As Bloom describes it, Shinran’s “Pure Land teaching is an inclusive, human faith. It is non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, egalitarian, non-superstitious religious faith. Through deepening religious understanding it liberates people from religious intimidation and oppression, which trade on the ignorance of people and their desire for security. Shinran’s teaching does not encourage blind faith at the expense of one’s reason and understanding.”
To counter common misconceptions of the Pure Land tradition, particularly among Western convert Buddhists, Bloom takes care to point out Shinran’s vigorous opposition to superstition and ignorance. Pure Land Buddhism has some superficial similarities to monotheism, which sometimes leads to ill-informed characterizations of Jodo Shinshu and related traditions by disgruntled ex-Christians. However, any similarities between Pure Land and Christianity are far fewer than overlaps between Vajrayana and Hinduism, for example, or Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. If anything, we could say that Pure Land takes advantage of the strengths of a rather Unitarian quasi-monotheistic religious approach but does so within a context of Buddhist insight into emptiness and liberation.
By Shinran’s time the vast pantheon of Mahayana Buddhism had multiplied to the point where there was a Buddha or spirit under virtually every stone, all demanding veneration through prayer, ritual, and (sometimes expensive) offerings and ceremonies. Pure Land’s focus on Amida Buddha—a single figure representing wisdom, compassion, and nirvana—was a way of cutting through the pomp and superstition surrounding Japanese Buddhism and returning to core principles, while at the same time maintaining a devotional practice for ordinary laypeople who couldn’t hope to meditate at length or adhere to hundreds of monastic precepts. In The Essential Shinran, Bloom elucidates the thoroughly Mahayana Buddhist foundation of Shinran’s ideas about reliance on Amida Buddha:
Though this teaching may appear similar to ideas in Western religion, there is a world of difference resulting from its root in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Mahayana teaching distinguishes between conventional thought and belief and the truth of the absolute realm. The level of conventional thought denotes thinking based on naive realism and objectivity. Such knowledge informs our egocentrism and perpetuates our ignorance of our true nature and of the world. The absolute truth, while inconceivable and inexpressible, exposes the unreality and distortions created by our delusory, self-centered knowledge and interests. The Mahayana perspective on religion rejects the literalism, dogmatism, objectivism, and moralism found in many religious traditions. Mahayana Buddhism recognizes that all people are at different stages of spiritual development and affirms people as they are. It is a more accepting, compassionate teaching.
THE DIALECTIC between truth in its ultimate nature and in its form adapted to our current capacities is the engine that drove Shinran’s quest for an authentic Buddhist spirituality available to everyone, not just monks and members of the elite. This distinction between absolute and conventional truth appears in his core teachings, as numerous passages of The Essential Shinran demonstrate. For example, Shinran wrote: “Supreme Buddha is formless, and because of being formless is called jinen (naturalness). Buddha, when appearing with form, is not called supreme nirvana. In order to make it known that supreme Buddha is formless (emptiness), the name Amida Buddha is expressly used; so I have been taught.” Shinran and his school understand Amida to be a symbol for the Buddha-nature that all beings are universally endowed with. Because Amida’s light embraces all beings and never abandons anyone, all creatures without exception will be liberated from suffering and ignorance.
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