Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice PDF
Preview Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice
Chinese Pure Land Buddhism Pure La•nd Buddhist Studies a publication of the Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union EDITORIAL BOARD Richard K. Payne Chair, Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Carl Bielefeldt Stanford University Harry Gyokyo Bridge Buddhist Church of Oakland James Dobbins Oberlin College Jérôme Ducor Université de Lausanne, Switzerland Paul Harrison Stanford University Anne Klein Rice University David Matsumoto Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Scott Mitchell Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union Eisho Nasu Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan Jonathan A. Silk Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands Kenneth K. Tanaka Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan Chinese Pure Land Buddhism Understanding a Tradition of Practice Charles B. Jones University of Hawai‘i Press / Honolulu © 2019 Institute of Buddhist Studies All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 24 2 3 2 2 2 1 20 19 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jones, Charles Brewer, author. Title: Chinese Pure Land Buddhism : understanding a tradition of practice / Charles B. Jones. Other titles: Pure Land Buddhist studies. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2019] | Series: Pure Land Buddhist studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiiers: LCCN 2019001148 | ISBN 9780824881016 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Pure Land Buddhism—China. Classiication: LCC BQ8512.9.C5 J66 2019 | DDC 294.3/9260951—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001148 The Pure Land Buddhist Studies series publishes scholarly works on all aspects of the Pure Land Buddhist tradition. Historically, this includes studies of the origins of the tradition in India, its transmission into a variety of religious cultures, and its continuity into the present. Methodologically, the series is committed to pro- viding a venue for a diversity of approaches, including, but not limited to, an- thropological, sociological, historical, textual, biographical, philosophical, and interpretive, as well as translations of primary and secondary works. The series will also seek to reprint important works so that they may continue to be avail- able to the scholarly and lay communities. The series is made possible through the generosity of the Buddhist Churches of America’s Fraternal Beneit Associa- tion. We wish to express our deep appreciation for its support to the Institute of Buddhist Studies. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover photo: Kumarajiva Temple at Wuwei, Gansu Province. Photo by author. Dedicated to the memory of Roger Jonathan Tashi Corless 1938–2007 Friend and Mentor Contents Series Editor’s Preface ix Preface xi Abbreviations and Titles of Texts xv 1 Introduction 1 2 What Is the Chinese Pure Land Tradition? 5 3 The Development of the Concept of the Pure Land 33 4 Self-Power and Other-Power in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism 61 5 Ethics and Precepts in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism 85 6 Defending Pure Land in Late Imperial China 106 7 Methods of Nianfo in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism 127 8 Lushan Huiyuan: The Evolution of the First Pure Land Patriarch 148 9 Conclusions 169 Appendix: The Thirteen Chinese Pure Land Patriarchs 173 Notes 179 Bibliography 187 Index 201 vii Chapter 1 Introduction Throughout China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and sites where diaspora Chi- nese live, one may encounter Buddhist clerics and laypeople who wear a rosary (niànzhū 念珠) as a public sign of their Buddhist identity. While these strings of beads have other religious uses, they are mainly associ- ated with the practice of nianfo (niànfó 念佛), or “buddha-recitation/con- templation,” a practice wherein, at its simplest, the devotee recites the name of the Buddha Amitābha (Āmítuófó 阿彌陀佛) in the expectation of gaining rebirth in the western Pure Land (xīfāng jìngtǔ 西方淨土) called Sukhāvatī after they die. For those who doubt that they can achieve complete liberation and buddhahood in the present life (and this includes almost all Buddhists), this practice is the expression of a hope that while dwelling in this buddha’s land and receiving his direct instruction, they will inally escape all future suffering. More than that, they will become buddhas and establish their own Pure Lands as bases from which to aid other suffering beings. Westerners who know something about Buddhism have dificulty understanding this practice (Fujita 1996, p. 3). In university courses, pop- ular books and magazines, and western-oriented practice centers, they learn that Buddhism is a religion of self-reliance. One studies the doc- trines and engages in the practices, and by one’s own efforts puriies the mind and realizes the truth leading to liberation. Upon hearing of “Pure Land Buddhism,” usually in the Japanese formulation that emphasizes the helplessness of human beings in the present age of deilement and counsels complete reliance on the “other-power” (tālì 他力; J. tariki) of Amitābha, they frequently ask how anyone could consider such a teach- ing Buddhist at all. One scholar, writing in the 1980s, sought to establish on philosophical grounds that Pure Land Buddhism was not really Bud- dhism, as it represented such a departure from early Buddhism that it Brought t1o you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 11/18/19 6:21 PM Chapter 1 would be best to consider it a new religious formulation altogether (Steadman 1987). As Alfred Bloom once reported in a popular Buddhist magazine, Christmas Humphreys, a noted early English Buddhist scholar and propo- nent of Zen, once declared Shin “a form of Buddhism which on the face of it discards three-quarters of Buddhism. Compared with the teaching of the Pāli Canon it is but Buddhism and water.” In fact, Shin Buddhism is often portrayed this way by those who believe meditation practice constitutes the core teaching of Buddhism. (Bloom 1995, p. 58) This is not just a problem for westerners. As the reader will discover in chapter 6, many Buddhists in late imperial China also wondered whether Pure Land represented a distortion of the pure buddha-dharma, and the Chinese Pure Land tradition is all the more interesting for its sophisticated and witty responses to such attacks and the way it defended its position as an orthodox Buddhist tradition. The reader will see how Chinese Buddhist authors handled this in due course. Here let us simply note that such suspicions have resulted in a distinct lack of interest in Pure Land among western scholars and practitioners, at least until very recent times. Another impediment to understanding the Chinese tradition in par- ticular arose from the historical development of western scholarship on Chinese Buddhism. As recently as my days as a doctoral student in the early 1990s, scholars specializing in East Asian Buddhism generally learned literary Chinese for reading primary source texts, modern Japa- nese for reading secondary scholarship, but not modern spoken or writ- ten Chinese. I would hear that the Chinese did not produce scholarship worth consulting, and that the Japanese were thorough and insightful interpreters of the Buddhist traditions. As a result, what western schol- arship existed on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism at the time based itself largely on Chinese primary sources and Japanese secondary literature. This resulted in western works on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism that imported the Japanese interpretive framework into their presentations. For example, a series of doctoral dissertations produced in the 1970s and early 1980s focused on Tanluan (Tánluán 曇鸞), Daochuo (Dàochuò 道綽), and Shandao (Shàndǎo 善導), igures prominent in the Japanese Pure Land patriarchal lineage but not relected in any of the Chinese lineages, in which neither Tanluan nor Daochuo appear (see appendix). Over the years, I have come to think that something else has also been discouraging western scholars from researching this tradition. While we 2 Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 11/18/19 6:21 PM
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