for judging the worth of a religion, then it is not Zen but Kegon that the West should be studying. For Kegon (Chinese: Hua Yen) doctrines are based on the Avatamsaka-sutra, which, after the Buddha's first eloquent silence, was the highest expression in words that he was able to give to the insights gained by his Enlightenment.
Until recently, what little was known of the Pure Land Tradition in the West was so misrepresented that it appeared to be only another unacceptable variant of that religion against which so many were in reaction, so that is was summarily dismissed as 'too much like Christianity'. This was largely the fault of poor translations into theological terms and pseudo-Biblical English, under the influence of Christian missionaries with a vested interest in making the Pure Land texts look like a heathen parody of their own superior scriptures. No wonder, then, that such archaic versions have hitherto deterred all but the most intrepid seeker or that Western scholars of Buddhism have disparaged the practice of the Nembutsu and disregarded the Pure Land doctrines, of whose deeper aspects their ignorance was encyclopaedic.
But when given more accurate and scholarly translation and studied more closely and comprehensively, the orthodox Buddhist basis of these doctrines stands revealed, and the older prejudiced objections can no longer be upheld. Since the two Traditions rest on quite dissimilar foundations, their resemblances are shown to be apparent and superficial, whilst their differences are decisive and profound. Yet once this initial anti-Christian aversion is overcome, the very points of resemblance to Christianity should help to make Pure Land Buddhism more accessible and easier to assimilate by the Westerner in search of a new Way. For such a bhaktic and invocational method, though despised and rejected by modern man, may well prove to be precisely what he most needs to counterbalance his egoistic pretensions and ingrained scepticism. The spiritual and cultural gulf between the Oriental Traditions (or rather what is left of them after modern depredations) and the Occidental seeker could perhaps be more easily bridged by the Pure Land teachings than by older and more difficult methods no longer adaptable to these last days of the cycle.
But, as the author's own experience confirms, the Pure Land doctrines are most likely to be that form of Buddhism to which the Westerner comes only as a last resort, after all other methods have been tried and found too difficult to follow. Often Jodoshu and Shinshu are the only schools of Buddhism in which he has taken no interest at all, those which he has steadfastly resisted and refused to investigate or give fair trial. Yet it is this invocatory method which providentially offers us our final chance of rescue when all other methods have failed. If we are to adopt anything at all from the Traditions of the Far East, it should be the Nembutsu. For in the calling of the Name of Amida, Pure Land Buddhism opens up for us at last a practical Way out of our existential impasse. Since it is easy to call and easy to hold in mind, the Name can now most readily redeem and refine those crude and inchoate impulses and emotions which secretly drive and dominate our overdeveloped but superficial rationality.
Besides, the Nembutsu seems best adapted to this period of intolerance toward all religion, because it can be repeated by anyone at any time and in any place and does not depend on attendance at a temple or a service by a priest. For the Name is not merely portable: carried always within the Heart, it is in truth omnipresent, wherever and whenever the faithful devotee may happen to be. The Nembutsu can be called aloud or in silence, even while being subjected to mockery and scorn from ideological positivists or under interrogation by the forces of totalitarian oppression, whether of Left or Right, that everywhere attempt to eradicate the spiritual life of man. Its silent repetition can thus defeat all persecutors, who at the worst can put one's body to death, as happened with the wrongful execution of the Jodoshu martyr, Anraku-bo, but only to ensure one's instant rebirth into the Pure Land !
To sum up in the words of the eminent Ch'an master Yun Ming, who died in 795 near the beginning of the Sung dynasty: "Those who practice Zen but have no faith in Amida go astray in nine cases out of ten; those who do not practice Zen but have faith in Amida are saved one and all; those who practice Zen and also have faith in Amida are like the tiger provided with [unnecessary] wings; while for those who neither practice Zen nor have faith in Amida there await the red-hot iron floor and copper pillars of Hell".