Recently, I posted an example of Buddhist liturgy as found in the Japanese Tendai tradition, but I wanted to call out one aspect of that liturgy called the Four Bodhisattva Vows or shiguseigan (四弘誓願) among other names. According to my book on Genshin, the Four Bodhisattva Vows were formulated by the original founder of Tiantai (Tendai) Buddhism in China: Zhiyi. Zhiyi formulated these vows based on an earlier gatha verse from the fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra:
Those who have not yet crossed over I will cause to cross over,
those not yet freed I will free,
those not yet at rest I will put to rest,
those not yet in nirvana I will cause to attain nirvana.
Translation by Burton Watson
The vows have since promulgated to other Buddhist cultures and sects. The liturgy text will vary slightly from Buddhist tradition to tradition, but like the dedication of merit, is remarkably consistent overall.
In the aforementioned Tendai tradition, one version of the vows is as follows:
Sino-Japanese1
Pronunciation
Translation by me (other, better translations exist 😉)
衆生無辺誓願度
Shu jo mu hen sei gan do
Sentient beings are innumerable, and yet I vow to save them all.
煩悩無尽誓願断
Bon no mu hen sei gan dan
My mental defilements (lit. bonnō) are innumerable, I vow to extinguish them all.
The path to Buddhahood is peerless, I vow to fulfill it.
1 Chinese liturgy with Japanese phonetic pronunciation 2 I’ve also seen the last character as 知 (chi), but more or less means the same thing
These vows cover something that we saw in previousarticles about the Mahayana-Buddhist notion of the Bodhisattva: that we’re all in this together, and so the Buddhist path is not truly fulfilled until one completes their vows to aid all beings no matter how long it takes. The Mahayana path of the Bodhisattva is lofty, heroic even, but as the last verse says, nothing less is enough.
On the other hand, the path of the bodhisattva begins with a single good act, or a good thought towards others. It’s about piling up grains of sand or pebbles time and time again. With enough time and dedication, one can move mountains. Don’t be afraid to think big, even if you come up short in this life. Even if you acted like a dickhead today, that doesn’t mean tomorrow you will be one. Every day is a rehearsal. The very notion of “buddha nature” means that each one of you has the capability for great things, even if you don’t think you can. That’s why in the 20th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the Bodhisattva Never Disparaging bows to each person, even when they’re a total jerk: given the right conditions, any sentient being can become a bodhisattva or a fully-awakened buddha. Given enough time all of them will.
My best wishes to you all, dear readers. May all you be well, free from harm, and find what you are looking for.
P.S. Featured image from the story of Chujo-hime in the Taima Mandala Engi (当麻曼荼羅縁起)
Japanese Tendai Buddhism, that is the Buddhist sect descended from the venerable Chinese Tiantai (天台) tradition started by Zhiyi (智顗, 538–597), has a number of interesting, not to mention pithy, teachings and phrases. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a particular phrase called asa daimoku ni yū nenbutsu (朝題目に夕念仏). In its most literal sense, it means “Odaimoku in the morning; Nenbutsu in the evening”.
This phrase is fascinating to me, because it summarizes two important facets of Tendai Buddhism.
First, the “odaimoku”. Tiantai Buddhism in China was the first serious effort at taking the vast corpus of teachings imported from India and the Silk Road and synthesizing them into a native school of thought, not just something lifted-and-shipped from abroad. In order to do this, Zhiyi analyzed the vast number of Buddhist sutras, shastras (essays) and commentaries and arranged them into a kind of hierarchy. At the very top, he felt the Lotus Sutra was the most important teaching, the summation of everything else. For this reason, the Tiantai/Tendai schools treat the Lotus Sutra as the core teaching. In devotional practices, this was expressed in something called the o-daimoku (お題目) attributed to famous Tendai monks such as Genshin, but popularized to a greater degree by Nichiren in the 13th century. The most common form of the o-daimoku chant is namu myoho renge kyo (南無妙法蓮華経)1 which means something like “Praise to the Wondrous (alternatively “Mystic”) Law of the Lotus [Sutra]”. This is also the central practice of the Nichiren Buddhist sets you see today: Nichiren-shu, etc.
However, over time, Japanese Tendai Buddhism began to strongly adopt Pure Land Buddhist teachings from mainland China as well.2 Zhiyi, when he synthesized the various Buddhist teachings and practices paid special attention to meditations on Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, in his magnum opus, the Great treatise on Concentration and Insight (摩訶止観, Móhē Zhǐguān), but these meditations were intended for serious monastic disciples only, and could be very physically demanding. While Tendai monks sometimes did undertake these practices, the popular practices related to Pure Land Buddhism gradually evolved into chanting practices (again, due to Genshin) similar to the odaimoku. This chanting, is called the nenbutsu (念仏) or “mindfulness of the Buddha [Amitabha]”. The most common form of the nenbutsu is namu amida butsu, and this is overwhelmingly what you find in Pure Land Buddhist schools in Japan today such as Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu. Since the 12th century, many Buddhists in Japan have focused on reciting the nenbutsu and aspiring to be born in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha as a refuge, but also as a means of progressing on the Buddhist path much faster: like taking the highway to get to your destination vs. taking the back roads.
A verse from the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra, Murano translation.
These two things may sound contradictory, but they’re not. The second chapter of the Lotus Sutra introduces a couple important concepts to Mahayana Buddhism (that is Buddhism across all of East Asia): the One Vehicle and Expedient Means. The One Vehicle was a way of reconciling all the rival Buddhist schools in India by teaching that all of them were really just the same thing, and that sincere practioners were all heading in the same direction, towards Buddhahood, in the end. No need to argue over minutia. The Expedient Means teaching just recognizes that the various meditations, devotional chants, sutras, Buddhist schools, etc, were all just tools to get us there. The Buddha in the Lotus Sutra hammers his point over and over again in subsequent chapters: the various teachings and practices are all just temporary tools to suit a time, place, or need. All of them point to the truth, but must be put down when they are no longer needed.
In this sense, the Pure Land teachings, the chanting of the nenbutsu and so on is just another expedient means, albeit an especially popular and efficacious one. One could also lump Zen meditation, esoteric Vajrayana teachings and such under the same umbrella, and Tendai Buddhism pretty much does this. Unlike later Buddhist schools in Japan that center around “one practice, one teaching”, Tendai maintains the basic structure imported from China where all teachings and practices are kept under the same basic umbrella.
However, there’s more.
The whole asa daimoku ni yū nenbutsu phrase isn’t just limited to reciting the odaimoku in the morning, and the nembutsu at night. It also expresses a mindset, summarized by two other key concepts in Japanese Tendai Buddhism: hokke senpō and reiji sahõ.
In a Japanese book I own on basic Tendai Buddhist teachings, these are summed up as follows:
法華懺法は、すべての人を救う究極の教えである「法華経」に感謝して読経し、自らの罪を懺悔するのです。
“Hokke Senpo” means to show appreciation toward the Lotus Sutra, which contains the ultimate teaching of helping all beings, through reading of the sutras, and to reflect on one’s own faults.
例時作法は、念仏し、自身の心のなかに備わる仏性を呼び起こすものです。
“Reiji Saho” means to recite the nembutsu, and to awaken the Buddha nature within oneself.
Let’s discuss in more detail…
Hokke senpō (法華懺法) means to reflect on one’s actions in light of the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. This is a very time-honored practice across the entire Buddhist religion, and is why (in my opinion) Buddhism is so effective as a form of mental discipline and training. Unlike the Christian notion of “guilt”, the idea behind self-reflection is a kind of objective, scientific review of one’s actions and whether they have been wholesome or unwholesome. Here, the Dharma is used as a kind of yardstick to measure one’s actions, and in the case of Tendai Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra in particular. Upon reflection, many Buddhists will recite some kind of verse to acknowledge (not punish oneself) and resolve not to do it again. You’re giving yourself a fresh start and resolving to try again. Like rehearsing for a play: you’ll have good days and bad, but you just keep at it until it becomes second nature.
While hokke senpō reflects on the past, reiji sahõ (例時作法) is forward thinking, and expresses the desire to make the Pure Land of the Buddha not just a reality in the future, but here and now starting with oneself. The sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sutra is meant to be a kind of bombshell teaching as the Buddha explains that, among other things, not only is the Dharma eternal (and thus the Buddha has always existed), but that his Pure Land has always existed on Vulture Peak (an important site in India), even if people can’t see it. This may sound strange, but what the Buddha is saying in chapter sixteen in my view is that the mind is the most important thing, and even when “living beings witness the end of a kalpa [an eon] and all is consumed in a great fire”, those whose minds are honest and sincere will see that the Pure Land of Buddha is still right there and available to anyone who seeks refuge. One need not pine for a glorious past, or a particular holy site, it’s all there when you need it. Further, the Pure Land isn’t just a place, it’s the embodiment of the Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings, at its finest, and through our actions, words and thoughts, we gradually make this world the Pure Land for others as well.
All this is to say that the pithy phrase asa daimoku ni yū nenbutsu expresses a lot of stuff, at a lot of levels. In my opinion, if one just adopts this phrase as a simple, daily practice guide (recite namu-myoho-renge-kyo in the morning, even a few times, then recite namu-amida-butsu in the evening, even a few times), then that’s more than enough. As I’ve saidbefore, better to do a small, sustainable Buddhist practice often than a big, elaborate one only occasionally. If you even chant one of these things as part of a small, sustainable practice, you’re doing great.
However, what’s interesting to me is that there is a whole lot more under the surface. As one explores this practice more, they realize that there’s a lot of meaning behind a few simple chants, enough for a lifetime of practice. ☺️
P.S. This article on the Tendai Buddhism homepage (Japanese language only) was a good source for this post. The article also points out that the two sides of Tendai Buddhism: exoteric teachings and esoteric (taimitsu or vajrayana) teachings are two separate things within Tendai. This entire blog post has been focused on the exoteric teachings, as I have no experience with the esoteric side and being esoteric, you would need to find a proper teacher anyway. 😉
1 Sometimes you see it pronounced as nam-myoho renge kyo (dropping the “u” in “mu”), but that gets into doctrinal differences among Nichiren Buddhist sects that I personally don’t want to get involved in.
2 This was, needless to say, a strong point of contention by Nichiren, who sought to restore the Tendai teachings to a more pristine form (with the Lotus Sutra as the essential teaching), but also to make it more accessible to people as well.
Recently, my team at work had a large online party for our senior manager who’s going on paternity leave, with online games like Among Us and other activities. But I quickly felt uncomfortable and decided to drop out. This is not new for me though. In past jobs, when work parties take place, I like to grab food and then duck out to some place quiet.
Strangely, I like people a lot, and I like socializing (I am pretty chatty actually), but I tend to like smaller gathering with like-minded people than larger settings with people that I am not that familiar with. For some reason, work parties always make me uneasy unless I am with a good friend.
The truth is, I like being alone a lot. Again, I really like people, but I also like being alone with my thoughts and personal projects too. But also I value sincerity too, hence I like to be with sincere friends more than socially “beneficial” events.
This reminds me of yet another fine passage from the 14th century Japanese text, “Essays in Idleness” (tsurezuregusa 徒然草), composed by Buddhist monk Kenkō:
I wonder what feelings inspire a man to complain of “having nothing to do.” I am happiest when I have nothing to distract me and I am completely alone.
If a man conforms to society, his mind will be captured by the filth of the outside world, and he is easily led astray; if he mingles in society, he must be careful that his words do not offend others, and what he says will not at all be what he feels in his heart. He will joke with others only to quarrel with them, now resentful, not happy, his feelings in constant turmoil. Calculations of advantage will wantonly intrude, and not a moment will be free from considerations of profit and loss….Even if a man has not yet discovered the path to enlightenment, as long as he removes himself from his worldly ties, leads a quiet life, and maintains his peace of mind by avoiding entanglements, he may be said to be happy, at least for the time being.
It is written in the Maka Shikan, “Break your ties with your daily activities, with personal affairs, with your arts, and with learning.”1
Translation by Professor Donald Keene
That said, sometimes it sucks being an introvert when life kind of insists that the key to success is networking.
One of my favorite movies in Japan is an obscure historical movie called Twilight Samurai (Japanese: tasogare seibei):
In one early scene (not shown above, sorry), Seibei, played by the awesome Sanada Hiroyuki, is invited by coworkers (again) to go drinking, but he politely declines and goes home to spend time with this young daughters (his wife died long ago) and work around the house. That said, his coworkers badmouth him behind his back for never socializing.
As a dad who loves his wife and kids, and loves being home, I can definitely understand this feeling, but I also know it probably strikes other people as odd, or maybe even rude.
1 The Maka Shikan (original Chinese: Mohe Zhiguan) is an influential meditation text from the Chinese Tiantai school, so the quote that Kenkō puts here is in the context of dedicated meditation practice, not necessarily daily life. I like the quote, but felt it’s important to mention the context to avoid confusion. 🙂
I am happy to report that I finally finished my book on Genshin (源信, 942 – 1017), a 9th century Japanese Buddhist monk who was a big influence on later Pure Land Buddhist thought. Genshin is often referred to as a “patriarch” in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, but available information about Genshin in English (and even Japanese) is thin and circumspect and reflects later interpretation by Buddhist authors (and their Wikipedia editors). Weirdly, past authors and editors praise Genshin a lot, but frequently inject their own viewpoint. In other words, history is written by the winners.
Portrait of monk Genshin, d. 1017, attrib. to himself, property of Shōjūraigōji temple photo by Tani Bunchō et al.日本語: 谷文晁ほか / Public domain
Since it was surprisingly hard to find out what Genshin’s own teachings and viewpoints, the book proved super helpful in looking past the empty praise of later generations to the real Genshin. At least, the most we can glean from his writings and historical relics of the time.
Genshin, I learned, was first and foremost a Tendai Buddhist. He was ordained as a child and grew up training as a monk in a wholly Tendai-Buddhist environment on Mount Hiei. He never contradicted this either. His participation in debates with rival schools, his writings on various topics and even the writings that proved popular later about the Pure Land of Amida Buddha were all done from a fairly orthodox Tendai viewpoint.
To Genshin, the Pure Land path was always meant to be a holistic one. Later Pure Land authors tended to cherry-pick Genshin’s comments that the nembutsu (reciting the name of Amida Buddha) was an effective practice, but that was clearly not Genshin’s intention when you take his writings as a whole. As a Tendai Buddhist monk, Genshin’s primary focus was on meditation practices, and Tendai Buddhism has a ton of them, ranging from traditional “Zen-like” meditations to grueling 90-day retreats that involve walking all day around a statue. The original founder of Tiantai Buddhism in China (Tendai in Japan), named Zhi-yi, catalogued many kinds of meditation in his great work, the Mohe Zhiguan (摩訶止観, lit. “The Great Śamatha-Vipaśyanā Meditation”) in various categories. So, even when Genshin wrote about rebirth in the Pure Land as an endgoal, he was speaking from a Tendai-Buddhist standpoint which involved:
The primacy of meditation practices (in its various forms)
The Pure Land as one stop on the larger path toward full Buddhahood (as defined in the Lotus Sutra, which was central to Tendai thought).
Professor Rhodes is careful to point out in the book that later Buddhist writers, in discussing Genshin, were tackling unique challenges in their own era, so they looked for solutions where they could find them (hence their efforts were sincere if not a bit misguided), but after centuries and centuries, this has all gotten kind of muddled and the picture of Genshin is confusing and at times subtly misleading. Plus Tendai Buddhism today is greatly diminished from its heyday in the 10th century when it was practically the de facto state religion, so not a lot of people today would necessarily care what Genshin’s opinion was and wasn’t. For all intents and purposes he is a footnote in Japanese-Buddhist history now.
But Genshin was a highly respected scholar in his time who somehow managed to evade the growing collusion between politics and religion, and keep his reputation clean, while also providing important ideas and writings to the growing Pure Land Buddhist movement in Japan (and even sending his writings back to the mother temple in China on Mount Tiantai). He saw the ongoing breakdown of Japanese society as a sign of the coming Age of Dharma Decline and sought to help people as best he could by synthesizing the writings of past scholars in China and India into a comprehensive guide to seeking refuge in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. He was uniquely qualified due to his training and he carried out his goals like few others in his time did.
Thus even now, when Pure Land Buddhist followers (Jodo Shu, Jodo Shinshu, etc) in Japan and abroad recite the nembutsu, there is a small echo of Genshin’s influence still there.
Recently, I got into a debate online (that always ends well) about so-called “auxilliary” practices with some fellow Buddhists on an old, private discussion forum for Jodo Shu Buddhist teachings.
The debate started after someone on the forum asked about whether visualization of Amida Buddha was permitted in Jodo Shu, and I was not satisfied with the responses thus far which tended to strongly imply that it wasn’t worth doing, and that one should rely on the nembutsu only. I was somewhat annoyed by these replies, so I responded to the original poster like so (quoting almost verbatim here, minus some typographical editing):
In my experience, both Jodo Shu and the related Jodo Shinshu sects doctrinally focus on the spoken nembutsu only. I would argue though, that this “exclusive nembutsu teaching” is an idiosyncracy of Jodo Shu and does not always reflect the Pure Land tradition in general.
You are correct in that the Contemplation Sutra does teach an elaborate process for visualizing Amida Buddha, and this kind of visualization practice has been undertaken by monks, particularly in the Tiantai (Chinese) and Tendai (Japanese) sects among others. People tend to focus on a single passage toward the end of the sutra whereby reciting the name of Amida Buddha erases all karma, but in some monastic traditions, people have focused on visualization too.
It’s also true that there are parallel traditions for rebirth in the Pure Land that have nothing to do with the nembutsu, mostly in the esoteric tradition. Even today, Shingon Buddhism has visualization/chanting practices related to Amida Buddha that have little or anything to do with the nembutsu. Such parallel practices include such things as the Mantra of Light and various dharanis that sometimes appear in Zen traditions. Genshin, who was ironically a “patriarch” of the Jodo Shinshu tradition, listed many such methods in the Ojoyoshu, but in practice he recited the nembutsu like many other monks and nuns did during his time. Further, the 23rd chapter of the Lotus Sutra, clearly mentions rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitayus (Amida) Buddha through upholding the Lotus Sutra, not reciting the nembutsu.
I think most people would agree that the nembutsu tends to be the most simplest and straightforward, and thus people tend to treat it as the only viable solution in the so-called Latter Age of the Dharma. I think this is a bit of a leap, but if I were a priest and someone wanted to know more about the Pure Land, I would start by teaching the nembutsu too. It’s a great practice. On the other hand, I think it’s also important for people spiritually grow and if people want to branch out from the nembutsu, they should be able to do so without a sense of “guilt” caused by artificial, doctrinal orthodoxy. The reason, I think, is that the Pure Land tradition is more broad than the standard Jodo Shu/Shinshu narrative, and people who want to explore should feel free to do so.
Hope that makes sense,
Doug
Since my interest in Buddhism began in earnest in 2005, starting with Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu teachings, I have noticed a tendency for these two sects to dominate Pure Land Buddhist discussions among Western adherents. For a long time, I was also a fervent advocate, but I’ve since become wary of the exclusive approach taught by Jodo Shu/Jodo Shinshu Buddhism.
The heart of the issue, I believe, is the recitation of the nembutsu (念仏), the Buddha’s name, usually rendered as namu amida butsu (南無阿弥陀仏).
Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu sects treat this as the sole, exclusive practice and spend an inexhaustible amount of writing and research to assert this point. A cursory study of Jodo Shu/Shinshu literature will reveal that there isn’t much beyond this. The nembutsu is treated with an almost mystical reverence (which is especially amusing since such people are quick to reiterate that it’s not a mantra either). The “name” of Amida Buddha (myōgō 名号) is all-important and if you wish to reborn in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, the only sure-fire method is to recite the nembutsu either as a practice (Jodo Shu) or as an expression of gratitude (Jodo Shinshu) for Amida Buddha’s grace already being extended to you. Beyond this, say adherents, nothing else really matters. Other practices in Buddhism may be conducive to you reciting the nembutsu, but have no merit or power beyond this. Even the Precepts aren’t particularly emphasized or important.
But, as I have learned from various sources, including my new book, this is a kind of revisionist history, and example of how prominent sects tend to dominate the conversation and cherry-pick only those things from the Buddhist sutras that bolster their view.
Further after some backlash, I explained further:
Within the context of Jodo Shu (and related sects), I agree that the position is that the nembutsu is the only essential practice. All other practices supplement it.
However, if you read the Three Pure Land sutras in their entirety, I believe that the authors suggested something slightly different. Take a look at this passage from the Larger Sutra (translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki):
“For this reason, Ananda, sentient beings who wish to see Amitayus while in this world should awaken aspiration for the highest Enlightenment, do meritorious deeds, and aspire to be born in his land.”
and:
“Why do you not diligently practice good, reflect on the naturalness of the Way and realize that it is above all discriminations and is boundlessly pervasive? You should each make a great effort to attain it. Strive to escape from Samsara and be born in the Land of Peace and Provision. Then, the causes of the five evil realms having been destroyed, they will naturally cease to be, and so you will progress unhindered in your pursuit of the Way. The Pure Land is easy to reach, but very few actually go there. It rejects nobody, but naturally and unfailingly attracts beings. Why do you not abandon worldly matters and strive to enter the Way?”
I believe that the original authors of this sutra [were] advocating a more holistic approach toward rebirth in the Pure Land. It’s a similar message at the end of the Contemplation Sutra: spare no expense if you can.
The issue, I have observed, is that medieval Japanese monks had a tendency to read sutras literally and at face-value, because they were assumed to be the literal words of the Buddha (spoiler alert: they are not). It explains why they literally interpreted Dharma Decline as one of several 500-year periods, among other things. However, we’re living in the 21st century and have access to information they didn’t, so I believe it is beneficial to read the sutras critically, not literally.
Sure you can just recite the nembutsu, but why stop there? I believe that’s the message of both the Pure Land sutras and the Lotus Sutra ch. 2 when the Buddha says a person attains Buddhahood through a single nod to the Buddha or a single “hail Buddha”.
The intention of the Pure Land practices, I believe, isn’t just to get there; it’s part of the larger Mahayana-Buddhist theme of the potential of all beings to achieve Buddhahood and in turn help others still mired in Samsara. The Pure Land is one of many so-called “Dharma Gates” to accomplish this. The Pure Land “gate” just happens to be a particularly compelling one (full disclosure, I too recite the nembutsu).
But “the skies the limit” too, so don’t hesitate to adopt other practices if so inclined.
The danger of faithfully following a particular sect and its core beliefs is that you may well overlook obvious faults in logic, and may become complacent. You have to reassure yourself with “mental gymnastics” when faced by doubt or external criticism. My journey through Buddhism started as far back as 2005, and has taken plenty of twists and turns. At one point, I was even training for ordination as a lay priest in the Jodo Shinshu tradition. But in the end, I’ve become disillusioned by the narrow, sometimes dogmatic emphasis on the nembutsu to the exclusion of the larger Buddhist world and its array of practices and teachings. I can blame this doubt on my almost obsessive personal research at the time, but then again, changing your mind is the point of research. It’s OK to change your mind.
Looking back, I was kind of a fool in those days. I was so happy to have a Buddhist community around here like that, with a straightforward, accessible teaching, that I ignored the fact that it ran against the grain of my Buddhists beliefs. The desire to fit in was more important.
But it’s better to admit a sunk cost and move on, than to double-down. I left the community, somewhat abruptly, and floundered around for years (even deleted a blog or two at the time) until I eventually settled into the more holistic, Tendai-Buddhist practice I follow now, which includes the nembutsu, but a whole lot else too. I enjoy having a broader, not narrow, understanding of Mahayana Buddhism and its teachings, and the flexibility to practices various things in Buddhism without the guilt associated with “deviating” from the standard, orthodox teaching of the sect.
“Look, I already faced her once back when I believed in the throne, and it cost me everything. That’s what’s wrong with Asgard. The throne, the secrets, the whole golden sham.”
Valkyrie, “Thor: Ragnarok”
Much of the centuries of traditions, priesthoods, beautiful liturgy and the high quality books printed in English for budding Western communities are, if you scratch the surface and dig deeper, just a golden sham.1 That leaves any spiritual seeker with a dilemma: fall in line and find contentment, or learn what you can, apply what’s useful, and keep moving onward.
“Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.
trans by Soma Thera
The Kalama Sutta doesn’t mean you can just believe what you want, the Buddha is telling the Kalamas to think for themselves and weigh the teachings and traditions objectively against what they know to be good, right, beneficial and blameless. He is encouraging a kind of scientific observation.
So, if you ever feel pressure from your religious community to “toe the line” or that maybe you’re not a “good Buddhist (or whatever religion)”, stop and remember that the problem might not actually be you.
P. S. For the record, Jodo Shu Buddhism still holds a special place in my heart since it has been a long, and largely positive influence on my life. So I am grateful, but I’ve also moved on.
1 Of course, all of this could be just as easily said of many religious communities around the world.
A scene from the Genpei War, courtesy of Wikipedia
When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.
While reading my new book on the Ojoyoshu and its author Genshin, a highly influential Japanese Buddhist monk in the 12th century, I came across the story of two men who were very powerful at the time, and colluded to build the temple of Enryakuji, home of the Tendai sect, to become the most powerful religious institution at the time. This had some very negative unintended side-effects as we shall see, but first let’s see who these two men were.
The first was an ambitious monk named Ryōgen (良源, 912 – 985) who quickly embroiled himself in a generations-long simmering dispute between two rival factions of the Tendai sect: one based on the lineage of the Ennin: the sanmon-ha (山門派), and the other based on the lineage of Enchin: the jimon-ha (寺門派). Both Ennin and Enchin had been direct disciples of founder Saichō (最澄, 767 – 822). Interestingly, neither faction had major doctrinal differences between them, the dispute was entirely over who should run Enryakuji Temple. Ryōgen, who was from the Ennin / sanmon-ha lineage, overtly sought to push out and exclude rivals from the Enchin line from positions of power, until he eventually attained supremacy as the 18th head abbot (zasu, 座主) of Enryakuji Temple in 966.
The other man in this story was a nobleman named Fujiwara no Morosuke, who belonged to one of several competing branches of the Fujiwara clan for control of the Imperial throne. This most common strategy for controlling the throne at the time was through intermarriage with the Imperial family, and controlling the strings as regents for child emperors. In this case, Morosuke wanted to ensure that his pregnant daughter, Anshi (安子, 927-964), the consort of Emperor Murakami, would give birth to a son. He enlisted Ryōgen who had known his father in social circles, and Ryōgen agreed to undertake a lengthy 300-day Buddhist esoteric ritual to ensure safe birth of a son. Sure enough, Anshi gave birth to a son (later Emperor Reizei), and Ryōgen was greatly rewarded by Morosuke with prestigious positions and patronage against rivals at Enryakuji.
This relationship between the two profited both. From Ryōgen, Morosuke got spiritual protection, and influence over the powerful Enryakuji temple, while Ryõgen could further his plans to consolidate power at the temple with blessings from the powerful Fujiwara clan.
Ryōgen paid back Morosuke by appointing one of Morosuke’s junior family relations, Jinzen, to the prominent position of “bishop” within Enryakuji and then archbishop (sōjō 僧正) two years later. Jinzen was far too young to be an archbishop, and lacked past qualifications, but his connection to the Fujiwaran clan and Ryōgen were enough to make the promotion happen. Ryōgen appointed others similarly to his “inner circle” based more on loyalty to the Ennin faction than on qualifications, while pushing out more qualified rivals who belonged to the Enchin faction. This struggle came to a head later in 981 when a member of the rival Enchin line was appointed to an important position by the government. Protests, threats and rumors by monks spread quickly, and monks of the Enchin lineage felt increasingly unsafe and moved further down the mountain. By 991, armed monks (sōhei 僧兵)1 from the Ennin line (Ryōgen’s lineage) openly attacked the Enchin monks’ residences and they fled to a rival Tendai Buddhist temple named Miidera:
The political/factional rivalry didn’t end there though. Both temple complexes, along with several other major temples in and around the capitol, fielded armies of warrior-monks, and allied themselves with power noble families. Between Enryakuji and Miidera, the violence escalated until Miidera was burned down by warrior monks from Enryakuji 4 times in the 11th century, while Miidera warrior-monks attacked and destroyed places associated with the Ennin lineage.
By the time of the Genpei War in the last 12th century (more on that here), the temples were caught up in the larger struggle between the Taira and Minamoto clans with the Miidera Temple being burned down (yet again) and its monks fleeing with the retreating Minamoto clan.
All of this started with a lineage dispute between two disciples of the founder, Saichō, but gradually escalated as one side sabotaged the other politically and then, starting with Ryōgen, tapped into patronage from power noble families in order to drive out the other faction. This back and forth happened for decades and centuries, until both temples were repeatedly destroyed by warfare. The temporary political gains that Ryōgen received through Morosuke did little to actually solve the issue long-term and worsened things through factionalism. Monks, increasingly drawn into political battles, forgot their monastic training and engaged armed conflicts with other monks (or opposing samurai warriors in some cases) in total contradiction of the Buddha’s firm teachings against taking life, especially in the capacity as a monk.
As the book shows, not all monks at Enryakuji bought into this conflict. Genshin, for example, setup a retreat at the more isolated Yokawa region of Mt. Hiei for monks to focus on the Pure Land teachings and practices. In a sense, he just clocked out. Some monks just openly left to start new Buddhist sects (Honen, Shinran, Dogen, etc) or join them. Others just turned a blind eye to what was happening.
Nevertheless, the monastic system in Japan by the 11th and 12th centuries hadn’t just been plagued by “monks gone wild”; the entire system had totally gone off the rails.
Not surprisingly, although these sects survived the conflict and continued on into the later Kamakura and Muromachi Periods, their reputations were permanently tarnished, and even today enjoy far less prestige that newer, fresher sects that had less political muscle,2 and more mass-appeal. As researchers argue, the political sects at the time hitched their wagons with powerful noble families and profited from this, but when those families declined political, so did the temples.
A cautionary tale for future generations….
P.S. the book also alludes to an “acrimonious debate” in China between two factions of the parent Tiantai sect: the shanjia (山家, “mountain family”) and the shanwai (山外, “outside the mountain”). Unlike Japan, the struggle in China never led to open warfare, but the Tiantai sect suffered paralysis until the debate was resolved.
1 Warrior-monk armies were not exclusive to the Tendai sect, by the way. Other major sects around the capitol got tangled up in a weird kind of religious-political “arms race” with each other. Kōfukuji, the head of the still-powerful Hossō sect, fielded a powerful army and frequently threw their weight around, intimidating followers of the new Pure Land sect, while getting into armed clashes with Enryaku-ji, their rival Miidera, and later with newer Zen temples. The army from Enryakuji was also known for robbing the grave of Pure Land Buddhism founder, Hōnen (ironically a former Tendai monk) later. Centuries later, these warrior-monks were still harassing rival Buddhist sects (for example Rennyo’s community of the Jodo Shinshu sect, and Dōgen’s community of the Sōtō Zen sect) until they were finally wiped out (literally) by the infamous warlord Oda Nobunaga. For more on sohei warrior-monks and how they might look in Dungeons and Dragons role-playing, check out my other blog post.
2 The one prominent exception to this would the Jodo Shinshu sect, which did openly challenge Oda Nobunaga with a peasant army (ikko-ikki) of its own whose relationship to Rennyo was … complicated. Outside of war, Jodo Shinshu has also had a somewhat sketchy history of attacking critics such as the Zen monk Tetsugen through mob-violence.
With my recent layoff, I have gone through a few different stages, not unlike famous Five Stages of Grief, albeit milder forms. I was in a weird state of denial for a time, hoping I could find a new position in the company (there are none since we’re downsizing), followed by waves of rage toward my company (why did they callously toss me aside after all my devotion and work?) to intense despair (my family and I are doomed) and even some second-guesssing (bargaining?) over what I could’ve done to avoid this. Gradually, these have subsided as I look more and more to the future and finding something new even in these turbulent times. I suppose that is acceptance.
I used the opportunity to reconnect with a lot of old coworkers and friends on social media, explained my situation, and hoping they knew of any openings. I have been overwhelmed with the response.
Due to the economic downturn, companies aren’t really hiring right now, but even so I have chatted with a lot of people I haven’t worked with years, and I was really happy to hear that yes they do want me to work for them, and will be working to find openings as they come up. It’s not a sure thing, of course, but the fact that so many friends are willing to go to bat for me is really encouraging. I am not doomed, and even if my old company sees no value in me, I feel a lot better knowing that other people still care about me, and appreciated our time together.
It shows also how people really make the difference. No one person can overcome challenges alone. We need other people. Not in the fakey, insincere “business networking” sort of way, but genuine camaraderie that comes from sharing burdens together, looking after one another, and so on. In other words, a genuine community.
I do believe some of this also relates to the Buddhist notion of karma. Whenever people discuss karma, they usually talk about it in transactional terms: you do something good, something happens to you, and vice-versa. But karma is more like laying seeds over and over again with our daily thoughts and actions. When and how these seeds will bear fruit is impossible to know, and there’s just so many of them.
My favorite Buddhist quotation on the subject is by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Ouyi Zhixu1 (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) who was a really influential teacher from the Chinese Tiantai school of Buddhism. His name in English is pronounced “Oh-ee jih-shoo”. Among his most popular treatises in English is a small texted called the Mind Seal of the Buddhas (online copy here), which looks at Pure Land Buddhist texts through a Zen eye. It’s a good read, and still one of my favorites over the years.
In Mind Seal of the Buddhas, Ouyi states the following:
Believing in the result means having deep faith that the Pure Land and all the forms of goodness (spiritually superior beings) that are assembled there are born from the Buddha Remembrance Samadhi, the meditative concentration that comes from reciting the Buddha-name. When you plant melon seeds you get melons, and when you plant beans you get beans. [Effect follows causes] like a shadow follows a physical shape, like an echo responds to a sound. Nothing is sown in vain. This is called “believing in the result”.
Translation by J. C. Clearly
The idea is that no action, thought or intention is without some kind of result. It may be a drop in the bucket, but we’re constantly scattering seeds for our future. One or two seeds might not be much, but we’re constantly scattering seeds of a certain disposition, this inevitably lays the groundwork for future conditions. Ouyi is simply pointing out the obvious.
Further, let’s look at another analogy from the Japanese Buddhist monk, Nichiren (日蓮, 1222-1282) in a letter to one of his followers:2
Blue dye comes from indigo, but when something is repeatedly dyed in it, the color is better than that of the indigo plant.
Translation from The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin by Soka Gakkai
To me, this implies (among other things), that habits and actions we do further “deepen the dye” and reinforce themselves in a kind of feedback loop. This can be positive, negative or somehow neutral, but this “habit energy” is a real thing and if we can catch negative habits and try to slow down the momentum or shift direction even in small ways, it can change the course of things.
Small seeds lead to big oak trees, afterall. 😉
Edit: According to WordPress, this is my 100th post! 🎉🎊🍾🥳
1 Because of the differing ways that Chinese language is romanized, sometimes Ouyi’s name is spelled as Ou-I Chih-Hsu instead. The spelling I posted above is the newer, more commonly used “Pinyin” spelling, and the one I recommend using personally. Pinyin is more intuitive and more internationally recognized now, though the older Wade-Giles system is still frequently used in Academia.
2 Soka Gakkai notes that this quote was also based on an earlier one by the famous Confucian Xunzi and his writings: “From the indigo, an even deeper blue.”
George Romney’s “A Procession of the Damned”, courtesy of Wikipedia
In broad tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, there is a concept called “Dharma Decline”, or “The Age of Dharma Decline” or other such names. A few sutras in the Buddhist canon (out of literally hundreds) allude to this concept, but starting with the medieval period in Asia, it became a hugely influential idea that persists even today. Dharma Decline is vaguely reminiscent of the End Times beliefs in Western religion, though considerably less dramatic.
The idea is based on the earliest Buddhist teachings that the appearance of Buddhas, that is to say a fully-awakened being capable of teachings others the Dharma, is super rare but occurs in a somewhat cyclical manner. Ancient Indian thought believed the world to be very old and would come and go in cycles. In the same way, there would be periods of enlightenment and decline. This influenced Buddhist thought in that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni (e.g. Siddhartha Gautama), was one of a long line of Buddhas to have appeared in the world.
This model doesn’t fit very well with the geological history of the Earth, since humans have only been around at most 2.5 million years, but it is what it is. 🤷🏼♂️
This notion was only mentioned in a few obscure sutras in the Pali canon, but was expanded further in Mahayana literature, such that world history would be divided into 5 phases (often conflated into 3) that in brief summary were:
The appearance of a Buddha, a period of great spiritual awakening and enlightenment. (e.g. the “turning of the wheel of the Dharma”). People are wise, live long, healthy lifespans, etc.
After the Buddha dies, the “wheel” starts to slow down more and more over time and the teachings of the Buddha become less and less potent. Quality of life gradually diminishes.
At some point of no-return, the wheel basically stops and the Buddha’s teachings fades and are corrupted so badly that society breaks down. Life at this point is short, brutal and saturated by ignorance.
The final period, also known as the Age of Dharma Decline, was the closest thing that Buddhist literature and culture had to an apocalypse. There was no dramatic sounding of trumpets, but the quality of life would worsen, life spans would be shorter, and no one would be able to practice the Dharma anymore for tens of thousands of years until another Buddha appeared.
In medieval Japan, the end of the Heian period was marked by terrible strife, warfare, famine, and by the time of the Kamakura period the social order had been totally upended when warlords seized power away from the Imperial family and the aristocrats in Kyoto. As a result, Buddhist thinkers at the time such as Honen, Shinran, Nichiren and others quite literally interpreted Japan as being in the end-times. This was a period of time, where monks would frequently interpret Buddhist sutras verbatim, just as Honen, Shinran and Nichiren all did. As described in such sutras, at some point the Buddhist teachings would no longer work, except perhaps this teaching or that. Take for example the ending of the Sutra on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life:
The Buddha further said, “I have expounded this teaching for the sake of sentient beings and enabled you to see Amitāyus and all in his land. Strive to do what you should. After I have passed into Nirvāṇa, do not allow doubt to arise. In the future, the Buddhist scriptures and teachings will perish.”
But, out of pity and compassion, I will especially preserve this sutra and maintain it in the world for a hundred years more. Those beings who encounter it will attain deliverance in accord with their aspirations
translation by Professor Charles Muller
The Lotus Sutra references the Age of Dharma Decline as well, for example in the 23rd chapter:
“If in the last five hundred year period after the Thus Come One has entered extinction there a woman who hears this sutra and carries out its practices as this sutra directs, when her life here on earth comes to an end she will immediately go to the world of Peace and Delight where the Buddha Amitayus dwells surrounded by the assembly of great bodhisattvas and there will be born seated on a jeweled seat in the center of a lotus blossom….For this reason, Constellation King Flower, I entrust this chapter on the Former Affairs of the Bodhisattva Medicine King to you. After I pass into extinction, in the last five hundred period you must spread it abroad widely throughout Jambudvipa and never allowed to be cut off….
translation by Professor Burton Watson
In light of all this, Buddhist teachers at the time actively sought that one thing that would they could still rely on in the dark age when everything else had fallen apart. For Honen/Shinran it was reliance on the Buddha Amitabha, for Nichiren it was the Lotus Sutra (and his innovative chant in praise of it).
This literal interpretation of the Buddhist texts also tended to favor exclusively Mahayana teachings at the expense of older teachings, since some early Mahayana sutras (cf. the Virmalakirti Sutra) tended to trash the “old guard” Buddhists. In the same way, Kamakura-Era Buddhism also tended to trash the old monastic establishment, which admittedly had grown pretty corrupt thanks to an unhealthy association with political power at the time.
The focus of these Buddhist sects was mass-appeal. The more venerable Buddhist teachings no longer worked due to the condition of the times (not the teachings themselves), and in line with Mahayana-Buddhist compassion towards all beings, these thinkers, among others like Ippen, tried to spread any teaching they could that would help the masses escape a terrible fate being reborn over and over in a world of strife and danger.
But what about other Buddhist sects in Japan at the time? In various degrees, the fear of Dharma-Decline affected them all, but some more than others. The old-guard sects like Tendai and Shingon Buddhism accepted the notion of Dharma-Decline, especially Tendai Buddhism.1Genshin’s influential Ojoyoshu was a Tendai-centered treatise on the importance of seeking the Pure Land in the Age of Dharma Decline.
Zen was not above Dharma Decline either.2 One one article on JSTOR,3 quotes Eisai, founder of Rinzai Zen, wrote:
The Prajñā, Lotus and Nirvana Sutras all teach the meditational practice of zazen for the last age. If it did not suit the people’s capacity in these latter days, the Buddha would not have taught this. For this reason, the people of the great Sung [Dynasty] nation avidly practice Zen. They err, who, in ignorance of zazen, hold that Buddhism has fallen into decline.
Having said all that, I think that there are some problems with the premises of Dharma Decline. This is *not* a criticism of Buddhist sects and teachers, but Dharma Decline itself.
First, the situation in Japan at the time that spurned Dharma Decline was based on specific historical events and the cultural environment at the time, but obviously this doesn’t apply to the rest of the world at the time. Where Japan saw societal decline, other societies probably prospered. Eisai’s comment about Song Dynasty China is interesting since the Song Dynasty was near its zenith, so tying Dharma Decline to political/historical events probably doesn’t make much sense anyway. Basically, it was a pretty subjective world viewpoint.
Second, as alluded to above, Dharma Decline, if taken at face-value, relies on a specific world-view in ancient India that doesn’t fit well into modern notions of historiography and geology. For example, lifespans are typically _longer_ than before, and humans haven’t been around long enough for a series of Buddhas to appear across the eons (kalpas). The quality of life is arguably *better* than before, not less, and the Buddhist community still has good Buddhist teachers, both famous and more local. Dharma Decline hasn’t really panned out as predicted in old Buddhist literature.
However, one can argue that since the appearance of Shakyamuni Buddha, there is a more general sense of decline, and this may very well be true.
The stock, five periods of increasing decline are too formulaic to realistically apply to anything, but the idea of things declining is very Buddhist. Afterall, all condition phenomena are inherently empty. Buddhism as a religious institution (not the Dharma itself) therefore would be subject to the same changes and decline.
Which leaves us with an awkward question: are Buddhist teachings based on Dharma Decline even relevant anymore?
It’s fair to say that Buddhism now is pretty different than it was in 5th century BCE India, but is it realistic to try and wind back the clock to that era? Are all the “cultural accretions” and innovations that have come since a bad thing? Or do they reflect Buddhism as a continuously evolving religion rather than a moribund one?
On the other hand, at what point does the religion change and evolve that it loses its original essence, that it doesn’t really reflect the Buddha’s teachings anymore.
This is just one layman’s opinion, but if I had to distill the Buddha’s teachings, it involves three facets:
Moral conduct – Buddhism has various “lists” of precepts, but they all tend to follow the same pattern: a blameless life of dignity toward oneself and others.
Cultivation – The Buddha definitely did not want followers being idle. Buddhism wasn’t meant to be a mental exercise. Everything from the precepts to meditation practices were meant to be training on some level or another.
Wisdom – The Buddha placed heavy emphasis on the importance of insight, not beliefs. Cultivation and moral conduct were both meant to facilitate this.
So, I suppose that if we’re looking for a measuring stick of various Buddhist teachings today, they need to be able to conform (again, just my opinion) to these general guidelines in order to still be a genuine continuation of the Buddhist tradition.
A literal reading into some of the Buddhist sutras (need I remind readers that none of them were written anything less than 400 years after the Buddha, some much later) isn’t really a good use of one’s time, but reflecting on them in the light of the general Buddhist principles outlined above helps put them into context, while still keeping on grounded here and now on one’s path.
But at the same time the tradition, warts and all, is important to Buddhism and shouldn’t be tossed out with the bath water. Nor need we be bound by it though.
1 Ironically, teachers like Honen, Shinran, Nichiren and Ippen were all former Tendai monks.
2 Contrary to what modern Zen Buddhists tend to think.
3 Stone, Jackie. “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism: PART II.” The Eastern Buddhist, vol. 18, no. 2, 1985, pp. 35–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44346128. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020.
Having been a Buddhist more or less since 2005, I’ve come to realize that there is no “magic” teaching or practice that you can follow to fruition and become a fully-awakened Buddha. Of course, it’s natural to start with one teaching/practice as your starting point, but in the end Buddhism is a holistic religion. Anything that interprets Buddhism otherwise is a doctrinal house of cards.
The quotation I posted above illustrates what I think is a more balanced approach to Buddhism whereby one’s goal is fixed on awakening, and different “tools” are employed toward that end. Because of the depth and breadth of Buddhism, many such tools exist, and sometimes what works at one point in life might not work in another. Further, these tools are not mutually exclusive.
Tiantai Buddhism was the first natively “East Asian” Buddhist school in Chinese history, and by extension the rest of East Asian Buddhism. Its founder, a monk named Zhiyi (538–597, pronounced “Jih-ee”), didn’t borrow existing Indian systems of understanding of the Buddhist teachings, but developed a system of his own to make sense of the massive amounts of content that had been imported from India, and to develop a system of understanding based around this new classification.
Among the most important innovations made by Zhiyi and early Tiantai thinkers was the Three Marks of Existence (三諦, san-di):
空 – Existence is empty (lit. Śūnyatā in Sanskrit), that is to say they have no lasting, permanent substance.
仮 – Have phenomena have a provisional existence, meaning they depend on external causes and conditions to sustain them.
中 – All things exist as a middle ground between empty and provisional.
For Tiantai Buddhism (incl. Japanese Tendai Buddhism), being able to not just know this intellectually, but be able to perceive all this leads to the highest awakening.
Further, this lead to another related teaching call the “3,000 realms in a single thought”. Meaning, that within a single thought-moment, one can manifest any number of states, including:
The ten paths of living: hell, hungry ghosts, animals, asuras, humans, devas, buddhist disciples, pratyeka-buddhas, bodhisattvas, and buddhas.
The potential for transitioning to any of the other ten paths.
The ten factors of life, which appears near the beginning of the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra:
The true entity of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas. This reality consists of the appearance, nature, entity, power, influence, inherent cause, relation, latent effect, manifest effect, and their consistency from beginning to end.translation by Burton Watson
And finally (I promise) the three realms of existence: self, other and the greater environment.
So, according to Zhiyi 10 × 10 × 10 × 3 equals 3000 possibilities at any moment, all within one’s mind, constantly shifting and transitioning from one state to another, from one perspective to another, and so on.
If that gives you a headache, you’re not alone. Feel free to sit down and have a drink, I’ll wait.
What makes Zhiyi and the Tiantai school of thought so interesting is the powerful schema they used to describe the world, and how to apply it. These teachings aren’t just fun mental exercises for philosophers, they were meant to be applied. By grasping the three truths, even if only partially, one can avoid getting caught up in a lot of silly minutiae, and by practicing the Buddhist teachings (applying them to real life), one at least can grasp their own latent potential for being a buddha, even if only for a thought-moment.
(A reprint of Honen’s calligraphy, which I found in a Jodo Shu liturgy book)
For anyone who’s come across the Pure Land tradition in Buddhism, they will have almost certainly heard like terms “nenbutsu”, “nian-fo” and such. Pure Land Buddhism is a long, broad tradition within the even broader Mahayana Buddhism. But if I had to distill it into a 30-second explanation, the tradition is based on devotion to Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, who vowed to rescue all beings and enable them to also reach enlightenment more easily within the safety of his Pure Land. In the original Sanskrit, this Pure Land is called Sukhavati.
(warning: this post is a bit long … sorry)
Since Pure Land Buddhists are devoted to Amitabha, and aspire to be reborn in this Pure Land, a major focus is on how to get to the Pure Land. The Buddhist sutras that focus on the Pure Land offer a number of overlapping explanations, with some contradictions (more on that later). While all Pure Land Buddhists agree on the compassionate nature of Amitabha Buddha and the potential for Enlightenment for anyone reborn there, when we get to specifics, things get tricky.
Nowadays, the most common tradition is through reciting something called the nembutsu (Japanese) or nian-fo (Chinese), etc. Usually this a stock phrase such as:
Phrase
Language
Native Script
Nā-mó Ē-mí-tuó-fó
Chinese
Traditional: 南無阿彌陀佛 Simplified: 南无阿弥陀佛
Namu Amida Butsu
Japanese
Kanji: 南無阿弥陀仏 Hiragana: なむ あみだ ぶつ
Namu Amita Bul
Korean
Hanja: 南無阿彌陀佛 Hangul: 나무아미타불
Nam mô A Di Đà Phật
Vietnamese
n/a
…and so on. These all mean the same thing: “Hail to Amitabha Buddha”, but are just recited in different languages, and all of them adapted from the original Sanskrit phrase (which is not precisely known anymore) via Classical Chinese. Technically it’s not reciting the name only, and there are even other, more elaborate variations to this phrase, but this is the most common practice for devotees to the Pure Land.
The basis for this practices comes from two places, among others. First, in the Sutra on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (a.k.a. “the Larger Sutra”) the 18th vow out of 48 of the Buddha-to-be is:
If, when I attain Buddhahood, sentient beings in the lands of the ten quarters who sincerely and joyfully entrust themselves to me, desire to be born in my land, and call my Name, even ten times, should not be born there, may I not attain perfect Enlightenment. Excluded, however, are those who commit the five gravest offences and abuse the right Dharma.
translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki
and also the Contemplation of Amitabha Sutra, which at the very end lists the 9 grades of followers who will attain rebirth in the Pure Land:
‘…On the eve of death he will meet a good and learned teacher who will, soothing and encouraging him in various ways, preach to him the excellent Dharma and teach him the remembrance of Buddha, but, being harassed by pains, he will have no time to think of Buddha. Some good friend will then say to him: “Even if you cannot exercise the remembrance of Buddha, you may, at least, utter the name, “Buddha Amitayus.” Let him do so serenely with his voice uninterrupted; let him be (continually) thinking of Buddha until he has completed ten times the thought, repeating the formula, “Adoration to Buddha Amitayus” (Namah Amitabha Buddhayah, Namu Amida Butsu). On the strength of his merit of uttering that Buddha’s name he will, during every repetition, expiate the sins which involved him in births and deaths during eighty million kalpas. He will, while dying, see a golden lotus-flower like the disk of the sun appearing before his eyes; in a moment he will be born in the World of Highest Happiness….’
translation by J. Takakusu
So, when most people think of Pure Land Buddhism, this is what they think of: reciting the nembutsu/nianfo and aspiring to reborn in the Pure Land. This is how I understood it for a long, long time, too.
However, while reading my new book, I came to realize that this is only part of the story! It turns out that for much of Pure Land Buddhist history reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha was only part of the practice. For example, early proponents and teachers of Pure Land Buddhism in both China and India focused on Pure Land Buddhism as a form of meditation and visualization. Verbal recitation was supplemental.
This was, as with verbal recitation, also based on the same sutras. The Contemplation Sutra cited above is almost entirely devoted to detailed visual descriptions of the Pure Land and of Amitabha Buddha, among other things, and the benefits of fixing one’s mind on them in meditation:
‘When this perception has been formed, you should meditate on its (constituents) one by one and make (the images) as clear as possible, so that they may never be scattered and lost, whether your eyes be shut or open. Except only during the time of your sleep, you should always keep this in your mind. One who has reached this (stage of) perception is said to have dimly seen the Land of Highest Happiness (Sukhavati).’
translation by J. Takakusu
The verbal component, despite being singled out by later commentators, only occurs at the very end of the sutra.
Elsewhere, in the Amitabha Sutra (a.k.a. “The Smaller Sutra”), is the following line:
Shariputra, if there be a good man or a good woman, who, on hearing of Buddha Amitayus, keeps his name (in mind) with thoughts undisturbed for one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, six days, or seven days…
translation by Nishu Utsuki, The Educational Department of the West Hongwanji (1924)
And finally, the historically oldest Buddhist sutra that talks about Amitabha Buddha, the Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra, says:
The Buddha said to Bhadrapala, “If you hold to this method of practice, you will attain the samadhi in which all the present Buddhas appear before you. If a bhiksu, bhiksuni, upasaka or upasika wants to practice according to the prescribed method, he or she should strictly observe the precepts, dwell alone in a place and contemplate Amida Buddha of the western quarter where he lives now. According to the teaching received, one should remember: ten million kotis of Buddha-lands away from here, there is a land called ‘Sukhavati.’ Contemplate this land with singleness of mind, for a day and night up to seven days and nights. The seventh day having passed, one will see it.
translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki
Examples of this in practice started in early Chinese-Buddhist history with the famous monk Zhiyi who founded the highly influential Tiantai school. Zhiyi wrote a treatise called Mohe Zhiguan (摩訶止観, “The Great Contemplation and Abiding”) in which he laid out multiple practices for attaining samadhi (deep insight and concentration). One of these was called the “constantly walking samadhi” which involved circumambulating around a statue of Amitabha Buddha for 90 days without rest without stopping constantly reciting the Buddha’s name while holding a very detailed image of the Buddha preaching in the Pure Land.
Later, the focus shifted toward a more devotional practice in China starting with Tanluan (曇鸞, 476–542), one of the pioneers of Pure Land Buddhism. Tanluan wrote that in addition to arousing the aspiration to be enlightened:
If a son of good family or daughter of good family cultivates the five gates of mindfulness and perfects their practice, they will ultimately be able to gain birth in the Country of Peace and Bliss and behold Amida Buddha
translation by Robert F. Rhodes, “Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan”
Later, Daochuo (道綽, 562–645) reaffirmed the importance of awakening the aspiration for enlightenment, in addition to reciting the Buddha’s name at the time of death, and also by attaining the “nembutsu samadhi”. Robert F. Rhodes implies that this “samadhi” was a combination of reciting the Buddha’s name as a tool for fixing one’s mind on the Buddha.
This practice extended into medieval Japan. The picture below is from an early work of Japanese Buddhist art attributed to a Nara Period-era monk named Chikō (智光, 709 – 770 or 781) who belonged to the Japanese branch of the San-lun (Sanron in Japanese) sect of Buddhism.
The “Chiko Mandala” (智光曼荼羅) depicting the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, attributed to Chikō. This version is a copy made in the Kamakura Period, while the original was made centuries earlier in the Nara Period.
Chikō wrote in the Muryōjukyōron Shaku (無量寿経論釋, “Commentaries on the Treatise on the Sutra of Immeasurable Life”):
There are two types of nembutsu. The first is the mental nembutsu (shinnen 心念) and the second is the vocal nembutsu (kunen 口念)….As for the vocal nembutsu, if you lack the power (to undertake the mental nembutsu), use your mouth (to recite the nembutsu as a means) to remain mindful of the buddha and to prevent your mind from becoming distracted. In this way, you can achieve mental concentration.
translation by Robert F. Rhodes
What’s interesting is that all of these monks, both in China and in early Japanese history, focused on Buddhist practices that focused primarily on visualization in keeping with the sutras, but that the verbal recitation as a complementary or support practice. This is further complicated in Asian languages because the Chinese characters for nenbutsu/nianfo are 念仏1 whereby 念 refers to the mind (e.g. thoughts, feelings, etc) and 仏 is the generic term for a Buddha. So, this can mean things like “bringing a Buddha (usually Amitabha) to mind”, or “recalling a Buddha”, or “holding a Buddha in one’s thoughts”.
The Taima Mandala, another famous Pure Land “mandala” from that era. More on that in another blog post.
To further complicate things, as we’ve seen above, this recalling of the Buddha is often conflated with the Buddha’s name since that presumably requires one to think of the Buddha as one is saying. This often happens so much so that when most people talk about the nenbutsu/nianfo, they’re talking about the verbal recitation only. This trend was further accelerated in 12th Century Japan when populist Buddhist movements such as Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu started. In order appeal to as many people as possible, meditation aspects of the Pure Land were eschewed and complete reliance on the name of Amitabha (e.g. verbal nembutsu) in some way or another became the core practice. At times in Japanese-Buddhist history, the name itself has become an object of meditation, but only so much. Pure Land Buddhist became much more widely popular after this time, but at the cost of the streamlining the practice to the verbal nembutsu only, then justifying this approach retroactively in various writings.
One thing that we haven’t touched on yet is the fact that many of these visualization practices were written by, and practiced by, the monastic community. The monastic community was the target audience since the monastic community comprised of bikkhus (monks) and bikkhunis (nuns) who had given up worldly pursuits in order to devote themselves full-time to practicing the Buddhist path full time. While the history of Buddhist monasticism even to the present day has its scallywags, there were monks and nuns who really did try to put these various meditation exercises, circumambulations, and verbal+visual practices to use.
But this leaves us with a problem: what is the Nembutsu? Is it the meditative practice, or the recitation?
It’s clear from the early tradition that the visual/meditative nembutsu was the intention, but it’s also clear that over time this proved elaborate and impractical, hence later generations have emphasized the verbal nembutsu, even though the meditative nembutsu is more inline with the overall Buddhist tradition.2. This leaves a tricky conundrum: expediency vs. efficacy (or doctrinal orthodoxy).
My $0.02 as a non-ordained, amateur Buddhist with too much time on his hands (and who doesn’t want to get sued) is that both are still needed. Mahayana Buddhism in the early years seems to have suffered a tendency of trying to “out-do” itself over and over in the literature until the practices and levels of attainment simply weren’t realistic anymore. A look at the Sutra of the 10 Stages within the massive Flower Garland Sutra will frighten all but the most dedicated Buddhists. Not surprisingly, as these teachings established roots in China (and cultures on its periphery), a culture that was radically different from India, reaction movements like Zen and Pure Land and Tiantai schools arose to basically “fix this”. Like software patches to fix the initial release.
But I think the core essence of the Pure Land tradition is still important and we can still learn from it, but not necessarily be bound by it. Nor do we have to follow the strict orthodoxy of newer “populist sects” either. They were products of their time, and outlook on the world, and not all of it applies to now.
In any case, meditation practice is still one of the most fundamental practices in Buddhism, and it doesn’t have to be a terrible slog either as described in places like in the Contemplation Sutra. In the excellent book The Way to Buddhahood, but the late Venerable Yin-Shun, he spent some time explaining how basic visualization meditation works. I’ll post this in a separate article, but the gist was that one should hold an image of Amitabha (or any Buddha or Bodhisattva) that one has seen (e.g. from a work or art, etc) in mind as they meditate. This is similar to mindfulness of the breath, but visually oriented. One can also supplement with reciting the verbal nembutsu as well.
At the same time, it’s easy for this practice to get in the way of itself. People who are perfectionists or suffer from “imposter syndrome” will begin worrying about their inability to focus their mind, doubt that they’re making progress, etc. In other words, their self-doubt and unrealistic drive to perfection will get in the way. This could happen just as easily with any other form of Buddhist practice, though. It does require a little bit of, dare I say it, faith in the practice and the Dharma, but also faith in oneself. 😉
Because Buddhist practice has a therapeutic side to it, I think it’s important to keep the practice simple, realistic, flexible and even a little pleasant. Not pleasant in the sense of whacked-out mental states, but in the sense of a calm, abiding joy. Find an image of Amitabha Buddha you like, find inspiration in the beautiful images of the Pure Land described in the Amitabha Sutra, find a reasonable period of time in your day (3 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever) and just try it. You can refine the process as you go, so long as you keep the right intentions in mind.
Meditation, like all Buddhist practices, is a process of emotional growth, insight into things, and fostering goodwill toward others. As long as you keep these things in mind, the rest will work itself out one way or another.
May the Light of Amitabha Buddha shine upon all beings! Namu Amida Butsu.
1 in traditional Chinese characters, it is written as 念佛. You’ll see this in places like Taiwan, but even in Chinese/Japanese temples and sources that predate the reformation of Chinese characters.
2 meditating on Buddhist figures is nothing new. Even Shakyamuni said there was some value in contemplating his own form, though he also downplayed the devotional side quite a bit.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 
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