The goal of all Buddhist practice is to achieve Enlightenment and transcend the cycle of Birth and Death -- that is, to attain Buddhahood. In the Mahayana tradition, the precondition for Buddhahood is the Bodhi Mind, the aspiration to achieve Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, oneself included.（14）
Since sentient beings are of different spiritual capacities and inclinations, many levels of teaching and numerous methods were devised in order to reach everyone. Traditionally, the sutras speak of 84,000, i.e., an infinite number of methods, depending on the circumstances, the times and the target audience. All these methods are expedients -- different medicines for different individuals with different illnesses at different times -- but all are intrinsically perfect and complete.(15) Within each method, the success or failure of an individual's cultivation depends on his depth of practice and understanding, that is, on his mind.
A) Self-power, other-power
Throughout history, the Patriarchs have elaborated various systems to categorize Dharma methods and the sutras in which they are expounded. One convenient division is into methods based on self-effort (self-power) and those that rely on the assistance of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (other-power)(16) This distinction is, of course, merely for heuristic purposes, as the Truth is, ultimately, one and indivisible: Self-power is other-power, other-power is self-power.(17)
Traditionally, most Buddhist schools and methods take the self-power approach: progress along the path of Enlightenment is achieved only through intense and sustained personal effort. Because of the dedication and effort involved, schools of this self-power, self-effort tradition all have a distinct monastic bias. The laity has generally played only a supportive role, with the most spiritually advanced ideally joining the Order of monks and nuns. Best known of these traditions are Theravada and Zen.
Parallel to this, particularly following the development of Mahayana thought and the rise of lay Buddhism, a more flexible tradition eventually arose, combining self-power with other-power -- the assistance and support provided by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to sincere seekers of the Way. Most representative of this tradition are the Esoteric and Pure Land schools. However, unlike the former (or for that matter, the Zen school), Pure Land does not stress the master-disciple relationship and de-emphasizes the role of sub-schools, roshis/gurus and rituals. Moreover, the main aim of Pure Land -- rebirth in the Land of Ultimate Bliss through the power of Amitabha Buddha's Vows -- is a realistic goal, though to be understood at several levels. Therein lies the appeal and strength of Pure Land.(18)
B) Pure Land in a Nutshell
Pure Land, like all Mahayana schools, requires first and foremost the development of the Bodhi Mind,(19) the aspiration to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. From this starting point, the main tenets of the school can be understood at two main levels, the transcendental and the popular -- depending on the background and the capacities of the cultivator.
i) At the transcendental level, i.e., for cultivators of the highest spiritual capacity, the Pure Land method, like other methods, reverts the ordinary, deluded mind to the Self-Nature True Mind.(20) In the process, wisdom and Buddhahood are eventually attained. This is exemplified by the following advice of the eminent Zen Master Chu Hung (Jap. Shuko), one of the three "Dragon-Elephants" of Ming Buddhism:
Right now you simply must recite the buddha-name with purity and illumination. Purity means reciting the buddha-name without any other thoughts. Illumination means reflecting back as you recite the buddha-name. Purity is sammata, “stopping.” Illumination is vipasyana, “observing.” Unify your mindfulness of buddha through buddha-name recitation, and stopping and observing are both present. (J.C. Cleary, Pure Land, Pure Mind, unpub. manuscript.)
As stated in the treatise Buddhism of Wisdom and Faith:
If we have the roots and the temperament of Mahayana followers, we should naturally understand that the goal of Buddha Recitation is to achieve Buddhahood .... Why is it that the goal of Buddha Recitation is to become a Buddha? -- It is because, as we begin reciting, the past, present and future have lost their distinction, marks exist but they have been left behind, form is emptiness, thought is the same as No-Thought, the realm of the Original Nature "apart from thought" of the Tathagata has been penetrated. This state is Buddhahood. What else could it be?
This transcendent form of Pure Land is practiced by those of the highest spiritual capacities: "this Mind is the Buddha ... when the Mind is pure, the Buddha land is pure ... to recite the Buddha's name is to recite the Mind.” Thus, at the transcendental level, Pure Land is identical to Zen, Pure Land is Zen, Zen is Pure Land.(21)
ii) In its popular form, i.e., for ordinary practitioners in this Degenerate Age, some twenty-six centuries after the death of the historical Buddha, Pure Land involves seeking rebirth in the Land of Amitabha Buddha. This can be achieved within one lifetime through the practice of Buddha Recitation with sincere faith and vows, leading to one-pointedness of mind or samadhi.
The devotees of this school venerated Amitabha Buddha and sought not outright Nirvana but rebirth in the ... "Pure Land" of Amitabha, also called Sukhavati. In that idyllic environment, no new negative karmic accumulations would be created and all existing ones would evaporate. Nirvana would be therefore just a short step away. (J. Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook, p. 133-4.)
Thus, at the popular level, the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha is an ideal training ground, an ideal environment where the practitioner is reborn thanks to the power of Amitabha Buddha's Vows (other-power)(22) No longer subject to retrogression, having left Birth and Death behind forever, the cultivator can now focus all his efforts toward the ultimate aim of Buddhahood. This aspect of Pure Land is the form under which the school is popularly known.(23)
In its totality, Pure Land reflects the highest teaching of Buddhism as expressed in the Avatamsaka Sutra: mutual identity and interpenetration of all and everything -- the simplest method contains the ultimate and the ultimate is found in the simplest.(24)
C) Transference of Merit
Central to the Pure Land tradition is the figure of Amitabha Buddha, who came to exemplify the Bodhisattva ideal and the doctrine of transfer or dedication of merit. This is particularly apparent in the life story of the Bodhisattva Dharmakara,（25） the future Amitabha Buddha, as related in the sutras.
The Mahayana idea of the Buddha being able to impart his power to others marks one of those epoch-making deviations which set off the Mahayana from so-called ... original Buddhism ... The Mahayanists accumulate stocks of merit not only for the material of their own enlightenment but for the general cultivation of merit which can be shared equally by their fellow-beings, animate and inanimate. This is the true of meaning of Parinamana, that is, turning one's merit over to others for their spiritual interest. (D.T. Suzuki, tr., The Lankavatara Sutra, p. xix.)
The rationale for such conduct, which on the surface appears to run counter to the law of Cause and Effect, may be explained in the following passage concerning one of the three Pure Land sages, the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Kuan Yin):
Some of us may ask whether the effect of karma can be reverted by repeating the name of Kuan-Yin. This question is tied up with that of rebirth in Sukhavati [the Pure Land] and it may be answered by saying that invocation of Kuan-Yin's name forms another cause which will right away offset the previous karma. We know, for example, that if there is a dark, heavy cloud above, the chances are that it will rain. But we also know that if a strong wind should blow, the cloud will be carried away somewhere else and we will not feel the rain. Similarly, the addition of one big factor can alter the whole course of karma ...
It is only by accepting the idea of life as one whole that both Theravadins and Mahayanists can advocate the practice of transference of merit to others. With the case of Kuan-Yin then, by calling on Her name we identify ourselves with Her and as a result of this identification Her merits flow over to us. These merits which are now ours then counterbalance our bad karma and save us from
calamity. The law of cause and effect still stands good. All that has happened is that a powerful and immensely good karma has overshadowed the weaker one ... (Lecture on Kuan-Yin by Tech Eng Soon - Penang Buddhist Association, c. 1960. Pamphlet.)
This concept of transference of merit, which presupposes a receptive mind on the part of the cultivator, is emphasized in Pure Land. However, the concept also exists, albeit in embryonic form, in the Theravada tradition, as exemplified in the beautiful story of the Venerable Angulimala.(26)
D) Faith and Mind
Faith is an important component of Pure Land Buddhism.(27) However, wisdom or Mind also plays a crucial, if less visible, role. This interrelationship is clearly illustrated in the Meditation Sutra: the worst sinner, guilty of matricide and parricide, etc. may still achieve rebirth in the Pure Land if, on the verge of death, he recites the Buddha's name one to ten times with utmost faith and sincerity.
This passage can be understood at two levels. At the level of everyday life, just as the worst criminal once genuinely reformed is no longer a threat to society and may be pardoned, the sinner once truly repentant may, through the vow-power of Amitabha Buddha, achieve rebirth in the Pure Land -- albeit at the lowest possible grade. Thus, Pure Land offers hope to everyone; yet at the same time, the law of Cause and Effect remains valid.
At the higher level of principle or Mind, as the Sixth Patriarch taught in the Platform Sutra:
A foolish passing thought makes one an ordinary man, while an enlightened second thought makes one a Buddha.
Therefore, once the sinner repents and recites the Buddha's name with utmost sincerity and one-pointedness of mind, at that very moment he becomes an awakened person silently merging into the stream of the Sages -- can Buddhahood then be far away? As the Meditation Sutra states: "the Land of Amitabha Buddha is not far from here!"
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This, then, is the Pure Land tradition, harmonizing everyday practice and the transcendental, self-power and other-power. This tradition is, by all accounts, one of the pillars of the great Mahayana edifice, that lofty tradition of the great Bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Samantabhadra -- so much so that Pure Land has been, for centuries, one of the most enduring and widespread forms of Buddhism in Asia.（28）
Van Hien Study Group
Autumn, 1992
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(14) See the following passage, by the late founder of the Buddhist Lodge and Buddhist Society (London), on the true goal of all Buddhist practice:
In the West, the need for some guidance in mind-development was made acute ... by a sudden spate of books which were, whatever the motive of their authors, dangerous in the extreme. No word was said in them of the sole right motive for mind-development, the enlightenment of the meditator for the benefit of all mankind, and the reader was led to believe that it was quite legitimate to study and practice mindfulness, and the higher stages which ensue, for the benefit of business efficiency and the advancement of personal prestige. In these circumstances, Concentration and Meditation, ... was compiled and published by the [British] Buddhist Society, with constant stress on the importance of right motive, and ample warning of the dangers, from a headache to insanity, which lie in wait for those who trifle with the greatest force on earth, the human mind. (Christmas Humphreys, The Buddhist Way of Life, p.100.)
(15) See the following passage from D.T. Suzuki:
Buddhist theology has a fine comprehensive theory to explain the manifold types of experience in Buddhism, which look so contradictory to each other. In fact the history of Chinese Buddhism is a series of attempts to reconcile the diverse schools ... Various ways of classification and reconciliation were offered, and ... their conclusion was this:
Buddhism supplies us with so many gates to enter into the truth because of such a variety of human characters and temperaments and environments due to diversities of karma. This is plainly depicted and taught by the Buddha himself when he says that the same water drunk by the cow and the cobra turns in one case into nourishing milk and in the other into deadly poison, and that medicine is to be given according to disease. This is called the doctrine of [skillful] means ... (The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 121.)
(16) Other-power: “Invisible assistance -- provided by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of Healing -- can be a potent aid in this process [of elimination of greed, anger and delusion]. This assistance often is described as stemming from the force of their fundamental vows." (Raoul Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha, p. xv.) This power, is, of course, common to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
(17) See the following passage from D.T. Suzuki:
Jiriki (self-power) is the ... [wisdom] aspect of enlightenment and tariki (other-power) is the ... [Great Compassion] aspect of the same. By [wisdom] we transcend the principle of individuation, and by [Great Compassion] we descend into a world of particulars. The one goes upwards while the other comes downwards, but this is our intellectual way of understanding and interpreting enlightenment, in whose movement however there is no such twofold direction discernible. (The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 3. No. 4, p. 314.)
(18) As a historical perspective, the roots of Pure Land go back to Ancient India, albeit the tradition was not emphasized there:
Although a cult dedicated to Amitabha Buddha worship did arise in India, piety toward this Buddha seems to have been merely one of many practices of early Mahayana Buddhism. (Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, in Joji Okazaki, Pure Land Buddhist Painting, p. 14.)
When Mahayana Buddhism spread to China, however, Pure Land ideas found fertile ground for development. In the fourth century, the movement crystallized with the formation of the Lotus Society, founded by Master Hui Yuan (334-416), the first Pure Land Patriarch. The school was formalized under the Patriarchs T'an Luan (Jap. Donran) and Shan Tao (Jap. Zendo). Master Shan Tao's teachings, in particular, greatly influenced the development of Japanese Pure Land, associated with Honen Shonin (Jodo school) and his disciple, Shinran Shonin (Jodo Shinshu school) in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Note: An early form of Buddha Recitation can be found in the Nikayas of the Pali Canon:
In the Nikayas, the Buddha ... advised his disciples to think of him and his virtues as if they saw his body before their eyes, whereby they would be enabled to accumulate merit and attain Nirvana or be saved from transmigrating in the evil paths ... (D.T. Suzuki, The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 3, No. 4, p. 317.)
(19) See the following passage on Bodhisattva practice, taken from the well-known “Practices and Vows of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra”:
Because of living beings, they bring forth great compassion. From great compassion the Bodhi Mind is born; and because of the Bodhi Mind, they accomplish Supreme, Perfect Enlightenment. (Avatamsaka Sutra, ch. 40.)
(20) The ordinary, deluded mind (thought) includes feelings, impressions, conceptions, consciousness, etc. The Self-Nature True Mind is the fundamental nature, the Original Face, reality, the Buddha Nature, etc. As an example, the Self-Nature True Mind is to the ordinary mind what water is to waves -- the two cannot be dissociated. They are the same but they are also different.
(21) See the following passage from D.T. Suzuki:
We observe that even the extremely devotional form of Buddhist life as revealed in the [Pure Land] begins in its last stage of "spiritual rest"... to approach the Zen type. Indeed here lies the unity of Buddhist experience throughout its varied expressions. (D.T. Suzuki, The Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 121.)
(22) The text of the Primal (Eighteenth) Vow is as follows:
If, after my obtaining Buddhahood, all beings in the ten quarters should desire in sincerity and trustfulness to be born in my country, and if they should not be born by only thinking of me for ten times ... may I not attain the highest enlightenment. (Meditation Sutra, quoted by Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, op. cit., p. 15.)
(23) On the related question of whether the Pure Land exists or is Mind-Only, see the words of the eminent Zen Master Chu Hung (16th century):
Some people say that the Pure Land is nothing but mind, that there is no Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss beyond the trillions of worlds of the cosmos. This talk of mind-only has its source in the words of the sutras, and it is true, not false. But those who quote it in this sense are misunderstanding its meaning.
Mind equals object: there are no objects beyond mind. Objects equal mind: there is no mind beyond objects. Since objects are wholly mind, why must we cling to mind and dismiss objects? Those who dismiss objects when they talk of mind have not comprehended mind. (J.C. Cleary, Pure Land, Pure Mind.)
Please note that understanding the dual nature of the Pure Land, as Mind-Only and as a separate entity, requires practice -- not intellectual reasoning.
In secular western thought awareness of psychological projection as a source of supernatural being has served to demythologize demons, goblins, angels and saints and rob them of their power. The Bardo Thodol [Tibetan Book of the Dead], however, speaks of the deities as "projections" but never as "mere projections." The deities are present and must be dealt with religiously ... not just by intellectual insight.” (D.G. Dawe in The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions, p. 93.)
(24) This is clearly shown in the Avatamsaka Sutra, particularly chapter 26 which describes the last phases of practice of a Bodhisattva before final Buddhahood. In that chapter, it is taught that in each and every single stage, the actions of the Bodhisattva "never go beyond Nien Fo" [Buddha Recitation]:
This is a summary of the tenth stage of enlightening beings, called Cloud of Teaching ... Whatever acts they undertake, whether through giving, or kind speech, or beneficial action, or cooperation, it is all never apart from thoughts of Buddha [Buddha Recitation], the Teaching, the Community ... (Thomas Cleary, tr., The Flower Ornament Scripture, Vol. II, p. 111.)
(25) See the following passage:
The [Longer Amitabha Sutra] ... which was in existence before a.d. 200, describes a discourse offered by the Buddha Sakyamuni ... in response to questions of his disciple Ananda. Sakyamuni tells the story of the Bodhisattva Dharmakara, who had for eons past been deeply moved by the suffering of sentient beings and who had determined to establish a Land of Bliss where all beings could experience emancipation from their pain ... In the presence of the eighty-first Buddha of the past, Lokesvararaja, Dharmakara made forty-eight vows relating to this Paradise, and promised that he would not accept enlightenment if he could not achieve his goals ... When, after countless ages, Dharmakara achieved enlightenment and became a Buddha, the conditions of his [18th] vow were fulfilled: he became the Lord of Sukhavati, the Western Paradise, where the faithful will be reborn in bliss, there to progress through stages of increasing awareness until they finally achieve enlightenment. (Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, in Joji Okazaki, Pure Land Buddhist Painting, p. 14-15.)
(26) The life story of the Venerable Angulimala is one of the most moving accounts in the Theravada canon. After killing ninety-nine persons, Angulimala was converted by the Buddha, repented his evil ways and joined the Order:
One day as he went on his round for alms he saw a woman in labor.
Moved by compassion, he reported this pathetic woman's suffering to the Buddha. He then advised him to pronounce the following words of truth, which later became known as the Angulimala Paritta (Mantra) ...
"Sister, since my birth in the Arya clan [i,e., since my ordination] I know not that I consciously destroyed the life of any living being. By this truth may you be whole and may your child be whole."
He went to the presence of the suffering sister ... and uttered these words. Instantly, she delivered the child with ease. (Narada Maha Thera, The Buddha and His Teaching, p. 124.)
(27) Faith is an important element in all Buddhist traditions, but it is particularly so in Pure Land. See the following passage from the Avatamsaka Sutra:
Faith is the basis of the path, the mother of virtues, Nourishing and growing all good ways ... Faith can increase knowledge and virtue; Faith can assure arrival at enlightenment. (Thomas Cleary, tr. The Flower Ornament Scripture, vol.1, p. 331.)
(28) The pervasiveness of Pure Land teaching is such that its main practice, Buddha Recitation, is found in both the Esoteric and Zen schools. In Pure Land, Buddha Recitation is practiced for the purpose of achieving rebirth in the Land of Amitabha Buddha. In the Esoteric school, the aim is to destroy evil karma and afflictions, obtain protection against demons and generate blessings and wisdom in the current lifetime. In Zen, the koan of Buddha Recitation is meant to sever delusive thought and realize the Self-Nature True Mind. The ultimate goal of all three schools is, of course, the same: to achieve Enlightenment and Buddhahood.
Source Of Information:
《Pure Land of The Patriarchs》, by Zen master Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing, translated by Dharma Master Lok To, Sutra Translation Committee of The United States and Canada, New York - San Francisco - Toronto, published in March, 2001, distributed by Amitabha Buddhist Society Malaysia (92, Jalan Pahang, 53300 Gombak, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
*** The information provided above does not contain personal opinion of this blog.
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