The Pure Land Within

唯心の浄土　己身の弥陀
yuishin no jōdo, koshin no mida

“This mind is the Pure Land, this body is Amida Buddha“

source: https://www.oubaku.org/oubaku.html

I’ve always been fascinated when Zen and Pure Land teachings overlap, and recently I was poking around the Internet looking at some websites related to the Obaku sect of Japanese Zen. I’ve mentioned this sect before in the context of its most famous monk Tetsugen (older post here).

Ōbaku Zen (黄檗宗, ōbaku-shū) is a lesser-known sect of Zen in Japan because it arrived much later (17th century) from the Chinese mainland than Rinzai and Soto Zen (13th century) did. Obaku Zen and Rinzai actually have the same source lineage in China, but by the Ming Dynasty in China (when Obaku came to Japan), the Buddhist culture there had largely reconciled Pure Land and Zen thinking and so Obaku contains a lot of Pure Land influences not found in Rinzai, though in all other respects they are basically the same.¹ They even share a homepage together.

The quote above comes from a youth periodical for Obaku Zen monks, and I have read similar teachings before from Zen sources. I even quoted the same website in a past post, but after recent events, for some reason this makes a lot more sense than it used to.

If you look at the Hymn of Zazen by Hakuin (a Rinzai monk), he teaches something similar: people are inclined to look for the truth elsewhere, but it’s right under our noses. The last verse of the Hymn even says explicitly:

当所即ち蓮華国此身即ち仏なり
Tōsho sunawachi rengekoku,
kono mi sunawachi hotoke nari

This very place is the Lotus Land,
this very body the Buddha.

translation by Robert Aitken Roshi

The only difference between these two quotes is that Obaku Zen uses the imagery of the Pure Land of Amida Buddha, while Hakuin uses the Pure Land of Shakyamuni Buddha from chapter sixteen of the Lotus Sutra. But as we saw in the Shushogi recently,² one Buddha’s the same as another. You can call it what you want, the teaching is the same.

It’s easy to understand all this on an intellectual level, but to really “get it”, can take a lifetime or many lifetimes. Or, perhaps I am just thick-headed. 😅

In any case, twenty years as a Buddhist, and yet the Dharma never ceases to surprise me…

Namu Shakamuni Butsu
Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. Translating the Japanese-Buddhist term 唯心 (yuishin) is tricky. This is actually the term “Consciousness Only” as in the Chinese-Buddhist term for the Yogacara school of Buddhism, wherein there is no reality outside of one’s own consciousness (mind). But that’s hard to write in full, so I translated, perhaps clumsily, as this mind (as in one’s own mind, one’s own perception).

¹ It’s tempting to think that Rinzai is a more “pure” form of Zen, or that conversely Obaku is a more “polished” version than Rinzai. I leave that to people’s own interpretations. I used to assume that older sects equaled more pristine teachings, but these days I am not so sure.

² Other sources include the “Parable of the Magic City” in the Lotus Sutra, and the opening paragraphs of the Sutra of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life among other places. Although Mahayana Buddhism isn’t alwys internally consistent, there are certain overarching themes throughout its history and they show up in unexpected places.