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Pure Land Buddhism
Although its roots are in India and China, Pure Land Buddhism has become especially popular in
Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Pure Land Buddhism has many more adherents in contemporary Japan
than any other form of Buddhism, and yet it has received much less attention from Western
scholars than other forms of Buddhism.
Some scholars suggest that, paradoxically, the similarity of Pure Land Buddhism to Protestant
Christianity has actually resulted in reduced interest among Western scholars in it. Jan Van Bragt
claims that “the West is mainly interested in Buddhism as its antipode, partly in mistrust of its
own religious tradition. It is therefore most attracted to these forms of Buddhism wherein that
antipodal character appears most clearly – Theravada, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism. The Pure Land
school, on the other hand, is perceived as very close to Christianity and far removed from the
mainstream of Buddhism.” [J. Van Bragt, “Buddhism - Jodo Shinshu - Christianity”, p. 47]
The textual basis for the Pure Land tradition is primarily in the Larger and Shorter SukhavatiVyuha [Land of Bliss] sutras, written probably in the late second century A.D.
These sutras speak of the Buddha Amitabha (Amida or Amitayus), who was earlier known as
the bodhisattva Dharmakara. Under the guidance of the Buddha Lokesvararaja, Dharmakara
meditated upon the many Buddha lands, contemplating the virtues of each one. He decided to
integrate all the perfections of the various Buddha lands into one land of supreme purity and bliss,
the Pure Land. Dharmakara then made a series of vows, stipulating that unless 48 conditions
governing the Pure Land and the conditions for all sentient beings entering it were fulfilled, he
would not become a fully enlightened Buddha in nirvana.
The 18th Vow became central to the Pure Land traditions:
If, after my attaining Buddhahood, all beings in the ten quarters should not desire in
sincerity and trustfulness to be born in my country, and if they should not be born by only
thinking of me ten times, except those who have committed the five grave offences and
those who are abusive of the true Dharma, may I not attain the Highest Enlightenment.
Over an enormous period of time Dharmakara devoted himself to the practice of good deeds in
order to accumulate enough merit to fulfill his vows and save all sentient beings. Dharmakara
became the Buddha Amitabha, and he now resides in the Pure Land, or Western Paradise.
Because of his vast store of merit, Amitabha is able to assist others to gain rebirth in the Pure
Land.
The Larger Sukhavati-Vyuha sutra was translated into Chinese in the second century and by the
sixth century there was a growing Amitabha movement in China. The Pure Land tradition
developed in China through three influential patriarchs.
T'an-luan (476-542 A.D.) made a critical distinction between "self-power" and "other power" in
attaining salvation. He held that, whereas in earlier times it was possible to attain enlightenment
through one’s own efforts, the world had now entered such a degenerate stage that this was
virtually impossible. By relying upon the “other power” of Amitabha, however, one can be reborn
into the Pure Land and there will certainly achieve enlightenment. The key to such rebirth is
proper recitation of the name of Amitabha. “To repeat constantly the name of Amitabha with a
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unified mind is to purify the mind of all its sins, and to ensure rebirth in the Pure Land, which is
ultimately enlightenment itself.” [Paul Williams]
Tao-ch’o (562-645 A.D.) further clarified the two ways of salvation -- the Holy Path (Japanese:
Shodomon) and the Gate of the Pure Land (Jodomon). The Holy Path is the way of the sages, the
difficult path which relies upon self-power, and is open only to a very few. The Gate of the Pure
Land is the easier path, open to all beings, and assures salvation through reliance upon the merit
of Amitabha Buddha.
Shan-tao (613-681 A.D.), regarded by some Japanese Pure Land traditions as an incarnation of
Amitabha, emphasized evil and suffering as endemic to human existence. Shan-tao acknowledged
his own moral bankruptcy and inability to save himself, stating, “I am actually an ordinary sinful
being who has been, from time immemorial, sunken in and carried down by the current of birthand-death. Any hope to be helped out of this current has been wholly denied to me.”
The Pure Land traditions became established in Japan through the monk Honen and his
remarkable disciple Shinran, who lived at a time of significant social upheaval – civil war,
famine, disease, and rampant corruption among the Buddhist hierarchy.
Honen (1133-1212) became the founder of the Jodo Shu (Pure Land) and Shinran the founder of
Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) or Shin Buddhism. Honen studied initially at the great Tendai
Buddhist center at Mt. Hiei, outside Kyoto, but he became disillusioned with the established
Buddhist schools and left to study under a master of the Pure Land tradition. He became
convinced that Japan had entered the “latter days of the Law" -- a period when Buddhist
teachings become so degenerate that attaining salvation through one's own efforts is all but
impossible. In 1175, while reading Shan-tao's commentary on a Pure Land text, Honen had the
realization that the only path to salvation was to declare one's absolute faith in Amida's vow to
save all sentient beings, and to engage in "single-practice nembutsu” (recitation of the name of
Amida: "Namu Amida Butsu”). Honen further held that constant repetition of the nembutsu
ensures continual purification of the mind and body, removes all doubt, can lead to enlightenment
(satori) in this life, and results in rebirth in the Pure Land.
Although Honen maintained that nothing else was needed for salvation apart from proper
recitation of the nembutsu, his teaching was ambiguous at points. For example, the nature of the
recitation itself still seems to determine the efficacy of reciting the nembutsu. Honen states,
Even though through the days and years of life, you have piled up much merit by the
practice of the Nembutsu, if at the time of death you come under the spell of some evil,
and at the end give way to an evil heart, and lose the power of faith in the practice of the
Nembutsu, it means that you lose that birth into the Pure Land immediately after death….
Sometimes a man dies from being choked when taking a meal. Now I say, call upon the
sacred name every time you chew your food and swallow it.
Thus, in spite of his explicit rejection of self-power (jiriki) in attaining salvation, and his call for
complete reliance upon faith in other power of Amida, it seems that implicit in Honen’s teaching
is a kind of self-effort in salvation.
The ambiguity between “self power and “other power” was clarified by Honen’s remarkable
disciple Shinran (1173-1262). Both Honen and Shinran were persecuted by the Buddhist
establishment – in part because of the perceived antinomian implications of Pure Land teachings
– and Shinran was exiled for a time to northern Japan. There he adopted the life of a lay believer,
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married and raised a family, and became an enormously popular religious leader. The Amida cult
spread rapidly among the masses, as Shinran emphasized that it is within the context of ordinary
everyday activities, not by retiring to a monastery, that one must seek salvation. Rebirth in the
Pure Land was now said to be open to people of all classes and does not depend upon rigorous
self-discipline, meditation, or study.
Although Shinran followed Honen in most respects, he had a more penetrating understanding of
human limitations and of the all-sufficiency of Amida's grace. Shinran had an acute sense of
human sin and evil, and the radical inability of humankind to save itself.
Even though I take refuge in the Jodo Shinshu [True Sect of the Pure Land]
It is difficult to have a mind of truth.
I am false and untrue,
And without the least purity of mind.
We men in our outward forms
Display wisdom, goodness, and purity.
Since greed, anger, evil, and deceit are frequent,
We are filled with naught but flattery.
With our evil natures hard to subdue,
Our minds are like asps and scorpions.
As the practice of virtue is mixed poison,
We call it false, vain practice.
Human evil and helplessness magnify the compassionate action of Amida on our behalf.
Whereas many would assume that the chances of a “good person” being reborn into the Pure
Land are greater than those of an “evil person”, Shinran rejects this. Shinran claims,
Even a good person can attain birth in the Pure Land, so it goes without saying that an
evil person will. Though such is the truth, people commonly say, “Even an evil person
attains birth, so naturally a good person will.” This statement may seem well-founded at
first, but it runs counter to the meaning of Other Power established through the Primal
Vow. For a person who relies on the good he does through his self-power fails to entrust
himself wholeheartedly to Other Power and therefore is not in accord with Amida’s
Primal Vow. But when he abandons his attachment to self-power and entrusts himself
wholly to Other Power, he will realize birth in the Pure Land. It is impossible for us,
filled as we are with blind passions, to free ourselves from birth-and-death through any
practice whatever. Sorrowing at this, Amida made the Vow, the essential intent of which
is the attainment of Buddhahood by the person who is evil. Hence the evil person who
entrusts himself to Other Power is precisely the one who possesses the true cause for
rebirth.
Moreover, Shinran, unlike Honen, clearly rejected the idea that there is anything meritorious in
the recitation of the nembutsu. It is not the act of reciting the nembutsu, but the faith -- shinjin,
arising from sincere trust in Amida -- in accordance with which the nembutsu is recited, that
produces rebirth in the Pure Land.
But even having faith in Amida is not itself anything meritorious since it is actually the Amida
Buddha who enables the “arising of faith” within the individual in the first place. Here Shinran’s
thought reflects the East Asian Mahayana emphasis upon the universal Buddha nature inherent
within all beings.
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Not surprisingly, Shinran has been compared to the Christian Protestant Reformer Martin Luther,
who similarly emphasized salvation by faith alone. However, the similarities should not be
exaggerated. For although there are some fascinating parallels between Shinran and Luther, the
overall framework within which each speaks about evil, grace, faith and salvation is very
different.
Similarities between Shinran (1173-1262) / Pure Land Buddhism and Protestant
Christianity:
1. There is remarkable similarity in the lives of Shinran and the Reformer Martin Luther.
2. Both Shinran and Protestant Christianity acknowledge that there is nothing that we can do to
merit or earn the desired soteriological goal (rebirth in the Pure Land and salvation, respectively).
It is only by relying upon “other power” (Amida’s merit, God’s grace) that we can attain the
desired end.
3. For both Shinran and Protestant Christianity, “faith” is an integral component in the reliance
upon the other and attaining the desired soteriological end. Furthermore, for both having faith is
not itself meritorious since the presence of faith is itself. For Shinran, even having faith in Amida
is not itself anything meritorious since it is actually the Amida Buddha who enables the “arising
of faith” within the individual in the first place.
Differences between Shinran / Pure Land Buddhism and Protestant Christianity
1. Christianity is clearly theistic, whereas Buddhism has classically denied the reality of a creator
God. Moreover, Christianity presupposes the reality of individual persons or souls, ontologically
distinct from God, whereas Buddhism denies the ontological reality of enduring persons or souls.
“According to Buddhism, our ideas of God and Soul are false and empty.” [Walpola Rahula,
What the Buddha Taught, p. 52]
“Buddhists do not believe in the existence of God. There need be no debating about this. In
practicing Buddhism one never finds talk of God, there is no role for God, and it is not difficult to
find in Buddhist texts attacks on the existence of an omnipotent, all-good Creator of the
universe…. To portray Buddhism as agnostic … seems to me a modern strategy. In ancient times
Buddhists were quite clear that they denied the existence of a personal creator God as taught in
rival theistic systems.” [Paul Williams, The Unexpected Way p. 25.]
“The Buddhist is an atheist and Buddhism in both its Theravada and Mahayana forms is atheism.”
[K. N. Jayatilleke, The Message of the Buddha, p. 105.]
“The entire Buddhist worldview is based on a philosophical standpoint in which the central
thought is the principle of interdependence, how all things and events come into being purely as a
result of interactions between causes and conditions. Within that philosophical worldview it is
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almost impossible to have any room for an atemporal, eternal, absolute truth. Nor is it possible to
accommodate the concept of a divine Creation.” [The Dalai Lama, The Good Heart p. 82.]
There is no indication that Shinran departed from traditional Buddhist perspectives which deny
God’s reality and the reality of enduring souls or persons.
Although Amida seems to function within Pure Land Buddhism in a way similar to God in
Christianity, Amida should not be thought of as an eternal creator God who brings into existence
from nothing the universe. In Pure Land thought Amida is identified with the Sambhoga-kaya
(Body of Bliss) and Nirmana-kaya (Transformation Body) of the Trikaya or threefold Buddha
essence.
Here it is important to distinguish between popular level folk religion and the high religion of the
religious authorities, the scholars and the official teachings of a religious tradition. On the level of
folk religion, many Japanese Pure Land Buddhists undoubtedly do treat Amida Buddha as a kind
of deity and they do believe in an enduring soul which literally is reborn in the Pure Land
paradise. But on the scholarly level these beliefs and practices are regarded as a deviation from
true Buddhist teaching.
2. The nature of Amida Buddha, Amida’s relation to all sentient creatures, and the arising of faith
(shinjin) in believers are all related to the Mahayana teaching on the universal Buddha essence.
Shinran’s thought reflects the Mahayana emphasis upon the universal Buddha nature inherent
within all beings.
[F]aith is not a volitional belief in something, but an articulation of our Buddha-nature.
This is crucial, and places Shinran’s thought squarely within the development of East
Asian Buddhist theory. We can become enlightened because we are already enlightened –
as Dogen said, only Buddhas become Buddhas. We cannot enlighten ourselves, for the
ego cannot bring about egolessness. Only Other Power can help us. This is because
within us all, at our very core, is Other Power itself, or the Buddha-nature which is
Amitabha…. We can only have faith because faith is a shining forth of our innate
Buddha-nature, which is Amitabha himself. All can be saved through faith, for all have
the Buddha-nature, and all that is required is to stop striving and allow the Buddha-nature
to radiate faith.
[Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, p. 272]
Thus, it is the universal Buddha nature within us, which is in some sense identical to Amida
Buddha, which produces shinjin, the arising of faith resulting in recitation of the nembutsu.
Recitation of the nembutsu is not something one does in order to attain salvation but is rather an
act of worship or gratitude to Amida for the salvation already realized.
How should a Christian theology of religions account for the similarities between Shinran
and Christian teachings?

Possible historical influence upon early Mahayana thought by Christian communities in
central Asia and later in China.
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
Christian theological doctrines of creation, common grace and revelation can account for
such similarities. Given that all human beings are created by God as “divine image
bearers”, and that there is a sense in which God’s grace is bestowed upon all humankind,
and that God has given a “general revelation” to all humankind, it is not surprising that
we should find such similarities in other cultures and religions. This is not to suggest that
God directly revealed certain truths to Gautama or to Shinran, or that Buddhists are really
Christians; it is simply a way of accounting for certain similarities in terms of biblical and
theological doctrines integral to the Christian faith.
Some helpful resources:
Jayatilleke, K.N. The Message of the Buddha, ed. Ninian Smart (New York: The Free Press,
1974)
Lopez, Donald S. Jr. The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to its History and Teachings
(Harper SanFrancisco, 2001).
Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught, revised edition (Grove Press, 1974).
The Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 1996).
Van Bragt, Jan. “Buddhism – Jodo Shinshu – Christianity: Does Jodo Shinshu Form a Bridge
Between Buddhism and Christianity?” in Japanese Religions 18 (January 1993) 47-75.
Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London: Routledge, 1989)
---------------. The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism (Edinburgh: T
and T Clark, 2002).
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