## 1. Introduction



Before proceeding to a consideration of Japanese Pure Land Buddhist
thought, it may be useful to note two intertwined difficulties that it
presents for modern Western readers in particular: an extensive
scriptural and commentarial tradition, and apparent resemblances to
familiar forms of Christian thought.


### 1.1 The Scriptural and Commentarial Tradition



The Pure Land teachings are often regarded as popularized, devotional
extensions of a more philosophically demanding contemplative tradition
based on a core doctrine of emptiness or voidness. In fact, the
concepts of multitudes of celestial buddhas and their buddha-fields
throughout the cosmos are already in evidence in the earliest strata
of extant texts produced by the Mahayana movement, and sutras
expounding distant buddha-fields, such as that of Aksobhya
Buddha in the east, are among the first to be translated into Chinese
already in the second century CE, with sutras teaching Amida Buddha
soon to follow. Thus, sutras teaching methods of achieving liberation
from samsaric existence through attaining birth in buddha-fields in
other regions of the cosmos--particularly Amida Buddha's
Pure Land--were among the earliest Buddhist scriptures
transmitted to China. Further, the teaching of birth into
Amida's buddha-field became the focus of a continuous
commentarial tradition that began among such major Indian Mahayana
thinkers as Nagarjuna (c. 150-250) and Vasubandhu (c.
320-400) in India, was transmitted to China as early as the
third century CE, and is maintained today in Japan. Thus, it may be
said that Pure Land concepts and ideas emerged directly out of
elemental strains of Mahayana Buddhist thought at an early stage and
underwent continual development in East Asia.



The Pure Land path based on Amida is expounded in the *Larger*
and *Smaller Sutras of the Adornments of* [*the Buddha-field
Named*] *Bliss*
(*Sukhavativyuha-sutra*), which trace their
origins back to northwestern India in about the first century CE, the
period of the redaction of the
*Prajnaparamita in 8000 Lines*,
*Garland*, *Lotus*, *Vimalakirti*, and other
major Mahayana sutras. These two sutras, along with the later
*Sutra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life*
(Jp. *Kanmuryojukyo*), form the foundation for the
East Asian Pure Land tradition.



The *Larger Sutra* is the only extant sutra that relates the
narrative of how the bodhisattva Dharma-Storehouse (Dharmakara)
established and fulfilled vows to become Amida ("immeasurable
[light and life]"), the buddha of compassion who leads all
beings to enlightenment by enabling them to be born into his
buddha-field. It was first translated into Chinese in the third
century and was reputedly retranslated eleven more times over the
following seven hundred years, attesting to its enduring importance in
Chinese Buddhist tradition. The Pure Land tradition developed for over
a thousand years in China, accumulating an extensive body of
scriptural and commentarial writings, before undergoing the radical
reinterpretation in Japan that Suzuki refers to.



Thus, the Pure Land Buddhist heritage in Japan stands today upon the
selective use of a continuous textual tradition stretching back nearly
two millennia. Terms from the Chinese of the sutras in their various
renditions and evolving commentaries on the Pure Land path became the
standard medium of Pure Land Buddhist discourse in Japan, so that a
full grasp of the Japanese tradition requires familiarity with these
terms, their relationship to the broader Buddhist tradition, and the
historical changes in their understandings and emphases in the course
of their long development in various cultural spheres and sectarian
settings. Japanese Buddhists have been, throughout their history,
fully aware of their geographical position at the easternmost reach of
the spread of Buddhism in Asia and of their indebtedness to the
transmission of Buddhist tradition across the various ethnic locales
and political boundaries of the Asian continent.


### 1.2 Comparative Frameworks



A further difficulty in grasping Japanese Pure Land thought involves
the pitfalls of a comparative approach in relation to Western
religious traditions. When, for his own polemical purposes, Karl Barth
(1886-1968) surveyed the religious traditions of the world in
search of doctrinal parallels to Christianity, he concluded that it
was the Japanese Pure Land tradition that provided "the most
exact, comprehensive, and plausible 'pagan' parallel to
Christianity" (Barth 1961, 1,2: 342). He expresses some shock at
the depth and specificity of resemblance, commenting that the Pure
Land thought of Honen (1133-1212) and Shinran
(1173-1263) in particular



> 
> 
> parallels not so much Roman or Greek Catholicism but rather of all
> things the Christianity of the *Reformation*, and therefore
> confronts Christianity with the question of its truth precisely in its
> form as a consistent religion of *grace*. (Barth 1961, 1,2:
> 342; for a discussion on Barth's comparative comments, see
> Hirota 2000a, especially pp. 35-38)
> 
> 
> 



Barth insightfully discusses specific doctrinal analogues in a long
note in *Church Dogmatics*, and these parallels have indeed
tended to form the foundations for the understanding of Japanese Pure
Land Buddhism in much of Western scholarly literature. Unfortunately,
to the extent that Pure Land Buddhism has seemed to resemble
Protestant Christianity, it has also been assumed to be divorced from
"genuine" or "original" Mahayana Buddhist
thought and practices and devoid of any intellectual interest. Any
comparative considerations of Japanese Pure Land Buddhist thought,
therefore, require caution, even in the face of seemingly evident
resemblance.


### 1.3 A Japanese Pure Land Philosophy



As mentioned before, the Pure Land Buddhist teachings have taken on a
highly distinctive shape in Japan, generating new determinations of
the central canonical texts and multiple strands of scholastic and
commentarial tradition. It is in relation to these latter developments
that we can best speak of a specifically "Japanese Pure Land
Buddhist philosophy," for the creative construals of a
practicable Buddhist path to transformed awareness involved, in the
forces for their evolution and in the articulation of their
implications, deliberation on such matters as the nature of human
existence, self and other, language, reality, and truth. Further, the
disparate streams of Japanese Pure Land thought stand as distinctive
understandings, often employing their own characteristic terminology,
of an already highly evolved Buddhist tradition, and a grasp of them
often requires a recognition of the tensions between received
tradition and reinterpretation that they manifest.



In order to treat Pure Land Buddhist tradition while keeping within
the parameters of "Japan" and "philosophy,"
this entry will divide the discussion into three sections. In the
first, there is a brief sketch of several broad trajectories of
thought that stem from central Mahayana concerns and that shape the
Pure Land outlook, coming to hold particular significance in the
Japanese Pure Land tradition. The second section identifies the
central issues involved in Honen's seminal reformulation of
the Pure Land path. The third section will then treat several
fundamental philosophical issues in Japanese Pure Land thought,
focusing upon Pure Land thought as one distinctive stream of a path to
religious awakening within the Mahayana traditions of praxis, and
further upon the major developments that occurred specifically in
Japan. The point will not be to suggest that medieval Japanese
thinkers speak directly to Western philosophical issues, but rather to
investigate how their thinking might be understood to take up topics
commonly considered philosophical in Western intellectual tradition
and to illuminate perspectives relevant to current intellectual
concerns.


## 2. Contours of Pure Land Buddhist Thought



Two fundamental elements of early Mahayana practice contributed
significantly to the development of the Pure Land path. First, the
animating force that initially gave rise to the Mahayana movement as a
whole--the critical reflection on obdurate self-attachment that
attended even religious endeavor--was pursued to a culmination in
Pure Land aspiration. Second, the Mahayana movement's
formulation of genuine practice as the career of the
bodhisattva-practitioner provided the principal framework and symbols
for the articulation of Pure Land practice. In particular, the stage
in the bodhisattva's progress of nonretrogression from perfect
enlightenment, which was regarded as holding decisive significance,
served to shape the Pure Land path by becoming its goal.


### 2.1 Critical Self-Reflection



Mahayana tradition appears to have arisen when, around the beginning
of the common era, groups of Buddhists emerged who, reflecting on
their own experience in practice, assumed a critical stance toward the
immediately preceding tradition. They viewed the existing institutions
as having declined, during five centuries of transmission since the
time of the Buddha, into monastic formalism and scholasticism,
sectarian disputation, and an erroneous notion of the nature of the
wisdom that was the aim of Buddhist practice. They declared that the
established view of training, directed to merely personal emancipation
from painful existence, was narrow and finally inadequate, and that in
their aspiration to attain the actual realization Sakyamuni
had transmitted, they had sought and discovered a method by which
genuine attainment was possible. They called this new path the
"great vehicle" (Mahayana), because it holds as its goal
the attainment of authentic enlightenment by all beings, and asserted
that it was superior to the existing institutions, which they labeled
the "lesser vehicle" (Hinayana).



According to Mahayanists, the Hinayana sages withdrew from ordinary
life in society and performed practices and disciplines, seeking their
own extinction of passions and emancipation from samsaric existence by
realizing the nonsubstantiality of their own person--the fact
that the ego-self is no more than a delusional construct. Mahayana
Buddhists asserted that such praxis did not free practitioners from a
final residue of self-attachment manifested in the desertion of the
beings of samsara in favor of personal liberation and in an attachment
to the goal of nirvana itself. Instead, the Mahayanists taught the
thorough relinquishment of all attachments through the realization or
"seeing" of the nonsubstantiality or emptiness that
pervades not only the self, but all things and all persons. Such
seeing is established by eradicating the discriminative thinking
arising from the perspective of the reified, delusional self. One thus
transcends even the dichotomies of self and other, blind passions and
enlightenment, and samsara and nirvana, and realizes nondiscriminative
wisdom that "sees suchness" or things just as they are.
Here, practice to attain enlightenment oneself and to liberate all
beings is understood to be one.



The rigorous scrutiny of even religious praxis for vestiges of
self-attachment and discriminative thinking, which informed the
origins of the Mahayana movement, also provided impetus for its
development as the Pure Land path.


### 2.2 Seeds of Pure Land Thought in the Bodhisattva Path



The path of realization based on the Mahayana conception of genuine
wisdom was elaborated as the career of the bodhisattva. As described
in Mahayana sutras, it begins with the profound awakening of the mind
aspiring for enlightenment (*bodhicitta*), the determination to
become a buddha whatever hardships one may encounter over the course
of many lifetimes of endeavor. This unshakable resolution is declared
in the presence of a buddha in formal vows, and typically, the
bodhisattva receives from the buddha a prophesy foretelling eventual
fulfillment of those vows. A standard element of such individual vows
is the establishment, through their vast accumulation of merit through
praxis, of a buddha land or field of influence
(*buddhaksetra*), which is understood as giving concrete
manifestation both to the splendor of their attainment and to their
activity to bring beings to enlightenment.



The bodhisattva then embarks upon the practices and disciplines, to be
continued through countless lifetimes, that will finally result in
fulfillment. It is said that vast aeons--"three great
innumerable kalpas"--are required for the completion of a
bodhisattva's practices (the inconceivable stretches of time may
be understood as expressing the depths of a being's evil karma
to be eradicated and the preciousness of enlightenment). The process
of practice has been formulated in a scheme of ten stages, in which
the most crucial is the stage of nonretrogression, the first (or in
some formats, the seventh). While prior to reaching this stage, they
will fall back into samsaric existence if they discontinue their
practice, once they have attained nonretrogression through stilling
their discriminative thought and seeing suchness, they will never
regress but steadily advance in their practice to supreme
awakening.



Although Pure Land Buddhism is sometimes understood to teach a
paradisial afterlife, in fact it developed as a method for achieving
nonretrogression, one that provided an alternative to the arduous
endeavor through numerous lifetimes required for reaching this stage
in the earlier formulations of the bodhisattva path. As practitioners
found themselves without enlightened guidance in a world increasingly
distant from the benign influence of a buddha's presence, the
obstacles to successful practice loomed ever larger and practitioners
came to seek a practicable way to advance. The possibility of entrance
into an environment that would support one's efforts in
bodhisattva practices emerged, and on the basis of the Pure Land
sutras, the concepts of the bodhisattva path were recast to render a
new understanding of the nature of practice.


### 2.3 Merit Transference



There are several aspects of the bodhisattva's career of
particular note when approaching Pure Land Buddhist thought. First, an
essential element of the bodhisattva path is the transference to other
beings of the merit that accrues from performance of praxis. All
Buddhists have accepted that, by the principle of karmic causation,
good acts hold the power to counteract the effects of evil deeds and
lead to better conditions in the next birth. In the earlier Buddhism,
it was generally assumed that only one's own thoughts and acts
could exert their influence on one's future conditions, although
the evidence of inscriptions suggests that sharing merit with
one's parents or teacher was also recognized. In the Mahayana
tradition, however, bodhisattvas perform good acts and practices for
long aeons and thus accumulate vast stores of merit, but their
practice is invariably undertaken with the liberation of all beings
foremost in their minds. Thus, their merit is always freely and
selflessly given to beings in samsaric existence. This concept of
giving or transferring merit (Jp. *eko*) is a direct
expression of the nature of bodhisattvas, for they undertake their
practice in nondichotomous wisdom.


### 2.4 Cosmic Buddhas and Buddha-fields



Even in the early Buddhist tradition, Sakyamuni's attainment of
awakening was not regarded as an utterly unique event or even the
first occurrence of buddhahood. Nevertheless, the appearance of a
buddha, who bears the epochal role of bringing liberation to beings
through teaching, was regarded as a momentous event in the history of
the world. The early tradition had taught instead the ideal of the
arhat, who would enter into nirvana upon death, having completely
eradicated blind passions and attained emancipation from further
rebirth within the world of samsaric existence.



The Mahayana tradition, however, recognized the attainment of
buddhahood itself--not merely deliverance from afflicting
passions and samsaric existence--as the genuine goal of religious
practice and proclaimed it, along with the engagement with beings in
samsara that it implied, as the supreme fulfillment for all sentient
beings since the beginningless past. It is natural, therefore, that
Mahayana Buddhists recognize the present existence of vast numbers of
celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas who had already reached
attainment.



Further, it was assumed in Indian Buddhism that two buddhas could not
appear in a single epoch of a world system, any more than two
"universal monarchs" (*cakravartin*) could rule
simultaneously. Thus, the existence of innumerable buddhas implied
that there are myriads of purified buddha-fields over which they
preside, for it may be expected that, through aeons of history in
numberless worlds, countless beings will have attained supreme
awakening by following the bodhisattva path, and these beings all work
for the liberation of others in their own spheres of realization.
Mahayana writings often refer to the concept of the "great
chiliocosm," which is made up of one billion universes. In the
Mahayana cosmology, there are great chiliocosms countless as the sands
of the Ganges throughout the ten quarters, and most are buddha-fields,
or parts of buddha-fields, in which a buddha teaches dharma for the
benefit of its inhabitants. Our own universe--called the
Saha world, or "world in which pain must be
endured"--is the buddha-field of Sakyamuni, the sphere in
which he appeared in order to save the beings within it. Thus, the
entire cosmos is a panoply of countless buddha-fields in which the
drama of the salvation of all beings is carried out, with buddhas and
bodhisattvas radiating the light of wisdom-compassion for all living
things.


### 2.5 Monastic and Lay



A third aspect of notable relevance to the Pure Land tradition is the
transcendence of the dichotomy of monastic and lay in Mahayana
thought. Monastic life had developed as the practical norm for
Buddhist life in the early tradition, for the end was personal
emancipation from samsaric existence. Practice was construed as
observance of the monastic code and meditative practices, and
withdrawal from ordinary lay life was itself seen as a crucial step in
breaking the bonds of samsaric existence. Mahayanists, however, sought
to realize a fully nondichotomous wisdom; hence, while in actual
practice they continued to recognize the efficacy of monastic life as
a means to the goal, renunciation of lay life was not in itself an
intrinsic or requisite aspect of emancipation. They therefore
reformulated the central elements of the path--traditionally
given as the "three learnings" of precepts, meditation,
and wisdom--as the six paramitas--giving, moral action,
patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom. In this enumeration of
virtues, we find selfless giving understood not simply as alms-giving
or "charity," but as the total, compassionate activity of
bodhisattvas for whom meritorious action leading to enlightenment and
the giving of their own merit to others are interfused. Other
paramitas also emphasize the resolution to fulfill the bodhisattva
vows for the enlightenment of all beings. Moreover, precepts or
morality was not necessarily construed as the rigid monastic rule
governing sequestered life apart from normal society, but as a more
general code of proper action observable in varying degrees in lay
life also. Thus, true practice and attainment transcends the dualism
of monk and lay, and the arena of the bodhisattva's practice is
precisely the realm of samsara in which unenlightened beings wander.
This insight rooted in Mahayana thought from its beginnings underlies
the evolution of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan in particular, which
during the period of its most dynamic development evinces precisely
the shift of the center of praxis from assumptions of monastic
efficacy to an emphasis on everyday life as the domain of in which
genuine practice is manifested.


## 3. Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Thought


### 3.1 Honen's Revolutionary Understanding of Nembutsu as Praxis



Since our fundamental concern is with characteristically Japanese
developments of Pure Land thought, I will focus in particular on the
stream of Honen. It was Honen who achieved perhaps the
radical doctrinal innovation of his seminal period in Japanese
Buddhist history by establishing the practice of vocal nembutsu as an
independent, self-sufficient path of Buddhist praxis. Despite
widespread esteem for his priestly and scholarly attainments and the
purity of his religious aspirations, Honen himself, in his
penetrating self-reflection, expressed a profound awareness of his
incapacity to fulfill any Buddhist practice and thereby advance
himself toward enlightenment. He therefore searched throughout
Buddhist tradition for an accessible path, and at length found the
exposition of the nembutsu.



Nembutsu practices in early Buddhist tradition centered on mindfulness
exercises conducted in veneration of Sakyamuni Buddha, and included
elements of bodily worship and the reverent repetition of the name of
the Buddha. Later, it developed into a core practice of monastics
involving ritual prostrations with the body, contemplation on the
features of enlightened beings and vocal recitation of their names,
conducted with long lists of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Such nembutsu
practice was and remains a basic practice in the Tendai monastery of
Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, where Honen originally trained and
lived. In addition, the Chinese Tientai practice of "constant
walking samadhi" (*jogyo zammai*), in which a
monk circumambulates a large statue of Amida, intoning the nembutsu
and meditating on Amida Buddha and features of the Pure Land
continuously for ninety days, had been transmitted to Mount Hiei
during the Heian period, and the group practice of "constant
nembutsu" (*fudan nembutsu*) in which the nembutsu was
chanted continuously for a set number of days--three or
seven--interspersed with the chanting of sutra passages and hymns
at the "six hours" of the day, was frequently conducted.
Although deeply familiar with such comprehensive modes of practice
embracing physical, mental, and verbal discipline, and although widely
revered for his own contemplative and scholarly attainments,
Honen taught that simply uttering the Name of Amida Buddha,
"Namu-amida-butsu," entrusting oneself to his vow to save
all beings, results in birth into Amida's buddha-field of
enlightened activity. No intellectual command of Buddhist teachings,
accumulation of merit, moral rectitude, or any act of practice other
than the vocal nembutsu is necessary.



The Pure Land Buddhist path based on the working of Amida's Vow
is therefore an effective means toward emancipation from
birth-and-death and attainment of Buddhahood--for Honen, the
only viable way for people at present--and it can be practiced
independently of any other Buddhist teaching or method of praxis.
While traditionally the nembutsu practice involved mental
concentration and the accumulation of numerous recitations, Honen
taught that in the Pure Land path only the simple saying of
"Namu-amida-butsu" with complete trust was involved. There
was no specified manner of utterance, no necessity for any
accompanying ritual or meditative endeavor, and no stipulation of the
length of the period of practice or number of repetitions.



The question, of course, is why mere vocalization of Amida's
Name should hold the power to bring about birth into a buddha-field
and eventual enlightenment, which in our present condition are
virtually impossible to accomplish, even through the achievement of
extensive learning, deep meditative states, heroic discipline, and
compassionate action. Without an adequate demonstration that vocal
nembutsu held such power, Pure Land praxis would remain an
supplementary discipline within the existing schools of Buddhist
tradition, one supportive practice to be performed in combination with
a range of other methods.



Honen promulgated his teaching by adopting an innovative
perspective on the nature of the practices taught in Buddhist
tradition. He reasoned that, although the utterance of the
Buddha's name had long been transmitted in various Buddhist
schools as one among countless different kinds of practice useful for
attainment of enlightenment, the vocal nembutsu designated in
Amida's vow as the act leading to birth into the Pure Land was
qualitatively distinct from every one of the thousands of other
techniques found in the Buddhist teachings. While the physical act of
voicing the Name of Amida in itself might be identical, in other forms
of Buddhism it was performed in conjunction with various other
practices, including the awakening of the resolute aspiration for
enlightenment (*bodhicitta*; see 2.2 above) and the selfless
transference of merits, and like other practices, its fulfillment as
praxis genuinely leading toward Buddhahood turned on the
practitioner's own purity of motive and powers of concentration
and discipline.



The nembutsu taught in Amida's vow, however, as the simple
voicing of "Namu-amida-butsu" accessible to all beings
regardless of their moral qualities or spiritual capacities, was
specifically selected by Amida Buddha as the means by which he could
bring to fruition his compassionate vow to liberate all living things
from samsaric existence. In other words, Amida, through his vow and
the salvific virtue of his own already completed performance of
endless aeons of bodhisattva practices, established the saying of the
Name as the medium by which his own compassionate working actively
reaches each being. Thus, the nembutsu has been prepared for beings as
effective practice--already fulfilled *by Amida* as the
act resulting in birth in the Pure Land. This salvific activity is
particularly appropriate in the present age, when the accomplishment
of praxis as ordinarily understood in Buddhist tradition has receded
beyond the reach of beings. Anticipating this situation, Amida's
vow teaches that one should relinquish the illusions and attachments
focused on the self and its capacities and set aside the extensive
body of traditional methods of praxis as no longer effective, since
they require a purity of performance no longer achievable. The Pure
Land tradition characterizes such practices as
"self-power" and advocates instead a turn to the saying
the nembutsu as the act that embodies "Other Power," Amida
Buddha's wisdom-compassion functioning in the world.



Two aspects of Honen historical role relate directly to our
concerns here with philosophical aspects of interpreting and
articulating his religious awareness: the means by which Honen
effected his ground-breaking contribution to Buddhist tradition, and
Honen's legacy as inherited by his disciples. Regarding the
first, Honen is recognized as the first and perhaps most
revolutionary "founder" of a native Japanese Buddhist
tradition. Based on his principle of "the nembutsu selected in
Amida's primal vow" (*senjaku hongan nembutsu*) as
the practice embodying the Buddha's Other Power, he established
the Pure Land school (Jodoshu) as an authentic Buddhist
path, effective in itself and independent from the traditionally
recognized schools that had been transmitted to Japan from the Asian
continent over the preceding centuries. Honen set about to
accomplish this in his major writing, *Collection on the Nembutsu
Selected in the Primal Vow* (*Senchaku hongan
nembutsu-shu*), composed in *kanbun* (Chinese) and
addressed to an audience versed in Buddhist erudition and its methods
of discourse. Here, Honen systematically raises the traditional
issues involved in recognizing the Pure Land teaching as a legitimate
school of Buddhism, such as the identification of foundational sutras,
the delineation of the historical lineage of masters by which the Pure
Land path has been transmitted down to the present, and its doctrinal
orthodoxy, demonstrated with reference to the sutras and the
commentarial tradition. In his work, Honen argues logically and
cogently on the basis of scriptural evidence, including extended
citations from the recognized Chinese canon.



Honen allowed his work to be copied only by disciples during his
lifetime, but it was published shortly after his death. It immediately
garnered vehement censure and counter-argument from scholar-monks of
traditional schools, attesting to the impact Honen's
nembutsu teaching was already having in Japanese society, but also to
the recognition of the forms of scholastic discourse and rational
argument into which his thought had been cast. From the accounts of
his followers and records of his spoken words and letters, it appears
that Honen was an immensely charismatic figure, communicating his
teaching to both the ordained and lay and persuasively responding to
the questions of his many listeners from all walks of life.
Nevertheless, the major formulation of his religious thought followed
customary models, dictated by his formidable role in Buddhist
history.


### 3.2 The Problematic of Honen's Nembutsu Teaching



As we have seen, Honen asserted that the nembutsu as imparted to
beings in Amida's vow differs profoundly from all other
practices handed down in Buddhist tradition. Persons might, therefore,
perform the utterance of the Buddha's name as another means of
healing the mind and gaining merit, in continuous recitation or as an
element of ritual worship or contemplative practice, or they might say
the name as the act prescribed in Amida's vow, entrusting
themselves wholly to the working of the Buddha's compassion and
abandoning any notion of their own goodness or effort as contributing
to realization. The former manifests self-power, the latter Other
Power. Honen taught that it is only the latter that remains
operative now for us. However, a serious difficulty in understanding
this teaching arose among Honen's following, one Honen
struggled to deal with but was unable to resolve doctrinally.



Disciples found that the nembutsu of Amida's vow as proclaimed
by Honen in fact involves two elements, both of which are
essential: on the one hand, the actual saying of Amida's Name,
"Namu-amida-butsu," and on the other, the wholehearted
entrusting of oneself to Amida's vow, which, as we have seen, is
precisely what qualitatively distinguishes vocal nembutsu from all
other methods of practice and makes one's performance of it the
practice selected for beings and already fulfilled by Amida. For
Honen, these two elements of practice and faith--utterance
of the nembutsu and the entrusting of oneself to Amida's
vow--were mutually and unproblematically interfused, but many who
sought to follow his teaching found that in actual engagement, the
path appeared to be defined by emphasis on one element or the other.
The question became for many followers: which is central in the life
lived in genuine accord with Amida's vow, practice or faith? In
other words, concretely, how should persons of the nembutsu carry on
their lives?



Those who emphasized practice tended to assume that since the nembutsu
was devised and provided out of Amida's wisdom-compassion, those
who entrust themselves to the Buddha's vow will spontaneously,
out of joy and gratitude, seek to live in mindfulness of Amida and to
recite the name as often as possible throughout the remainder of their
lives. This view, however, sometimes shaded into ethical and
eschatological concerns. Some assumed that practitioners of the
nembutsu should seek to live lives appropriate for birth into
Amida's buddha-field, lives of diligent recitation and moral
rectitude; those who failed to display such dedication were viewed as
negligent in their practice. Further, many adopted older views rooted
in the *Contemplation Sutra*, in which nembutsu recitation was
seen pragmatically, as a means of canceling the karmic effects of
one's past evil. This latter belief gave decisive weight to the
nembutsu uttered at the moment of death, when the nullification of
one's final defilements of karmic evil made birth in the Pure
Land possible.



By contrast, those who emphasized trust tended toward a more relaxed
view of nembutsu recitation and other forms of religious observance or
moral rigor, insisting instead on a total trust in Amida's
compassion. The Pure Land sutras speak of ten or even a single
utterance as adequate, and Honen affirms this teaching, since the
name as prepared for beings by Amida holds the resultant virtues of
his inconceivably long and perfect practice. When one takes refuge in
the vow and utters the nembutsu, one's salvation is promised by
Amida and one should have no misgivings. At an extreme, however,
insistence on leaving all to Amida's salvific activity led to
forms of antinomianism, in which even moral restraint was viewed as
the impulse to deny the fact of one's cravings and affirm
one's own goodness. In more benign forms, emphasis on trust led
to a denigration of continued utterance as evidence of doubt of the
vow's power and as a residue of attachment to one's own
action in bringing about attainment.



Honen sought to maintain a tenuous balance between these two,
mutually disparaging positions of emphasis on praxis and emphasis on
faith:



> 
> 
> If, because it is taught [in the *Larger Sutra*] that birth is
> attained with but one or ten utterances, you say the nembutsu
> heedlessly, then faith is hindering practice. If, because it is taught
> [in Shandao's commentaries] that you should say the Name
> "without abandoning it from moment to moment," you believe
> one or ten utterances to be indecisive, then practice is hindering
> faith. As your faith, accept that birth is attained with a single
> utterance; as your practice, endeavor in the nembutsu throughout life.
> (recorded in "Zensho-bo ni shimesu on-kotoba,"
> in Kyodo 1987, p. 464 and in Hirota 1989, pp.
> 12-13)
> 
> 
> 



Historically, however, we find that while Honen was able to
transmit his insights through his own compelling presence, after his
death, his disciples developed their individual interpretations of his
nembutsu teaching in diverse directions, with some tending toward
emphasis on nembutsu practice and other toward trust in the vow. The
master, in short, failed to achieve a clear doctrinal resolution of
this issue of religious life. In other words, he was unable to give a
persuasive account of the nexus between sentient being and Other
Power, and appears finally to affirm anew the efficacy of human
action, as either recitation of the name of Amida or entrusting of
oneself to Amida's vow, or as a combination of both.


## 4. Philosophical Issues in Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Thought



The question of the relationship between a person's act of
nembutsu and Amida Buddha's Other Power--or between trust
in Amida's vow, which infuses each human act of nembutsu with
Other Power, and the practice of the nembutsu, which has been devised
and made efficacious for beings by the Buddha--raises profound
questions concerning the sources and significance of human
subjectivity and agency. Above all, the emergence of such issues
within the context of a thoroughgoing application of the general
Mahayana critique of self-attachment in religious praxis gave rise to
the most innovative philosophical reflection in the Japanese Pure Land
tradition. Thus, it is among disciples of Honen who tended toward
the pole of emphasis on trust or on the adequacy of a single utterance
an engagement with issues that have a distinct resonance with
intellectual concerns today. This is because such disciples found it
necessary to take up questions of one's self-awareness in the
relationship between being and Buddha in the immediate present and to
delineate a groundwork for deconstructing commonsense subject-object
dualisms applied to this relationship without recourse to abstract
conceptions of mystical transcendence.



At the same time, all of Honen's disciples found it
necessary to formulate responses to the relentless criticisms of the
traditional schools, which led periodically to state suppression of
the nembutsu teaching, and some resorted to adjustment of various
positions Honen's logic led him to. For example, one of the
leading disciples, Shoko (1162-1238), founder of the
dominant Chinzei branch of the Jodo school, abandoned
Honen's view that only the nembutsu could lead to birth in
the Pure Land and recognized the efficacy of the traditional
practices. Others, however, such as Shinran, Shoku
(1177-1247), and Ippen (1239-1289), pursued the
development of Honen's radical teaching, each in his own
distinctive way, and it is among such figures that we find the more
philosophical strains of thinking.



Let us turn here to several basic issues in Pure Land Buddhist thought
that (1) emerged from problems of practical engagement but were given
characteristic treatment specifically in Japan, and (2) may be
considered to have received philosophical attention in the sense that,
regarding them, Japanese Pure Land Buddhists were forced, by
intra-sectarian debate, to seek a degree of intellectual
self-understanding distinct both from scholastic Buddhist discourse
and from the kind of realization achieved through religious
engagement.



In addition, for convenience, I will discuss these issues under the
headings of metaphysics, anthropology, hermeneutics, and ethics. It
should be borne in mind, however, that these Western categories, while
helpful in establishing a starting point and pursuing the comparative
concerns implied in a "philosophical" approach to Buddhist
thought, suggest conceptual contours that must in fact be continually
breached in seeking to accommodate the fundamentally pragmatic
orientation of the Japanese Pure Land tradition and its roots in
Mahayana Buddhist thought. In fact, the four headings are best
understood as slightly differing perspectives on essentially the same
central problem: the apprehension of what is true and real from within
a stance of radical conditionedness. What enables such apprehension?
What is its significance for human existence? How does it come about?
And what implications does it hold for the conduct of life?


### 4.1 Pure Land Buddhist Metaphysics: Reflection on Reality



The principal metaphysical question occasioned by Japanese Pure Land
Buddhism arises most naturally concerning the meaning of a
being's birth in the Pure Land and the ontological status of
Amida Buddha. Although Western researchers have often been confident
in imposing substantialist assumptions on Pure Land thought,
asserting, for example, that Honen and his followers thought of
the Pure Land as a geographical place, and although many Pure Land
Buddhists assume that past thinkers regarded the Dharmakara-Amida
narrative as historical in a modern sense, in fact the dominant
traditional motif in treating questions of the reality of Amida and
the Pure Land reflects, not such notions as substance, identity,
autonomy, and permanence, but an interactive, dynamic movement across
provisional dichotomies of formless reality and form, enlightened
wisdom and ignorance, transtemporality and time, buddha and sentient
being. This thinking characterized by the discriminative perception of
the world of beings rooted in the nondiscriminative apprehension of
reality may be seen in relation to the question of the real existence
of beings born in the Pure Land in the following passage from the
sixth century Chinese Pure Land thinker Tanluan (476-542):


* Question: In the Mahayana sutras and treatises it is frequently
taught that sentient beings are in the final analysis unborn, like
empty space. Why does Bodhisattva Vasubandhu express aspiration for
"birth"?
* Answer: The statement, "Sentient beings are unborn, like
empty space," is open to two interpretations. First, what
ordinary people see--such as sentient beings, which they conceive
as real, or the acts of being born and dying, which they view as
real--is ultimately non-existent, like imaginary "tortoise
fur," or like empty space. Second, since all things are
"born" from causal conditions, they are actually unborn;
that is, they are non-existent, like empty space.



The "birth" to which Bodhisattva Vasubandhu aspires refers
to being born through causal conditions. Hence it is provisionally
termed "birth." This does not mean that there are real
beings or that being born and dying is real, as ordinary people
imagine.


* Question: In what sense do you speak of birth in the Pure
Land?
* Answer: For the provisionally-called "person" in this
world who practices the five gates of mindfulness, the preceding
thought is the cause of the succeeding thought. The
provisionally-called "person" of this defiled world and
the provisionally-called "person" of the Pure Land cannot
be definitely called the same or definitely called different. The same
is true of preceding thought and succeeding thought. The reason is
that if they were one and the same, then there would be no causality;
if they were different, there would be no continuity. This principle
is the gate of contemplating sameness and difference; it is discussed
in detail in the treatises. (Shinran CWS, 1: 27-28)



We see that from very early in the East Asian tradition, as well known
in Japan, Pure Land thinkers applied the Mahayana logic of the
nonduality and interpenetration of discriminative and
nondiscriminative realms to Pure Land concepts.



Regarding the nature of Amida Buddha, perhaps the most natural
approach for the modern mind is to focus on the relationship between
Amida and Sakyamuni. While Amida, Buddha of infinite light and eternal
life, may be regarded as the "celestial" personification
of perfect wisdom-compassion, and the narrative of his attainment in
the inconceivable past as "mythic," Gotama, known by his
honorific title Sakyamuni Buddha, is recognized as a historical
figure, a mendicant wanderer and religious teacher of India in the
fifth century BCE. It is common to say, therefore, that Sakyamuni
belongs to the realm of historical fact and actual existence, while
Amida is fictive. This view is supported by the modern understanding
of the relationship between the two buddhas. Sakyamuni, having become
the "awakened one" through meditative practices, taught
his realization to others, and among the teachings attributed to him
is the story of Amida Buddha. Although historical evidence now
suggests that the teaching of Amida gradually emerged around the
beginning of the common era--five centuries after
Sakyamuni's death--even if it appeared later in the
tradition stemming from Sakyamuni, the fundamental question of the
relationship between Amida and the person(s) who first taught him
remains unchanged. Amida Buddha has never appeared directly as a
historical personage, and there are no teachings or words that can be
attributed to him. Thus, it is common to view the story of Amida as a
narrative fashioned by Sakyamuni (or a later figure) to express the
content of his own religious insight. Since his awakening could not be
conveyed directly, he resorted to the use of parables and myths, and
the story of Amida is considered such a "skillful means"
(*hoben*) or mythic device for teaching. In this view,
Amida is a fiction whose origins lie in the experience of Sakyamuni.
Further, it is often assumed that while unlettered Pure Land adherents
may have clung to the notion of Amida and his vows as real, taking
them as objects of faith, more sophisticated Buddhists such as those
of the Tendai, Shingon, and Zen schools recognized all along that
Amida is merely a skillful "metaphor" or
"symbol" for the historical realization of Sakyamuni.



In fact, there is basic continuity in the perspective on Amida among
the Mahayana schools, and it stands diametrically opposed to modernist
assumptions. For Mahayana Buddhists, reality resides not fundamentally
with the historical existence of Sakyamuni as such, but rather with
that for which he is recognized as buddha, or that which is the
motive-force for his appearance in the world, his attainment of
buddhahood, and his teaching of dharma. Reality assumes form in order
to emerge into the consciousness of sentient beings and thereby guide
beings beyond the attachments and compulsions of their discriminative,
reifying, conceptual grasp of their own existence and the things of
the world around them.



This circular dynamic moving between formless reality and the world of
forms may be seen with regard to the relationship between Sakaymuni
and Amida in Honen's exposition. He states:



> 
> 
> Concerning the central purport [of the *Larger Sutra*]:
> Sakyamuni discarded the supreme Pure Land and appeared in this defiled
> world; this was to expound the teaching of the Pure land and, by
> encouraging sentient beings, to bring them to birth in the Pure Land.
> Amida Tathagata discarded this defiled world and emerged in the Pure
> Land; this was to guide sentient beings of this defiled world and
> bring them to birth in the Pure Land. This is none other than the
> fundamental intent with which all buddhas go out to the Pure Land and
> emerge in the defiled world. (*Muryojukyo shaku* in
> Kyodo 1987, p. 67)
> 
> 
> 



In Honen's view, Sakyamuni and Amida function as paired
aspects of a movement of compassionate activity in teaching and
guiding, out of true reality into the defiled world, and out from the
defiled world into "the supreme Pure Land" that is the
abode of all buddhas. We see here that Honen transforms the
framework of historical sequence by beginning with Sakyamuni, even
though Amida's attainment of buddhahood occurred aeons prior to
Sakyamuni's appearance. Without Sakyamuni, Amida would remain
unknown to beings in this world and his work of leading all to his
buddha-field would go unapprehended; without Amida, Sakyamuni would
have no effective means of liberating beings and his teaching mission
would be futile. In place of a linear chronology, we have a motif of
movement between the timeless and mundane time, by which the
temporality of karmic causation and discriminative thinking is
broken.



Shinran develops the reciprocity between Amida and Sakyamuni seen in
Honen into an asymmetric relationship, and by thus giving
priority to Amida, moves even further from a modern orientation that
would emphasize the historical reality of Sakyamuni. For Shinran, it
is the motive-force of wisdom-compassion that underlies the historical
existence of Sakyamuni--that in fact made him buddha--and
this wisdom-compassion is itself the life of Amida Buddha. Hence,
Sakyamuni's historical existence may be understood as a
manifestation of Amida, perhaps one among countless others.



This understanding may be seen in Shinran's demonstration that
the *Larger Sutra*, among all the sutras, expresses the true
teaching for which Sakyamuni appeared in the world. Shinran focuses on
the pattern in the sutras by which, prior to expounding dharma, the
Buddha enters a profound samadhi and delves to the nondiscriminative
wisdom that transcends words and concepts. On emerging from the
samadhi, he reemerges into the realm of words and responds to
questions from his disciples. While his words are those of ordinary
human discourse, they give expression to the samadhi he attained.
Thus, the source of Sakyamuni's teaching is the samadhi he
entered, the transcendent reality or wisdom itself.



At the beginning of the *Larger Sutra*, Sakyamuni's
disciple Ananda observes, from the splendor and serenity apparent
in the Buddha's countenance, that the Buddha has entered the
samadhi of great tranquility (Jp. *daijakujo*, in the Tang
translation titled *Sutra of the Tathagata of Immeasurable
Life*) and requests him to explain its significance. Sakyamuni
proceeds to deliver the teaching of Amida Buddha. In other words,
Sakyamuni has attained the reality that is the essential quality of
all Buddhas--in a commentary on the *Larger Sutra* it is
called the "place where all Buddhas abide"--and on
this basis he reveals the story of Amida, for Amida is the primordial
Buddha who embodies the essence of all Buddhas. From the perspective
of this sutra, were it not for Amida, whose Buddhahood lies at the
heart of the samadhi of great tranquility, Sakyamuni himself would not
be Buddha. At the same time, were it not for Sakyamuni, the teaching
of Amida would not be disclosed to the world.



Thus, the relationship between Amida and Sakyamuni is not that between
two distinct figures, or between the religious symbol taught and the
teacher. Rather, it is viewed in a broader framework of Amida's
characteristic as standing both in formless reality and the world of
forms, in the eternal and in history. Sakyamuni is not separate from
Amida, and in teaching dharma he manifests the activity or movement
towards beings that is Amida's essential quality.



It may be said that while meditative traditions in Buddhism tend to
emphasize the elimination of delusional thinking and the apprehension
of formless reality free of the imposition of egocentric
discrimination, the Pure Land tradition is attentive to the
compassionate working of reality to awaken beings incapable of
eradicating conceptual thought. It does so by manifesting itself in
forms and approaching beings. Late in life, Shinran adopted the term
*jinen*, "naturalness" or "being made to
become so of itself," for the spontaneous working of reality in
the liberative process by which beings of afflicting passions reach
enlightenment. In this process, the Mahayana assertion that
"samsara is none other than nirvana" or "afflicting
passions are none other than awakening" is affirmed, so that the
end of the Pure Land path lies in this world, in the compassionate
working for the liberation of all beings.



In relation to beings of the world, Pure Land thinkers such as
Shoku and Shinran asserted that the real, as itself
nondiscriminative and nondualistic wisdom or suchness, pervades all
things. Since beings cannot attain such wisdom, reality as such cannot
be grasped. Nevertheless, through that which is real that permeates
their existence, all beings, including "grasses, trees, and the
land itself," hold the potential for awakening. Such terms as
"emptiness" and "dependent origination" are
sometimes understood in metaphysical terms, but in the context of
Mahayana Buddhist tradition, they are not concepts by which to grasp
reality, but above all elements of practice, expressing the
realization of the person who enters into profound samadhi by cutting
off discriminative thought and eradicating afflicting passions.
Because the Pure Land path is not based on such praxis, the use of
such terms is unnecessary.


### 4.2 Pure Land Buddhist Anthropology



For Honen and his followers, the characterization of "deep
mind" (one of "three minds" or attitudes prescribed
in the *Contemplation Sutra*) by the Chinese master Shandao
(613-681) provides a classic expression of the understanding of
human existence in the Pure Land path:



> 
> 
> "Deep mind" is the deeply entrusting mind. There are two
> aspects. One is to believe deeply and decidedly that you are a foolish
> being of karmic evil caught in birth-and-death, ever sinking and ever
> wandering in transmigration from innumerable kalpas in the past, with
> never a condition that would lead to emancipation. The second is to
> believe deeply and decidedly that Amida Buddha's Forty-eight
> Vows grasp sentient beings, and that allowing yourself to be carried
> by the power of the Vow without any doubt or apprehension, you will
> attain birth. (*Commentary on the Contemplation Sutra*, quoted
> in Shinran CWS I: 85.)
> 
> 
> 
> Second [of the three minds] is deep mind, which is true and real
> shinjin. One truly knows oneself to be a foolish being full of blind
> passions, with scant roots of good, transmigrating in the three realms
> and unable to emerge from this burning house. And further, one truly
> knows now, without so much as a single thought of doubt, that
> Amida's universal Primal Vow decisively enables all to attain
> birth, including those who say the Name even down to ten times, or
> even but hear it. (*Hymns of Birth in the Pure Land*, quoted in
> Shinran CWS I: 92)
> 
> 
> 



Three points may be noted here. First, the self-awareness of the
practitioner indicated by Shan-tao is that of a human being wholly
incapable of fulfilling Buddhist practices. This is expressed in
eschatological terms of endless entrapment in samsaric existence: one
is burdened by the karmic consequences of evil acts of past lives
extending from the immeasurable past; one continues to act from the
desires and hatreds arising from ignorant self-attachment in the
present; bereft as one is of any genuine goodness, one's future
can only be further painful existence in endless transmigration.



The second point is that this self-awareness coexists with the
realization that all beings are enabled to attain birth in the Pure
Land through Amida's Vow. In other words, the self-reflection
implied in deep mind is, in its opposite aspect, at the same time deep
trust in the salvific power of Amida. The third point is that while
human being and Buddha stand thus as thoroughgoing opposites--the
being filled with afflicting passions and lacking any goodness that
might lead toward enlightenment, on the one hand, and the Buddha
freely exerting the power of wisdom-compassion, on the
other--deep mind arises as a unitary awareness out of the
interaction of being and Buddha. Self-reflection and trust arise
simultaneously. Without the approach of Amida, not only trust, but
also genuine self-awareness is unattainable.



Honen, who was renowned in his period as a Tendai monk of
extensive learning and exemplary practice, gives direct expression to
the two aspects of "deep mind":



> 
> 
> Although Buddhism is vast, in essence it is composed of no more than
> the three learnings [of precepts, meditation, and wisdom.] ...
> But as for precepts, I myself do not keep a single one. In meditation,
> I have not attained even one. In wisdom, I have not attained the right
> wisdom of cutting off discriminative thinking and realizing the
> fruit... . [Nevertheless,] without distinguishing between wise
> and foolish, the upholding of precepts and the breaking of them, Amida
> Buddha comes to welcome us. (Recorded in *Tetsu senchaku hongan
> nembutsu shu*, *Jodoshu zensho* 7:
> 95-96)
> 
> 
> 



It is in such self-awareness that we see the force behind
Honen's radical reorientation of the understanding of
praxis. Honen saw clearly that unless a wholly new perspective
were established regarding the categorization and evaluation of the
myriad practices taught in Buddhist tradition, the genuine meaning of
the Pure Land path as he had come to understand it would remain
obscure, and vocal nembutsu would continue to be viewed by all people
as merely an expedient practice for inferior practitioners. He
therefore raised the issue of the subjectivity of the practitioner,
and insisted that commonsense hierarchies rooted in presuppositions of
one's own fundamental perspicuity and autonomous capacity to
judge had to be abandoned. To accomplish this shift, Honen relied
on the thoroughgoing application of his innovative concept of
"selection from among alternatives" (*senchaku*),
which refers most centrally to Amida's own selection, for
beings, of vocal nembutsu as the single, universally accessible
practice that results in birth into the Pure Land. Beings'
taking up of the Pure Land path is thus founded upon Amida's
selection and fulfillment of the nembutsu for all beings equally. We
see, therefore, that the dual awareness of "deep mind" is
at the core of Honen's path.



Honen's methodical logic led to positions easily vilified
by scholar-monks of the traditional schools. One example is his
enumeration of "the awakening of aspiration for
enlightenment" (*hotsu bodaishin*) among the traditional
"practices" to be set aside by nembutsu practitioners. As
explained in section 2.2 above, this
"bodhi-mind"--the profound aspiration for
enlightenment for oneself and all beings--had traditionally
been considered the crucial starting point for the Mahayana
bodhisattva, and other Japanese Pure Land masters such as Genshin had
affirmed it to be the core of genuine desire for the Pure Land.
Although Honen's position is somewhat ambiguous, in
*Senchakushu* his steadfast logic leads understandably to
a rejection of the notion that any attitude or attainment beyond trust
and utterance is necessary for the person of nembutsu.



Honen's religious anthropology is perhaps the hallmark of
his tradition, but his closest disciples sought to balance his
rejection of self-power with the delineation of the working of Other
Power in the practitioner. One of the harshest criticisms of
Honen from the traditional schools came from Myoe
(1173-1232), of the Kegon school. Myoe argued that
awakening the bodhi-mind was not to be viewed as a specific practice
within the path, but as the core of all authentic Mahayana praxis,
which must be infused with the nondiscriminative wisdom that is also
compassion. Thus, Honen's rejection of bodhi-mind was a
departure from the fundamental truths of Mahayana Buddhism itself.



On a superficial level, the answer to Myoe was not difficult for
Honen's followers. Disciples such as Shinran and
Shoku affirmed the role of the bodhi-mind in the Pure Land
path by identifying it with trust in Amida's vow on the part of
practitioners. Shinran, for example, distinguishes various types of
bodhi-mind and identifies that of the true Pure Land path with his
conception of shinjin. Shoku similarly identifies the taking
of refuge in the vow with bodhi-mind. Myoe's criticism,
however, points to the underlying issue of the stark dualism of the
unenlightened being and the enlightened Buddha in Honen's
teaching. If there is no cause in beings leading to attainment, how
can even trust in Amida's vow arise in them? If they have the
ability to give rise to trust, can they not perform other practices
also?



Honen's disciples again elaborate diverse conceptions of
trust in Amida's vow, but at bottom there are two elements. That
which is real (suchness, thusness, nondual reality, buddha-nature,
etc.) pervades all beings; nevertheless, beings can come to awareness
of it only in relation to Amida Buddha, which is manifested in trust
in the vow. The question of the nature of the relation leads to the
problem of hermeneutics.


### 4.3 Pure Land Buddhist Hermeneutics



Issues of hermeneutics are central to the Japanese Pure Land tradition
because of the breach it asserts between the ordinary awareness of
beings and the enlightened wisdom-compassion of the Buddha, which is
the source and ultimate content of the teaching. This is not, of
course, a problem limited to the Pure Land tradition, but has
engaged Buddhist tradition from the time of Sakyamuni.
Nevertheless, communicating its teaching raises special difficulties
for Honen's Pure Land thought because of its thoroughly
negative assessment of human capacities of comprehension. It views
human understanding as constantly subject to the distortions
of self-attachment. Thus, for the teaching to be authentically
grasped, two conditions must arise. First, the Buddhas--Amida,
Sakyamuni, and the Buddhas of the cosmos--must actively work to
bridge the gap between dharma and beings' ignorance, enabling
beings' apprehension of the vow. Second, a shift or transformation of
awareness must emerge in beings.



The narrative settings of the Pure Land teachings in the sutras were
regarded as particularly significant in this regard. The
*Contemplation Sutra* was especially important in
Honen's interpretation of Amida's vow, and narratives
in that sutra were understood to reveal both Sakyamuni's intent
in expounding the Pure Land teaching and the proper stance for
understanding it. According to the sutra, the circumstances for
Sakyamuni's teaching of Amida and his Pure Land relate to the
story of Prince Ajatasatru, who, prompted by the
Buddha's jealous cousin Devadatta, usurps the throne by
murdering his father and imprisoning his mother Vaidehi. From her
cell, Vaidehi beseeches the Buddha to teach her a way to be born in a
world free of such treachery and turmoil. This leads to
Sakyamuni's exposition of Amida's Pure Land.



In East Asian Pure Land tradition, this royal "tragedy of the
capital of Rajagrha," where Sakyamuni often resided
and preached, was understood to indicate that the Pure Land teaching
was intended for ordinary, unenlightened beings in anguished
circumstances, rather than for a capable spiritual elite. Shinran
emphasizes the distance between this world and the realm of
enlightenment by asserting that at the point in history when
conditions were ripe for teaching and reception of the Pure Land path,
the entire drama of regicide and betrayal was played out by incarnated
bodhisattvas precisely to allow for the introduction of the Pure Land
teaching. It is, therefore, the condition of self-reflection and
repentance that allows for the reception of the Pure Land teaching. As
we have seen, for the Pure Land tradition that Honen adopted from
China, this motif is reiterated in the sutra narrative of the lowest
grade of nembutsu practitioner, who has committed evil throughout his
life but encounters the teaching through a good friend on his deathbed
and simply utters Amida's name ten times.



In terms of reception, some among Honen's disciples further
emphasized the action of Amida and Sakyamuni in guiding and actively
bringing beings to trust in the vow. While the Chinzei branch of
Honen's Pure Land school sought to temper the
master's sweeping rejection of other practices by recognizing
the possibility of attaining birth through the various meditative and
nonmeditative practices set forth in the *Contemplation Sutra*,
Shoku and his Seizan branch taught that the intent of the
sutra is precisely to lead people to awareness that birth is possible
only through the nembutsu. In the latter view, the various
contemplative exercises and the disciplines and study taught by the
sutra are meant to reveal the wisdom-compassion of the vow, which
grasps all beings without discrimination, whatever their capacity.
Since in the sutra beings attain birth regardless of their particular
level or kind of practice, it is not that those practices are being
prescribed; rather, the sutra intends to show that the actual cause of
birth lies not in any such practices, but solely in Amida's vow.
In other words, the sutra teachings are not to be taken literally and
prescriptively, but as means to awaken beings so that they come to
entrust themselves to the vow.



In Shinran, the activity of the vow is more direct, for he asserts
that shinjin in beings is itself the mind of Amida and that Amida
gives his mind to beings. Thus, for example, Shinran interprets the
nembutsu to be not the invocation of the Buddha by beings but rather
the Buddha's call to beings in order to awaken them.
Shoku makes a similar claim, asserting that when a person
takes refuge in Amida's vow, then the Buddha, who is the
embodiment of perfect practice performed out of the desire to save all
beings, enters and becomes one with the person's aspiration.
This oneness manifests itself as the nembutsu. We see in such thinkers
that genuine engagement with the teaching is not primarily
intellectual understanding or simple assent, but a transformative
encounter in which the dualism of the person's samsaric
existence and Amida's wisdom-compassion is transcendent.


### 4.4 Pure Land Buddhist Ethical Reflection



The disciples of Honen who pursued the teaching that birth in the
Pure Land became settled with a single utterance in trust explored the
reasons this should be so and also its consequences for ongoing life
in the present. As we have seen, Honen taught that the vocal
nembutsu was qualitatively distinct from all other practices, being
effective as practice because it has been fulfilled by Amida and given
to beings. Precisely how it was given remained an issue. For disciples
like Shoko, the nembutsu was determined by Amida but
retained its quality as practice in that it was to be repeated by a
person throughout life, even though a single utterance was taught to
be sufficient. Thinkers like Shinran and Shoku, however,
both understood the utterance of nembutsu to be fulfilled practice
because it arises from the oneness of being and Buddha expressed as
shinjin or taking refuge. Further, because of this oneness, a
person's attainment of birth in the Pure Land is completely
settled in the immediate present.



The effects of the oneness are manifested not only in the occurrence
of birth in the Pure Land at death, but also in various ways in
present life. Shoku speaks of a variety of benefits received
in the present by the person of the nembutsu, including the
elimination of the effects of past evil acts, extension of life,
avoidance of various calamities, protection of buddhas, seeing of
Amida, and so on. One should not pursue such benefits for their own
sake, but they naturally come about for the person of the nembutsu
whose birth in the Pure Land is settled. Thus, to express the
condition of the nembutsu practitioner, Shoku even
distinguishes two types of Pure Land "birth,"
"immediate birth" (*sokuben ojo*) while
remaining burdened with afflicting passions in present life and birth
into the Pure Land at the time of death (*totoku
ojo*).



Shoku's thinking about ethical life reflects the same
elements seen in relation to benefits in this life: the person
continues to act out of ignorance and self-attachment, but conduct
manifesting oneness with Amida Buddha may also emerge spontaneously.
He speaks, for example, of the elimination of the effects of past evil
acts through repentance (*zange metsuzai*). He distinguishes,
however, between two kinds or stages of repentance, that which is
deliberately undertaken at particular times through ones own powers of
self-reflection and contrition, but which is difficult to achieve
(*gyomon no zange*), and that which arises spontaneously
and immediately as the working of the vow (*kanmon no zange*).
As seen here, ethical behavior is not prescribed and undertaken as
another form of praxis, but Other Power may function of itself in the
life of the nembutsu practitioner to suppress evil and manifest
compassion action.



Such thinking may also be seen in Shinran, who includes, in his list
of ten benefits obtained by the nembutsu practitioner in the present,
"constantly enacting great compassion." In letters, he
states:



> 
> 
> Those who feel that their own birth is completely settled should,
> mindful of the Buddha's benevolence, hold the nembutsu in their
> hearts and say it to respond in gratitude to that benevolence, with
> the wish, "May there be peace in the world, and may the
> Buddha's teaching spread!". (Shinran CWS I: 560)
> 
> 
> 



In the face of the persecution of the nembutsu by local authorities,
he advises his disciples:



> 
> 
> The people who are trying to obstruct the nembutsu are the manor
> lords, bailiffs, and landowners in the local areas ... .
> practicers of the nembutsu should act with compassion for those who
> commit such obstruction, feel pity for them, and earnestly say the
> nembutsu, thereby helping those who seek to hinder them. (Shinran CWS
> I: 563-564)
> 
> 
> 



For Shinran, the working of Other Power is precisely the falling away
of one's own calculative thinking, seeking religious or worldly
advantage through one's own capacities. Thus, where self-power
has been "overturned," acts spontaneously possessed of
compassion arise unprescribed and undeliberated.



For both Shoku and Shinran, the life of the nembutsu
practitioner is informed by a transformed temporality. This is
especially clear in Shinran, who adopts the distinction of two
dimensions or phases of Amida's activity--that for
beings' birth in the Pure Land (*oso eko*)
and that for their immediate return from the Pure Land to this world
in order to work for the liberation of all beings (*genso
eko*). The ethical ideal of genuinely compassionate
action--action that leads others to liberation from
ignorance--exists in the present for the nembutsu practitioner as
a goal one looks forward to in the future, beyond all falsification by
self-attachments. It is the teleological fulfillment of human
existence that unfolds only by Other Power. At the same time, that
goal, as the content of birth in the Pure Land that is already settled
in the present, pervades present existence, interfused with the karmic
burden of the samsaric past. What is authentically known of such a
self by the nembutsu practitioner, according to both Shoku
and Shinran, is the repentance that is also Amida's
wisdom-compassion.


## 5. Japanese Pure Land Buddhism's Encounter with Modernity



The term *modernity* commonly indicates the cultural principles
stemming from the European Enlightenment that became dominant globally
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including such
ideals as reason, empirical science, individualism, freedom, and so
on. Japan's encounter with modernity represents a particularly
clear and well-defined case, for up until the mid-nineteenth century,
Japan had an official policy of isolation, restricting all
international contact. Political stability, including religious
institutions, had continued without significant threat or conflict for
nearly two and a half centuries, during which a relatively peaceful,
prosperous, and culturally active citizenry flourished. After being
forcibly opened to foreign commerce in 1853, Japanese leaders emerged
who were fearful of the efforts by Western powers to exert control
over the country through utilizing internal conflict. They sought
fundamental political change without large-scale civil warfare and
successfully effected a shift in power from the shogunate nominally to
the emperor in 1868. Further, they entered upon a deliberate program
of importing and adopting Western learning, technology, and
sociopolitical institutions. Christianity was perceived as woven into
the fabric of modern civilization and as providing the moral
foundation for Western advances. Hence, some Japanese believed the
successful assimilation of Western technology and social institution
would require the adoption of Christianity.


### 5.1 Christian Critique of Pure Land Buddhism



During the four decades from the opening of Japan to about the time of
the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Buddhist
institutions were forced into a largely defensive posture in the face
of programs for radical social change and the influx of Christian
missionizing. Buddhist reform movements were beginning to arise, but
on the whole it was a period for regrouping, apologetics, and new
organizational rather than intellectual development. The observations
and criticisms by Christian missionaries regarding Japanese Buddhism
during this period reveal the challenges to which Buddhists sought to
respond. An example is a lecture delivered by M. L. Gordon
(1844-1900), a Congregational missionary and teacher, to the
"General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of
Japan" in Osaka in 1883. To more than one hundred missionaries,
Gordon, a scholar of Japanese Buddhism and author of tracts in both
Japanese and English, discussed "the religious influence of
Buddhism as an obstacle to the reception of the Gospel in Japan"
(Gordon 1883). He notes that in the modernizing Japan of his time,
"there are many among the educated classes who not only have no
sympathy with Buddhism but violently hate it." Still, he
believed Buddhism remained the primary impediment to missionizing.
Moreover, he identified Pure Land Buddhism, specifically the Shin
Buddhism (Jodo Shinshu) in the tradition of Shinran's
thought, as "the most popular and flourishing" of Buddhist
schools. Gordon's critique of Japanese Buddhism, and of Shin
Buddhism in particular, highlights issues that Buddhist thinkers have
continued to grapple with in the modern era up to today: reasoned
understanding in the face of modern knowledge, existential engagement,
and social action.



Gordon's attack on Pure Land Buddhism begins with the assertion
that it "is not the Buddhism which Gotama taught" and,
going even further, that "the Buddhism taught by the Shin sect
of Japan is in some respects exactly opposed to the teaching of
Shakya" (Gordon 1882, p. 108). Utilizing contemporaneous
European scholarship in Sanskrit and Pali, Gordon lists contradictions
between "Buddhism as Gotama taught it" and "the
so-called Mahayana" teachings, which "are perversions
rather than denials of the truth, and hence are all the more
dangerous." The problem Gordon encounters is partly a rift with
Western rationality--what he calls the ability "for the
Buddhist mind to look a logical contradiction squarely in the face
without recognizing it." Even more important to him, however,
are how the perceived deviations in the Pure Land tradition that have
transformed "original Buddhism" into a religion in the
mode of Christianity.



Gordon adduces "the three great biblical doctrines" that
for him evince Christianity's superiority over Japanese
Buddhism: "God, Sin, and Salvation." These touch on the
philosophical issues of ontology, anthropology, and ethics that we
have considered, and adumbrate the topics Japanese Buddhists would
take up and continue to tackle into the twentieth century. Gordon
begins by remarking on "the difficulty of bringing the Buddhist
to an adequate conception of God." Here, the concept of God as
creator is pivotal for Gordon, in part because it identifies in God a
unique transcendence not present in the conceptions of Buddhas. As
Japanese Buddhists pointed out in their first encounters with
Christianity, the notion of divine incarnation fits easily into a
broad Japanese Buddhist paradigm of the emergence of form from
formless reality. In Gordon's words, "The doctrine of the
Incarnation may be referred to ... as having been greatly
degraded by Buddhism. Incarnations are frequent." Further,
related to emergence or manifestation is the ontological ambiguity of
nonduality. Hence Gordon finds, perhaps with some frustration, that
"if we were to ask the priest who preaches this [Pure Land]
doctrine ... whether Amida really exists or not, he would perhaps
after some squirming admit that either view of the case is perfectly
admissible."



For Gordon, God as creator serves as the linchpin for the other two
key doctrines, sin and salvation. In lacking a conception of creator,
Buddhism "recognizes no supreme and intelligent Ruler and Judge
of the universe." This leads to "only a very inadequate
idea of sin," one that trivializes it and in fact promotes
"immorality." A further consequence is that salvation in
Buddhism is "salvation from the misery of the present world
rather than salvation from sin." Pure Land Buddhism, in other
words, denigrates the significance of present life and looks only to
the promise of deliverance in the future.



Christianity's challenge to Japanese Buddhists involved what
Gordon expressed as "power over the hearts and lives of
men," which had not necessarily been sought by the Japanese
temple priests whose chief duty was to the calendar of memorial
ceremonies. In his autobiographical account of his ministry, Gordon
speaks of his converts' testimony about the depth of their
experiences. He states: "A powerful impression of [sin] as a
personal burden is not common. One old lady testified that she had
hardly thought of herself as a sinner, until she began to hear this
'new way.' ... Christianity alone brings true
repentance" (Gordon 1893, pp. 213-214).



Gordon further states, "Christianity makes loving service to
mankind more prominent than other religions." The
missionaries' challenge to articulate both a personal and a
corporate, social ethic roused the Buddhists to establish schools,
hospitals, and various kinds of chaplaincies.


### 5.2 The Modernization of Buddhist Thought: Intellectual Reform



The Japanese Buddhist response to modernity from the beginning of the
twentieth century tended to be dominated by two interrelated trends:
the attempt to reinterpret the nature of the Buddhist and Christian
traditions and the relationship between them, and the attempt to
modernize Buddhist teachings by adopting modes of understanding
religious life discerned in Western thought and Christian conceptual
motifs.



Until the latter half of the nineteenth century, there were no terms
in Japanese corresponding to the abstract categories of
"philosophy" and "religion." Nevertheless, the
study of Western philosophy began to be diligently pursued, even
before the Meiji restoration, as an important body of Western learning
crucial for modern Japan, an accompaniment to the natural sciences.
The accepted term corresponding to "religion,"
*shukyo*Zong Jiao , came into use as the
standard equivalent for the Western concept from the 1860's,
when it was required for the translation of diplomatic documents
exchanged with Western nations. In terms of actual content, therefore,
it was at first closely associated with Christianity.



For Buddhists, philosophy and religion became a means not only to
position Buddhism in relation to Christianity, but also to distance it
from Christianity to its own advantage, particularly in relation to
modern scientific knowledge. The central figure here was Inoue
Enryo (1858-1919), who was born into the family of a Pure Land
temple priest of the Shin Buddhist tradition and was active throughout
his life as an educator and public intellectual.



Inoue's strategy was to view Buddhism as a religion in the mode
of a philosophy. He employed both categories in characterizing the
aims and approach of Buddhism, seeking to demonstrate its superiority
to Christianity. On the one hand, Buddhism shares the core concern of
all religion, which is "the world of the absolute"
(*zettai sekai*): "Religion teaches the way for our
relative mind to enter into the absolute world. In Buddhism, this is
namely the overturning of delusional thought and the awakening of
enlightenment. Delusional thought indicates the finite, while
enlightenment signifies the infinite" (*Meishin to
Shukyo* [Superstition and Religion], 1916, quoted in
Josephson 2012, p. 159). On the other hand, when the superstitious
practices that have attached themselves to Buddhist life are stripped
away, its fundamental mode of thought, rooted in reason and causality,
is seen to resemble scientific and philosophical thought. In this, it
is distinct from Christianity, which Inoue believes is grounded in
revelation and divine creation. To counter the notion of creationism
that Gordon proposed as the foundation of genuine religion, Japanese
Buddhists drew on the Western science of evolution as the razor that
would shear superstition from a more properly
"philosophical" version of religion.



Inoue draws on concepts and frameworks that were current in the West
in the field of "comparative religion" or the
"scientific study of religion." Max Muller, whose
thinking informed the spirit of the World's Parliament of
Religions in which a number of Japanese Buddhists participated, speaks
of a human faith in the infinite or absolute within the historical
world, and of the "struggle to conceive the inconceivable"
(*Introduction to the Science of Religions*, 1870, quoted in
Ketelaar 1990, p. 146). This language was seen to resonate with the
Buddhist tradition, providing it with broad categories by which
Japanese Buddhists were able to situate their traditions in modern,
philosophically recognizable frameworks.


### 5.3 Existential Engagement with Pure Land Buddhism



The aforementioned M. L. Gordon had claimed that an experiential
conversion--"a deep personal loathing of sin" or
awareness of "a certain and present forgiveness of
sin"--is the hallmark of the genuinely religious. That
conversion experience, he maintained, lends Christianity a power
lacking in Japanese Buddhism, which he saw as moribund and widely
discredited in modern times. Admittedly, the Christian concepts of sin
and forgiveness are absent from Pure Land Buddhism. Yet, some Buddhist
thinkers felt challenged to develop the practical dimension of the
Pure Land tradition, even while adopting Inoue's philosophical
terminology. They accepted the Christian critique, acknowledging the
Christian strength as indispensable for, in Gordon's expression,
"a living religion."



The representative Japanese Buddhist figure here is the Pure Land
priest Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903), a younger associate of Inoue who
had also studied Western philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University.
Despite his early death, Kiyozawa's efforts to democratize and
modernize the Shin Buddhist temple institution deeply influenced
succeeding thinkers of the Higashi Honganji tradition. Like Inoue, he
speaks of the finite and infinite (or absolute) as mediated by reason
in philosophy and by faith in religion. Kiyozawa is distinctive,
though, in his decidedly practical orientation, exploring the
encounter with the absolute in religious life. In his late twenties,
he undertook an ascetic discipline of daily life and diet that ended
after several years when he contracted tuberculosis. In the last five
years of his life, he was strongly attracted to the introspective
spiritual cultivation of equanimity and indifference to contingencies
that he found in the early scriptures of Buddhism and especially in
the Stoic philosopher Epictetus.



Although Kiyozawa makes little mention of Christianity in his writings
beyond, for example, reflections on the doctrines of creation or
monotheism from a comparative philosophical perspective, we find in
his journal in 1898, amid passages from Epictetus and other classical
texts, references to biblical passages in standard English notation.
In relation to the notion "God is in man," which he
considers "an old doctrine" found in classical Western
authors, Kiyozawa gives references to five Bible passages, including:
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (I Cor.
6:19); "Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to
you--guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in
us" (2 Tim. 1:4); "No one has ever seen God; but if we
love one another, God lives in us ... He has given us of his
Spirit" (I John 3:12-13).



The references suggest a close familiarity with the Bible, probably
from his youth. Although Kiyozawa makes no reference to Christianity
itself in this context, in his pursuit of immediate experience, in his
probing self-examination, and in his works for institutional and
educational reform, he appears almost to embody a Buddhist response to
Gordon's accusation that Buddhism lacks the power to influence
daily life and ethical social action. Toward the end of his life,
Kiyozawa created a Buddhist movement for the quest of "spiritual
living" (*seishin-shugi*), which he defines in terms of
the personal encounter with the absolute.



In Kiyozawa's disciple Soga Ryojin (1875-1971), also a Shin
Buddhist priest, we find the same interest in articulating the
personal immediacy of religious teachings. Instead of seeking, like
his teacher, to build on the legitimacy of philosophy and science,
carving out a place for Buddhism beyond the limitations of a rational
philosophical analysis of life experience, Soga stood within Shin
Buddhist teachings and sought to show their vital significance. He did
so by drawing on broader Mahayana Buddhist concepts, comparing them at
times with Christian modes of thought.



In an article for fellow missionaries explaining Amida Buddha and the
Pure Land, Gordon quotes Rhys Davids in characterizing them as
"hypothetical beings, the creations of a sickly scholasticism,
hollow abstractions without life or reality" ("The Legend
of Amida"). In the 1880s, Christian missionaries undoubtedly
felt confident that to expose Pure Land teachings as
"tales" unknown to Gotama would lead to the dismantling of
"the most powerful sect in Japan." Pure Land Buddhists
were keenly aware of such criticism, and it may have prompted Soga and
others to ponder Christian ideas in exploring the existential,
religious meaning of Pure Land teachings. While temple institutions
had pursued the study of Christian theology for polemical purposes, it
appears that by the turn of the twentieth century, some Buddhist
philosophers had gained a new confidence of their own, allowing
themselves to be stimulated by Christian theological ideas.



In one of his seminal essays, "Savior on Earth," Soga
begins:



> 
> In the first part of July last year (1912), ... I intuited the
> phrase, "The Tathagata (Amida) is myself," and in the
> latter part of August, ... the phrase, "The Tathagata
> becomes me and saves me," was bestowed on me. Finally, about
> October, I was brought to realize that "'The Tathagata
> becomes me' signifies the birth of Dharmakara
> Bodhisattva." (Blum and Rhodes 2011, p. 107, translation
> modified)
> 



This essay was published in 1913 in the magazine begun by Kiyozawa,
*Seishinkai* (The World of Spiritual Living), fifteen years
after Kiyozawa's journal references to the Bible quoted above.
Although Soga is spoken of as "arguably the most innovative
thinker in modern Shin Buddhist history" by sectarian scholars,
and although he employs the traditional Shin term "directed [by
Amida]" (*eko*) in speaking of the source of his
"revelation," it is highly likely that Soga had been
testing how Christian ideas might help in developing Shin teachings.
The term "savior" (*kyushu*) in Soga's
title is widely used for Jesus Christ, and in comparative remarks in
the essay, Soga asserts that the unique incarnation as Jesus limits
God's salvific power to Jesus personally, while Dharmakara is
born in each person and becomes "the true subjectivity of the
self in the desire for salvation."



Soga not only counters criticisms that Amida is merely mythical and
that Pure Land Buddhism lacks historical foundations, but also
strongly affirms in doctrinal terms the immediacy of personal
religious experience in Shin. Christian concepts related to kenosis,
incarnation in historical time, and trinity may have stimulated
Soga's rethinking of the relationship between the practitioner
and Amida. There is also the matter of the temporal dimension in this
relationship. Previously the Japanese Pure Land tradition had
articulated the Mahayana logic of the nonduality of the temporal and
the uncreated (or transtemporal). That said, the Christian critique
and Augustinian concepts of time and eternity may also have inspired
Soga's interpretation of the vast time spans in the narrative of
Dharmakara's vows and practice. As Soga explains:



> 
> People are apt to consider this as an old tale that has nothing to do
> with their present selves. In fact, however, the one-moment wherein
> Dharmakara Bodhisattva evoked the faith of sincere entrusting is an
> absolute moment that embraces innumerable eons. And equally the first
> moment wherein we are made to experience faith is an absolute moment
> that covers innumerable eons ... . The present of faith is the
> great present of immeasurable life. (Blum and Rhodes 2011, p. 115)
> 



The philosopher Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990) also articulates
Shinran's treatment of time in terms of the nondiscrimination or
simultaneity of the temporal and the timeless or eternal (Nishitani
1978).



Christianity challenged Japanese Buddhists by teaching a personal
religiosity and a stringent individual moral responsibility. Kiyozawa
offers a prominent example of the attempt to engage those issues.
Regarding the narrative of the origin of Amida Buddha and the Pure
Land, which Gordon and other Christian missionaries regarded as
obvious fictions created late in the Buddhist tradition, Soga may have
found resources for resolution in the very Christian sources behind
the criticisms. The Japanese Mahayana tradition had already developed
it own concepts of the compassionate emergence out of emptiness or
formless reality as well as the nonduality of the karmically
conditioned and unconditioned. Those ideas provided an openness to and
point of entry into certain areas of Christian and Western
philosophical thought. During the twentieth century, philosophers such
as Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Takeuchi
Yoshinori, and Abe Masao have drawn on both the Christian and Japanese
Buddhist traditions, particularly Pure Land and Zen, in engaging
modern philosophical issues.