The Pure Land Is Now or Never
by Sister Annabel Laity
What Is Pure Land Buddhism?
The Pure Land school is currently the most popular school of Buddhism in China, Vietnam, and Japan. Pure Land Buddhism is based on the faith that there is a Land of Happiness (Sukhavati).
This faith can range from a popular belief to a deep personal experience of liberation in the present moment.
Popular Belief
The popular belief is that there is a land to the West that is billions of Buddha lands away from the world of our every day experience on earth. Someone who has practiced mindful recollection of this place—with all its special attributes and recollection of the Buddha Amitabha who presides over it—can be reborn there after death.
Once reborn, the person cannot regress on his or her spiritual path. He or she can only go forward in transforming afflictions and finding greater and greater freedom. He or she will become a Dharma instrument who will eventually be able to liberate others from their suffering. Sukhavati, the Pure Land, is the land of happiness which provides the ideal conditions for the spiritual practice.
Deeper Practice
The deeper practice is to experience that Buddha Amitabha is your own nature and the Land of Happiness is in your own heart and mind.
The phrase “Pure Land” (in Chinese “ching t’u,”), is a later term for Sukhavati coined in China. The Land of Happiness came to be seen as a land that is free of the spiritual pollution that we find in many places here on our own planet earth. It was seen that true happiness can only be experienced as a result of the practice of a spiritual dimension in our daily life.
According to the Mahayana teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra, the one contains the all. Someone who reveres Amita Buddha as her teacher needs to understand that Amita Buddha is in all other Buddhas and all other Buddhas are in Amita Buddha. Sukhavati is a tolerant and inclusive land. It accepts anyone whose practice is guided by any Buddha. It does not have to be Amita. It also accepts those whose practice is still in the early stages and whose purification of the afflictions is not yet complete.
Young and Old in the Pure Land
Every two years, a delegation of monks, nuns, and lay people, led by Thich Nhat Hanh, visits China. The calligraphy, courtyards planted with trees and flowers, architecture, statues, and bells help us practice giving right attention without effort. When we walk through the entrance of a temple there, we already feel that we are in another world, protected from the traffic and commercialism outside.
We are in a world that is over a thousand years old and when we practice there we are only doing what generations of Chinese Buddhists have done before us. We enter that stream without effort. What is the Pure Land if it is not a place where conditions for the spiritual practice are ideal so we can quickly realize the Buddha nature?
During our 2002 trip to China, we stayed in the Bao Quoc Temple at the foot of E Mei Shan. This mountain is the home of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, the Bodhisattva of Great Action. There, the monks practice in the way of the Pure Land. Every evening, there is a ceremony of recollection of the Buddha Amita. A large part of that ceremony consists of walking the circle of the recitation hall while chanting the name of the Buddha: “Namo Amita Buddha.” More than a hundred monks, nuns, and lay practitioners walk and chant together, creating a strong energy of mindfulness and concentration.
If we were to look into the minds of each person reciting the name of the Buddha, we would find many different objects of concentration. There would be those concentrating on a Pure Land which is far away from this earth and in which they hope to be born when they die. Others would be touching the Pure Land right here where they are, without any thought of the future or another sphere.
The elderly often find comfort in the contemplation of a Pure Land after death. This allows them to continue in their path of practice in the next stage of their existence.
But how is the Pure Land practice relevant for the young? Can we expect young people who have been educated in the modern sciences to have faith that such a land exists somewhere in the western direction? During our trip to China, we talked with young people who have had scientific educations and lived in cities, but still felt at a loss. They had no desire to be caught in the old culture and wanted to imitate the Western ways. They wanted to consume as young people in the West consumed, but what they wanted most of all was a spiritual path which could liberate them and bring them an authentic happiness.
Can Pure Land Buddhism Offer Them that Path?
In Plum Village in France, where Thich Nhat Hanh lives, many young people come and practice Pure Land Buddhism, although it is not given that name and they may not even know that they are doing so.
The Pure Land practice at Plum Village consists of dwelling in the present moment and appreciating all the wonderful and delightful things which life has to offer right now. Young people can accept such a Pure Land. They do not have to fear for the future because they have recognized the Pure Land here and they can be sure that they will be able to recognize the Pure Land later on in their life.
If we do not find the Pure Land in this present life and present moment, it is unlikely we will find it in the future.
When in China, I chanted the name of Amita and walked in unison with other practitioners in the recitation hall. I felt that I was doing the thing that I most want to do on this earth: going with many others in the direction of beauty, goodness, and truth.
The Amithaba Sutra makes us more keenly aware of all the beautiful facets of our earth. I go outside and I hear the teachings of the Buddha in the song of ordinary mortal birds and in the rustling of perishable leaves which will fall in autumn. The sutra teaches us to stop and look at the trees and flowers and see that they are the most valuable and precious things in our lives.
The great Buddhist Patriarchs have taught that the Pure Land is our mind and Amita Buddha is our true nature.
Once we have learnt to be in the Pure Land, we can also go outside and begin to walk in the Pure Land in the airport and in the railway station or in a busy, crowded and dirty street. Our mindful footsteps have the power of making the Pure Land manifest wherever we are. If we take our Pure Land with us, we can share it with others so it is not just for our own benefit but for the benefit of our world.
The Pure Land In Every Faith
Almost all faiths contain the idea of dwelling in a spiritual realm.
In Judaism and Christianity, there is the Kingdom of God (Heaven), as well as the Garden of Eden. In Psalms 84, arriving in the Kingdom of God is compared with coming home, “as the sparrow has found its home at last.” Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, 4:26, likens the Kingdom to a seed: “A man throws seed on the land, night and day the seed is sprouting….Once it is sown it grows and puts out big branches so that the birds of the air can shelter in its shade.”
In Hinduism, there is the abode of the undying, Amaravati, presided over by the god Indra. There is also the Brahma loka and the Brahmavihara (Abode of Brahma) where Hindus aspire to dwell with Brahma. True love can be found here in terms of maitri (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (joy), and upeksha (equanimity).
And in the Qur’an, Eden is also a paradise and there are descriptions of gardens of delight where those who practice their spiritual path dwell close to Allah. According to some they may even be able to see the face of Allah.
Following in Thich Nhat Hanh’s footsteps in the Linh Quang temple outside of Beijing, I see the Buddha’s feet as my teacher’s feet and I feel the Buddha’s feet as my feet. Hundreds of people are walking on the little paths which are just outside the temple walls. They are silent, peaceful, and joyful and the level of concentration is perfect. We are in the Pure Land as bodhisattvas, having removed our own obstacles to peace in order to help others do the same.
Now or Never
The book you hold in your hand [referring to Finding Our True Home: Living in the Pure Land Here and Now] can be read meaningfully by a practitioner of any spiritual path. It points to the deeper practice of dwelling in the Pure Land or the Kingdom of God here and now. Anyone can train to live their daily life deeply enough according to their own spiritual path and touch the reality of their true home.
It is the practice in China for Zen masters to exchange calligraphy when they meet. Very often Thich Nhat Hanh offers a calligraphy in English which reads: “The Pure Land is Now or Never.”
Your Pure Land is available now, and if you cannot walk there now there is very little guarantee that you will be able to walk there when you die.
This book [Finding Our True Home] is a guide to help you study and practice the Pure Land teaching in such a way that you touch the Pure Land right now. It will help us build a Pure Land on this earth for ourselves and for the future generations.
Notes:
Shakyamuni Buddha’s Great Demise, known in Buddhism as Mahaparinirvana (The Great and Supreme Extinction of all Notions), is put at 486 BCE.
Some four hundred years later, between 100 BCE and 100 CE, there emerged the teachings known as Mahayana Buddhism. Pure Land Buddhism is one aspect of the many developments of the Mahayana.
No Indian texts of Pure Land Buddhism survive. There is a statue (dated 104 CE) of Amitabha Buddha (the Buddha who presides over the Pure Land) from Mathura, indicating that this Buddha was revered in this time in India.
Scholars assume that the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra (literally, Sutra on the Land Adorned with Happiness) and the Smaller Sukhavativyuha Sutra were composed in Northwest India in Prakrit around 100 CE (this assumption is made based on internal linguistic evidence, such as the Chinese transliterations of Prakrit words).
Pure Land Buddhism came to China around 200 CE when certain Pure Land texts were translated. Around 402 CE, Kumarajiva translated the Smaller Sukhavativyuha Sutra. This is the version discussed in the book [referring to Finding Our True Home] you are holding in your hands.
Source: Adapted from Thich Nhat Hanh. Finding Our True Home: Living in the Pure Land Here and Now. Preface by Sister Annabel Laity. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2003.
The deeper practice is to experience that Buddha Amitabha is your own nature and the Land of Happiness is in your own heart and mind.
The great Buddhist Patriarchs have taught that the Pure Land is our mind and Amita Buddha is our true nature.
Your Pure Land is available now, and if you cannot walk there now there is very little guarantee that you will be able to walk there when you die.
(Sister Annabel Laity, in her Preface to the book Finding Our True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh)
Finding Our True Home by Thich Nhat Hanh
Finding Our True Home presents a new definitive translation of the Amitabha Sutra along with Thich Nhat Hanh’s first commentary on one of the most practiced forms of Buddhism in the world, the Pure Land school.
Introduced in the Buddha’s own lifetime, Pure Land practice puts us in touch with the beauty in our own world and brings us the security, solidity, and freedom we need in order to truly enjoy it.
Realizing that Buddha is within us, we see that the Pure Land (paradise) is here and now, rather than in the future. Finding Our True Home will open a new Dharma door to many students of meditation.
Source: amazon.com.au