zuotian | Religious Purity and the Pure Land

As a Pure Land Buddhist this passage in The Buddha before Buddhism by Gil Fronsdal was especially interesting to me. For comparison, here are excerpts from the Suddatthaka sutra, the Teaching of the Buddha by Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, and an essay entitled Shinran's Non-discriminating Universal Faith by Dr. Bloom.

No true brahmin speaks of purity in terms of something other

Or in terms of virtue, religious observance
Or what is seen heard or thought out.

Merit and evil do not adhere to someone

Who has left behind what's grasped,

Who doesn't make up anything here

Therefore, Buddha gives a power to faith that leads people to the Pure Land, a power that purifies them, a power that protects them from self-delusion. Even if they have faith for only a moment, when they hear Buddha's name praised all over the world, they will be lead to His Pure Land. Faith is not something added to the world mind - it is the manifestation of the mind's Buddha-nature. One who understands Buddha is a Buddha himself...

...One should never forget that it is not because of one's own compassion that one has awakened faith, but because of the Buddha's compassion which long ago threw its pure light of faith into human minds and dispelled the darkness of their ignorance. He who enjoys the present faith has entered into their heritage. Even living an ordinary life, one can be born in the Pure Land, if he awakens faith through the Buddha's long continued compassion.

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Shinran’s rejection of external criteria to judge a person’s entrusting or faith implies that we should not seek reality outside or apart from ourselves. Religious traditions, however, objectify and externalize spiritual reality. Hence people find their spiritual security believing in systems of doctrine, performing rituals, and heeding hierarchies of control. Buddhism from its beginning has stressed the delusory nature of the external world. In the Zen tradition there is the challenge, if you meet the Buddha, kill him. That is, you must discard the thought of the Buddha as something outside yourself...

...Amida Buddha is not one Buddha among other Buddhas. Shinran understood Amida Buddha as the supreme reality which embraces all beings and is our true self with. According to Shinran, Amida is the upaya-compassionate means by which we know inconceivable, formless reality as it is. Shinran’s rejection of external criteria measuring true entrusting correlates with Amida as our deepest inner reality which expresses itself in our aspiration for a higher life, for truth, for meaning. In traditional Buddhist terms, true entrusting is the expression of Buddha nature. Great Shinjin, true entrusting is the realization of Amida’s true mind within our heart-mind.

The rejection of external criteria for measuring other people’s faith means also to reject control over other people. With no external criteria, no institution can claim to judge who has or does not have it. No individual can judge anoth er.We no longer have means to judge another person’s spiritual status. Shin Buddhism offers spiritual liberation and advocates a spiritual brotherhood, a fellowship of equal companions in practicing the faith (dobo-dogyo). Hierarchy and elitism that marks religion generally is absent from Shinran’s teaching and is clear when he declares that he has no disciples and refuses to excommunicate a follower (Tannisho). He refused to excommunicate an errant disciple, because, as he said, it is Amida Buddha who has given faith to both Shinran and the disciple. Therefore, it was not for Shinran to take back.

(http://bschawaii.org/shindharmanet/non-discriminating/)

It is interesting to me how these texts all conglomerate. A sutra from the so-called beginning of Buddhism resonates in a Japanese sect hundreds years later. The truth echoes through all corridors.

Purity seems to have different contexts. In the Suddatthaka it is viewed as religious superiority, similar to the purity as contrasted by sin. The Buddha renounces this, saying a persons religious observances do not make them pure or impure. In fact, religious observances themselves are means of attachment and craving. One should ideally let go of these views, "neither passionate for passion or obsessed by dispassion." Right and wrong hold no value. (Where have I heard that before? Practicing just as you are, regardless of individual merit?)

It is interesting that this sutra, in denouncing the religious practices of the time, concurrently implies a more favorable religious practice. And it has often been said that Pure Land is the "most religious" sect of Buddhism there is.

How well then does Pure Land follow through? Ask Shinran...

In the second quote, purity means a cleansing by the dharma and faith. What is this faith? It is the faith in the nembutsu. By paying homage to Amida, we manifest the ultimate compassion within ourselves. As Dr. Bloom explains, Amida is the Ultimate Reality. Amida is the dharmakaya - the dharma within the purity mentioned - manifested into the celestial sambhogakaya. This is why Amida's Light, Life, and Compassion are limitless, because he represents reality itself, the all-encompassing Buddha nature which permeates the whole universe and all within it.

With Amida, there is no need for any religious observances. In fact, Honen himself said that they are irrelevant to the workings of the nembutsu in the Ichimai-kishomon or One Sheet Document he authored before his passing.

Even if those who believe in the nembutsu study the teaching which Shakyamuni taught his whole life, they should not put on any airs and should sincerely practice the nembutsu, just as an illiterate fool, a nun or one who is ignorant of Buddhism.

In the end, purity has three meanings here. Religious superiority, as denounced in the Suddatthaka, a cleansing as mentioned in The Teaching of the Buddha, and basic reality boiled down, as explained by Dr. Bloom. The latter meaning holds the most importance, evidenced by Honen's emphasis on the nembutsu. Through the nembutsu one has a direct connection to Amida, and through Amida, reality itself.