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  But even though the first step has been taken on the path, the threat is not over. As the traveler moves forward, the bandits make enticing promises and the beasts offer all kinds of temptations, attempting to call him back to this shore of delusion. But, sustained by the words of Sakyamuni and the call of Amida, the traveler does not hesitate, moves forward, and reaches the Other Shore safely into the waiting arms of a good friend (kalyanamitra) who is none other than Amida Buddha.

  In reflecting on the parable I saw myself as that traveler, a sojourner in life with a checkered history. Pushed by false ambitions and pursued by demons within, I now confronted “three kinds of certain death.” While being comforted to see my predicament described precisely by this parable, it did not tell me enough about how to get out of it. I began desperately searching for teachers to point the way. When I could not find anyone around me, I began a random, voracious reading of existential literature—Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger—and the scriptures of world religions—Buddhist literature, including contemporary intepretations, the Bhagavad Gita, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the New Testament, and so on. Some of this was useful on one level, but none cleared the confusion that prevailed. The glaring light of day was difficult to bear, the darkness of night seemed to lessen the agitation, alcohol definitely eased the pain. At one time I thought of abandoning my studies altogether; at another time I played with the idea of becoming a monk.

  Slowly, however, after months of indecision and uncertainties, I began to find a faint sense of direction. The weight of my family background—generations of Shin Buddhist priests on both my mother’s and father’s sides—became decisive. Until that point my interest in Buddhism was primarily academic; in fact, I had little interest in the solace it promised, especially in its Pure Land form. But now my focus became a personal quest. As I moved forward on the white path, the world of Japanese Pure Land opened up. Welcomed by fine teachers and exemplary lay devotees, they helped me to formulate answers, however tentative, to the three questions that had arrested the course of my life. But the process of finding inner peace was not easy because of the maze of abstruse doctrines and technical religious terms that I needed to unravel. I needed to reduce them to the point that they resonated with the pragmatic turn in my nature. My varied excursions since that time into philosophical, religious, and psychological fields have focused on pursuing answers within the framework of the three basic questions concerning death and dying, the meaning of true compassion, and my karmic existence as infinite finitude.

  As I proceeded on my quest, I discovered that these questions are not uncommon among contemporary people, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. For who has not lost someone close because of cancer or the scourge of AIDS and not questioned the person’s fate? Who has not sought the one word of compassion to share with those who experience irretrievable, painful loss? And who has not questioned oneself, as Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich did, when he asked at the end of his seemingly successful career as a high court judge, “What if my entire life, my entire conscious life, was not the real thing ?”

  All world religions grapple with these questions, but in my case, due to fortunate karmic circumstances, Shin Buddhism provides the answers that are illuminating, challenging, and constantly evolving. Despite the wealth of possibilities we may seem to have in the eighty-four thousand paths to enlightenment, it is through encountering great difficulties and reaching an incredible impasse—as the traveler did—that we discover our individual paths. The Pure Land tradition has been my path. It is because of my own personal experience with it that I wish to share it with those who may not be too familiar with the depth, scope, and richness of this significant expression of Buddhism. To begin with we need to briefly trace the historical evolution of Pure Land Buddhism.

  1

  THE HISTORICAL LEGACY

  The beginnings of the Pure Land tradition go back to the time of the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism in the first century B.C.E., approximately five centuries after the founding of the religion by the historical Buddha in India. The Pure Land way bases its teaching on three Mahayana scriptures: The Larger Sutra of Pure Land, The Smaller Sutra of Pure Land, and The Sutra on Contemplating Amida Buddha. Known commonly today as the Triple Sutras, they originated in India and Central Asia and came to Japan in the sixth century soon after the introduction of Buddhism to this island nation. But during this early period few took notice of these writings. Even the monk-scholars who were the most literate people around regarded them as secondary.

  A familiarity with these essential sutras helps us appreciate some of the unique aspects of Pure Land Buddhism. The Larger Sutra, also known as the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, contains a discourse given by Sakyamuni Buddha at the Mount of Vulture Peak in Rajagriha, India. He tells the story of Dharmakara who makes a series of forty-eight vows to save all beings, ultimately fulfills them, and attains supreme enlightenment to become Amida Buddha—the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life. This is a story that is not a story but the emergence of fundamental reality in a person’s life.

  The Smaller Sutra is a much shorter scripture that depicts the indescribable beauty of the Pure Land in fantastic imagery, symbolic of the state of supreme enlightenment. The Sutra on Contemplating Amida outlines sixteen forms of meditative practice that leads to liberation and freedom.

  Buddhism in Japan grew rapidly in the sixth century under imperial and aristocratic patronage. It was welcomed as the carrier of continental civilization, inspiring art and architecture, painting and sculpture, poetry and prose literature. It also enriched the people’s lives by improving the quality of life—founding clinics, orphanages, public bathhouses—and by promoting learning—agriculture, bridge building, sericulture, medicine, and astronomy. The great Mahayana schools of Sanron, Kegon, and others, originating in India or China, became established by the Nara period (710–794); and the Tendai and Shingon schools flourished among imperial and aristocratic circles in the Heian era (794–1185). During this time, the Pure Land teachings and practices gradually became known among individual clerics and slowly spread among the populace.

  The Buddhism for the elite, however, gradually declined in power and influence with inevitable historical changes in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. As the established social order disintegrated, the Pure Land movement spread among all classes, especially welcomed by those who had been excluded from the monastic path. The Primal Vow of Amida, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Life, now appeared as a major force on the stage of history.

  In the year 1175 the Tendai monk Honen broke with the established center of monastic learning, Mt. Hiei, and proclaimed the establishment of an independent Jodo or Pure Land school. While Pure Land practices had been pursued within the established schools, it was always adjunct to some form of traditional religious disciplines. The contemplation on the virtues of Amida and the Pure Land, for example, was practiced among small groups of the upper classes, but it was never a separate, distinct path in itself. But with the founding of an independent Pure Land school, Honen rejected the meditative approach and advocated the singular practice of recitative nembutsu, the intoning of “namu-amida-butsu” (I entrust myself to Amida Buddha). This simple practice was the act selected by the Buddha for all people living in the age of mappo, the endtime of history. The endtime had arrived, as evident in the earthquakes, floods, drought, famine, pestilence, civil wars, and conflagrations that swept the capital and the countryside. As the world became increasingly unstable and chaotic, traditional Buddhism, supported by the privileged classes, became increasingly irrelevant to the times, and the demand for a new religiosity to meet the spiritual needs of the age became intense.

  The void was filled by the newly established Pure Land teaching of recitative nembutsu. It met the spiritual hunger of the people and attracted a mass following. For those who had been excluded from the Buddhist path, it was the saving grace. Those who had been excluded were fishermen and hunters who made a living by v
iolating the precept of noninjury, peasants who were considered “bad,” lowly and ignorant, women of all classes because of their defilements, and monks and nuns who had broken the monastic precepts.

  Among Honen’s disciples was Shinran (1173–1263), a relatively unknown monk, who had left the Tendai monastery at Mt. Hiei and became his devoted disciple in 1201. Soon after, in the year 1207, accused of inciting social disturbance for preaching the Pure Land way, Honen and his disciples, including Shinran, were branded common criminals and exiled to remote provinces. The popular Pure Land movement had created a schism in society, and the lower classes, inflamed by religious fervor, denounced and desecrated the Buddhas other than Amida and the native deities. Honen admonished his followers against these excesses, but nevertheless he was held responsible.

  Honen died in 1212 soon after his pardon in Kyoto, but Shinran remained in the outlying provinces to spread the nembutsu teaching. After several decades, he eventually returned to Kyoto and died in the year 1263. Thereupon, his descendants and followers established a separate school, called Jodo Shinshu, and regarded him as the founder. He himself had no such intention, for his aim was to simply expound “the true teaching (Shinshu) of Pure Land (Jodo)” as taught by his teacher Honen. Jodo Shinshu is also known as Shin Buddhism, and sometimes it is used synonymously with Pure Land Buddhism. This identification, however, is misleading because there are other forms of Pure Land teachings besides Shin Buddhism in Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam.

  Shinran based his teaching on the three Pure Land scriptures and claimed a lineage inspired by the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha and first articulated in the Larger Sutra by Sakyamuni Buddha. The Japanese Pure Land lineage was transmitted through history from India to China to Japan by seven masters: Nagarjuna (c. 150–250) and Vasubandhu (fifth century) of India; T’an-luan (476–542), Tao-ch’o (562–645), and Shan-tao (613–687) of China; Genshin (942–1017) and Honen (1133—1212) of Japan.

  The new school stood out in many ways from the traditions that preceded it, particularly in the way that it could be integrated into common, everyday life. Shin Buddhism makes no sharp distinction between clergy and laity as far as the possibility of enlightenment is concerned. Everyone, regardless of differences in age, class, gender, profession, or moral culpability, would attain Buddhahood by the working of great compassion. It naturally followed that this religious path would be harmonious with family life. Consequently, marriage was approved, and the time-honored celibacy of monastic life was reversed, beginning with Shinran himself, who got married and openly negated the time-honored monastic ideal of celibacy. The dojo or “training place” for the practice of Buddhism is everyday, secular life, not some cloistered enclosure or privileged space. That Honen and Shinran discovered the way to bring the Buddhist truth alive in the midst of the householder’s life was real genius. In the words of Shinran:

  All people—men, women, high or low station—

  In saying the Name of Amida are not restricted

  To walking, standing, sitting,

  or reclining, Nor to time, place, or conditions.

  2

  THE COLOR GOLD

  Though Shin Buddhism improvised a radically new form of practice, its goal is one and the same with that of Mahayana Buddhism. The goal is to awaken to the true self as a manifestation of dharma or “reality-as-is.” What this means may be illustrated by some popular metaphors in the Pure Land tradition.

  First is the metaphor of the color gold. Down through the ages, this metal has been the most highly prized of possessions. It has also been associated with things of a spiritual nature, and each religion has found it a rich symbol. Gold adorns the ark of the covenant containing the Ten Commandments; gold is remembered by Christians as the precious gift of Magi to the newborn Jesus; the giver of gold in the Rig-Veda receives a life of light and glory; and the fifth Mohammedan Heaven in Islam is made of gold. In short, gold has been the universal symbol of that which we value most.

  In Buddhism the color gold is no less precious, symbolizing supreme awakening or enlightenment. The third of the forty-eight vows, established and fulfilled by Amida Buddha, in the Larger Sutra, proclaims:

  May I not gain possession of perfect awakening if, once I have attained buddhahood, any one among the humans and gods in my land are not all the color of genuine gold.

  In the realm of enlightened beings, the Pure Land, everyone is golden colored; that is to say, everyone without exception attains supreme awakening. Discrimination based on color, gender, age, social class, intellectual ability, and so forth are meaningless and without foundation. Each person is affirmed to become as he or she truly is, fulfilling the innate potential hidden within. All beings are assured of buddhahood through the working of dharma that realizes itself in a person.

  Dharma has several connotations in South Asian religions, but in Buddhism it has two basic, interrelated meanings: dharma as “teaching” as found in the expression Buddha Dharma, and dharma as “reality-as-is” (adhigama-dharma). The teaching is a verbal expression of reality-as-is that consists of two aspects—the subject that realizes and the object that is realized. Together they constitute “reality-as-is”; if either aspect is lacking, it is not reality-as-is. This sense of dharma or reality-as-is is also called suchness (tathata) or thatness (tattva) in Buddhism.

  The lotus flower, the second metaphor, reveals the distinctive meaning of suchness or thatness. The lotus has been an important religious symbol in the Asian world for more than five thousand years with different significations. In the Pure Land tradition it represents the uniqueness of each person, or each reality-as-is, distinct from all others each with its own uniqueness. While supreme enlightenment symbolized by gold stresses nondifferentiation, suchness or thatness affirms the uniqueness of each concrete particular. This is fundamental to the Buddhist understanding of “equality” (samata) which is not undifferentiated sameness but the affirmation of the suchness of the concrete particular—each flower as such, each leaf as such, each butterfly as such, each person as such, and so on.

  This varied multiplicity is foundational to the Mahayana worldview of the interconnectedness and interdependence of life. This multicolored splendor is expressed poetically in the Smaller Sutra:

  On the surface of the pools,

  there are lotus blossoms as large as cart wheels.

  These are blue colored, with blue sheen;

  yellow colored, with yellow sheen;

  red colored, with red sheen;

  white colored, with white sheen;

  they are delicate and fragrant.

  The multiple colors of the lotus blossoms, each radiating its distinctive luster, creates the glory of the enlightened realm. This is the realm of the Pure Land, the world of enlightenment. But this world is not a given; it is to be realized through undergoing a radical transformation.

  This transformation is suggested in the third metaphor of transformed rubble, based on scripture that reads: “We who are like bits of rubble are transformed into gold.” All-embracing and nonexclusive, this path accepts everyone, even the lowliest who are considered nothing more than “bits of rubble” in the eyes of society. But no matter who or what one is, everyone is transformed through the power of compassion to become authentically real as an awakened person. “Bits of rubble” is the realization of those who, illuminated by Immeasurable Light and Immeasurable Life that is Amida, are made to see their essential finitude, imperfection, and mortality. This realization may not sound too inspiring, but affirming one’s basic reality is the crucial factor in the transformative process. To bring about such a transformation is the sole purpose of the Primal Vow of Amida, the working of great compassion that courses through the universe.

  This metaphor of alchemical transmutation is based on the Mahayana teaching of the nonduality of samsara and nirvana, delusion and enlightenment, rubble and gold. This is not a simple identity, for it involves a dialectical tension between the two poles, between limited karmic beings
and unbounded compassion. The two remain separate, yet they are one; they are one, yet always remain separate. This requires some explanation, but before we get to that let us place the Pure Land tradition in the landscape of Buddhism, relative to other schools and denominations.

  3

  THE SPIRIT OF THE VALLEY

  The ideal of monastic Buddhism is transcendence of mundane existence, as if one were ascending to the mountaintop. In contrast, the praxis of Pure Land Buddhism takes place by descending into the valley, the shadow of the mountains. We find a similar contrast in Chinese civilization. Like monastic Buddhism, the Confucian ideal may be symbolized by the soaring mountain peaks, manifesting the highest achievements of the literati. And like the Pure Land, Taoism is found in the valley and lowlands, a haven for those who do not fit into conventional society for whatever reason. But it is in this valley that life and creativity flourish. In the words of Tao-te-ching:

  The Valley Spirit never dies.

  It is named the Mysterious Female.

  And the Doorway of the mysterious Female

  Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.

  It is there within us all the while;

  Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.

  In the valley fecundity is nourished and dynamic creativity is born. From its depth comes the life force that creates Heaven and Earth. Immortalized as the Spirit of the Valley and identified with the feminine principle, its procreative vitality is inexhaustible. Hence, the name of this Taoist classic, the Way (tao) and its Power (te). The valley ultimately is the resting place for everything that is washed down from the mountaintop, collecting all kinds of refuse and garbage of society and welcoming the unwanted, the disappointed, and the broken.