Let us imagine two extreme ways of looking at how self-power and other-power interact to bring an individual to the Land of Utmost Bliss.
At one extreme, it depends entirely on self-power: one’s own efforts and achievements at virtuoso religious practices constitute the sole criterion for success.
In this model, only the most skilled and assiduous of elite practitioners will make it, and all the other suffering sentient beings will just have to muddle along in samsara with no hope of escape. This was the Indian model, which held that only bodhisattvas at the seventh of the ten levels and higher achieved rebirth.
The other extreme is to give no role at all to self-power and teach that anyone can go to the Pure Land because Amitābha will bring it about through the power of his vows. While this gives hope to everyone, denying that any effort one might put forward has any soteriological significance opens the way to antinomianism and provides no basis for effective moral exhortation.
The Chinese and Korean camps dealt with this by trying to affirm both sides of the dilemma.
Yes, if one had done evil all one’s life and was terrified by one’s looming rebirth in one of the hells at the time of death, ten nianfo would elicit Amitābha’s compassion, and one would arrive in the Pure Land and escape one’s deserved karmic retribution. However, one would be born at the lowest level, and it would take a long time to achieve buddhahood.
If one practiced constantly to keep the sympathetic connection with Amitābha active up to the last minute, and if one engaged in ethical behavior, ritual practices, meditation, study, and charity, then one would gain a higher level of rebirth and remain in training for a shorter period of time.
However, any need for efforts on one’s own behalf brings with it the specter of failure, and the Chinese tradition does indeed have stories of people whose rebirth in the Pure Land was scuttled by a loss of focus at the crucial instant despite years of devoted practice.
I will conclude this summary with an image.
Pure Land in India and early China was like a stairway: one had to climb it under one’s own power.
After Shandao, Pure Land in China was like an escalator: if one were truly disabled and could not move, it would carry one to the top, but if one could walk, then one could add one’s own efforts to that of the escalator to reach the top sooner.
In Japan after the Kamakura reformers set up Pure Land as a “single-practice school,” it was like an elevator: it takes one to the top, and all the walking around inside it one may do on the way up will add nothing to the process.
Each position has its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps there is no perfect way to balance universal hope with expectations of moral effort and personal practice at a systematic level.
It falls to individual practitioners and teachers to make it work within the contingencies of real life.
Source: Jones, Charles B. Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, 2021.
The above text is excerpted from Chapter 14 (“Self-Power and Other-Power”) of the book.
Each position — self-power and other-power — has its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps there is no perfect way to balance universal hope with expectations of moral effort and personal practice at a systematic level.
It falls to individual practitioners and teachers to make it work within the contingencies of real life.
(Charles B. Jones, Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice)