Living Rissho Ankoku Ron
A commentary
by Ryuei Michael McCormick
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| Living Rissho Ankoku RonA commentary
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Review of Pure Land Buddhism Part 2:
Pure Land Buddhism in India and China
Pure Land Buddhists in East Asia often point to the great Indian Mahayana
patriarchs Nagarjuna (c. 150-250) and Vasubandhu (c. 320-400) as advocates for
the practice of Pure Land Buddhism. Nagarjuna, the founder of the Madhyamika
school of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, is credited with writing the Commentary on the Ten Stage Sutra (a sutra which is actually a
chapter in the Flower Garland Sutra)
in which it is said that there is a difficult way of attaining enlightenment
through self-cultivation and an easy way of attaining enlightenment by thinking
of and calling upon the names of the buddhas of the ten directions. Devotion to
Amitabha Buddha is especially recommended. The practice of keeping in mind and
visualizing Amitabha Buddha in this commentary is not based upon the
aforementioned Triple Pure Land Sutras
but rather upon another early Mahayana sutra called the Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra (Sutra
on the Meditation to Behold the Buddhas). As we shall see, the Pratyutpanna
Sutra would come to have a great influence on Chinese Buddhist practice, but
would eventually lose its place to the Triple
Pure Land Sutras within the Pure Land Buddhist tradition.
Vasubandhu, one of the founders of the Indian Yogacara school of Buddhism,
is credited with writing the Hymns of
Aspiration for Birth [in the Pure Land], which is also known as the Discourse on the Pure Land when its auto-commentary is included. The
Hymns of Aspiration for Birth is a
commentary on the Sutra of the Buddha of
Infinite Life and it emphasizes the visualization of Amitabha Buddha, the
merit contained in his name, and the saving power of his 18th vow.
In China, the monk Hui-yuan (334-416) is regarded as the founder of the
Pure Land tradition. According to the traditional account, in the year 402 he
gathered together 123 fellow monks, hermits, and literati together on Mt. Lu and
founded the White Lotus Society. The White Lotus Society dedicated themselves to
the practice of the Pratyutpanna Sutra,
which was translated into Chinese in the 2nd century C.E. Their practice
consisted of chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha and visualizing the buddha and
his Pure Land of the West. They also rigorously observed the precepts and their
aim was to retire from the world and aspire to rebirth in the Pure Land. They
did not try to spread this teaching among the masses and Hui-yuans group
passed away along with its founders. However, it was to serve as an inspiration
for later Pure Land practitioners and other groups going by the name of the
White Lotus or Lotus Society in later times.
The practice of devotion to Amitabha Buddha also became a part of the
Tien-tai school from its inception. The founder, Chih-i (538-597), made
Pure Land Buddhism an integral part of his system of meditative practice.
Chih-is major work, the Great
Concentration and Insight, describes four kinds of meditation practice: (1)
constant sitting, (2) constant walking, (3) half-walking and half-sitting, and
(4) neither walking nor sitting. The constant walking meditation practice was
based upon the Pratyutpanna Sutra. It
consisted of circumambulating a statue of Amitabha Buddha while chanting that
Buddhas name and visualizing him.
Pure Land Buddhism quickly became a major feature of just about all forms
of Chinese Buddhism. After the persecution of Buddhism by the Emperor Wu in 845,
only the Pure Land and Zen schools continued to flourish in China. The Zen
school initially held itself aloof from and even criticized Pure Land Buddhism,
but in the end Pure Land Buddhism was even incorporated into the Zen school by
Zen Masters such as Yung-ming (904-975) and Chu-hung (1535-1615).
The Pure Land Buddhism which survived the persecution of 845 and which
attained mass appeal throughout East Asia was not, however, the Pure Land
Buddhism of the Pratyutpanna Sutra
championed by Hui-yuan or Chih-i. Rather, it was the form of Pure Land Buddhism
inspired by the Triple Pure Land Sutras.
This form of Pure Land Buddhism deemphasized the visualization of Amitabha
Buddha and the Pure Land of the West, and put much greater emphasis on the 18th
vow, called the Original Vow, and the chanting of the name of Amitabha Buddha to
the virtual exclusion of all other practices.
Three teachers of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism in particular should be
noted because they provided the major source of inspiration for the Pure Land
movement of Honen in Japan. These teachers are Tan-luan (476-542), Tao-cho
(562-645), and Shan-tao (613-681).
Tan-luan started out as a monk in the Four Treatise school of Chinese
Madhyamika Buddhism. When stricken with a grave illness, however, he turned to
Taoism in order to discover a way to prolong his life. He then met an Indian
monk named Bodhiruci who converted him to Pure Land Buddhism by presenting him
with translations of the Sutra of
Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life and the Discourse
on the Pure Land attributed to Vasubandhu. Tan-luan subsequently wrote a
very influential commentary on Vasubandhus Discourse.
In his commentary, Tan-luan emphasized the distinction between the easy way
and the difficult way of attaining enlightenment discussed in the Commentary
on the Ten Stage Sutra attributed to Nagarjuna, the chanting of the name of
Amitabha Buddha as a way of eradicating karmic evil, the importance of the mind
of faith, and reliance upon the Other-power of Amitabha Buddha as opposed to
reliance upon our own limited self-power. These and other teachings of
Tan-luan would become important elements in Pure Land Buddhism.
Tao-cho considered himself a disciple of Tan-luan even though the
latter had passed away long before Tao-cho was even born. Tao-cho was
originally a teacher of the Nirvana Sutra;
but at age 48, inspired by Tan-luans teachings and the Sutra
of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life, he became a fervent
practitioner and popularizer of Pure Land Buddhism. In particular he taught that
the Latter Age of the Dharma had already begun (according to his calculations
wherein the age of the True Dharma was believed to have lasted only 500 years)
so the difficult Path of Sages was no longer a viable practice for people who
should turn instead to the easy Path of Rebirth in the Pure Land.
Shan-tao was the direct disciple of Tan-luan and came to enjoy even
greater esteem than his master. He wrote the Commentary
on the Sutra of Meditation on the Buddha of Infinite Life that would have an
enormous impact on Pure Land Buddhism. Shan-tao divided all Buddhist practice
into those practices that were based upon the
Triple Pure Land Sutras and all those that were not. He termed the former
the correct, and the latter the miscellaneous practices. Shan-tao then selected
the practice of chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha as the practice that would
assure rebirth in the Pure Land, and referred to four other devotional practices
as auxiliary practices. Shan-tao also expounded the three kinds of faith
discussed in the Meditation on the Buddha
of Infinite Life Sutra as essential for rebirth: sincere faith, deep faith,
and the faith that aspires to rebirth in the Pure Land. Finally, Shan-tao
provided a very graphic depiction of the way of Pure Land Buddhism in terms of
his famous parable of the two rivers and the white path. All of these ideas and
images would appear prominently in the teachings of the Japanese Pure Land
movement begun by Honen.
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