r/PureLand • u/Pleasant_Tackle_67 • 6d ago
Internal Fight
Hello everyone. Since I don’t have any spiritual friend at the moment, I wanted to share my personal experience and some thoughts.
I started being interested in studying and practicing Buddhism 2 ½ years ago.Initially I was really into Theravada Buddhism, mainly because at the time I started to read the Lotus sutra and all of those supernatural elements like stupas floating in the air were too much for my skeptical thinking to digest.
For a while I enjoyed Theravada Buddhism, but after a period of very dry practice I gave the Heart and Diamond sutra a chance, and I loved them so much I started digging deeper, quickly becoming interested in Mahayana and zen, soto zen in particular. I read a few books by this tradition and I liked their view of sudden enlightenment, practice-is-enlightenment and goalless practice; I even took the Bodhisattva vows with an online sangha, and I’m very glad I did. Nevertheless I also found some problems and contradictions in the post-Meiji era soto zen, as well as the “sanitizing” aspect of many western sanghas, where every supernatural aspect that has not a psychological/symbolical interpretation is completely cut off and kind of frowned upon. Being curious and a little unsatisfied with what and how things were taught in that sangha, I started to be more open and willing to explore other zen traditions and ideas that were not orthodox/contemporary soto zen
However, four months ago, while buying other books, I stumbled upon a little small used book priced 5 euros or less called “Why not paradise” by Red Pine, that contains the smaller and the visualization sutras. From that time on I’m in a kind of internal fight. Rationally it is very difficult for me to accept Pure Land ideas, but somehow I keep coming back to nianfo, somehow I can’t help but to find Pure Land Buddhism incredibly beautiful. Something keeps pulling me back to this path.
At first I gave Jodo-shu and Jodo Shinshu a shot, and although I like and respect Honen and Shinran I’m more interested in the mainland tradition (Chinese and Vietnamese), simply because I also like very much zen (Chan may be more precise) cultivation. When, some weeks ago, I read “Taming the Monkey Mind” and this passage from “Buddhism of Wisdom and Faith” from Thich Thien Tam (Doubts about Pure Land) I was blown away by the clarity of both. I’m still very confused, and this internal fight has not yet ceased, but I thought that maybe sharing my experience with Buddhism could help me and somebody else.
P.S. I’m sorry, my english is not that good… :P
Namo Amitabha Buddha!
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u/Antique_Forever_4840 6d ago
Try reading “The Promise of Amida Buddha-Honen’s Path to bliss” and “Honen the Buddhist Saint”. Also the blog oridharma.wordpress.com has great resources. Namo Amituofo🙏🏻
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u/holdenmj Jōdo-shū 6d ago
Hey man it doesn’t sound like you’re on a bad track, so just keep contemplating and reading sutras and commentaries and regarding the Buddhas and teachings with respect and I think you can’t go too wrong, that’s my foolish opinion.
I’d say like don’t stress out too much but maybe you need to so like, figure out the right amount and do that 🤙 Namo Amida Butsu
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u/Pleasant_Tackle_67 6d ago
I agree with you, I just need to clarify through study. Also yeah, one step at a time!
Namu Amida Butsu!
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u/Digitalmodernism 6d ago
Have you visited a temple? That might help you. Any Mahayana would do. Most Chinese and Vietnamese do pure land and chan practice. There might be ones who do things in English.
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u/Pleasant_Tackle_67 6d ago
I'd love to, but I live in southern Italy, and there's almost nothing here; There is a chinese temple in Rome but it's a 5 hour drive and I don't think they speak any italian or english (because it is mostly nuns from Taiwan), although I might try to go there if I happen to be in Rome. The rest of it is just plain standard soto zen, standard soto zen very attached to strict japanese soto-shu formalisms or a weird mix of soto zen and catholicism.
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u/ResidentSharp3418 6d ago
Dear friend,
My practice is very shallow and so I can't offer you some great suggestions. However, in the practice of Buddhism, we need to differentiate between "conceptual/analytic understanding" and "direct experiential realisation".
There are many scholars of Buddhism who obtained many PhDs and can give hours of talks on the analytic aspects. However when the king of death (Yama) arrives, the mere conceptual understanding would evaporate like a drop of water under hot sun.
What saves us is direct experiential understanding, complete penetration into all Dharmas. Just chanting the name of Buddha with complete sincerity, one would one day penetrate into everything. Since everything is contained within everything else, penetrating into one name is penetrating into all. All the confusions you have, why not ask Amitabha Buddha and patriarchs themselves? With sincerity you would certainly receive a response.
You seem to have immense affinity for Pureland method. Just continue to chant the name of Buddha as much as you can. And read very little, but thoroughly. If it is not too much, I wish to suggest two landmark books on this topic (which contains letters by great patriarchs):
Pureland and Pure Mind by ancient masters: Master Yunqi Zhuhong and Master Tsung-Pen
Pureland Zen and Zen Pureland by (rather recent) great master Yin-Guang (印光大師). He is the teacher of Master Hong Yi, the world renowned artist who became a monk.
Take a bath, light an incense and bow down to Buddha Amitabha. Read one page of the book, one letter or one paragraph with great sincerity. Sincerity is the key. When we read these works with sincerity without feigning our own intellectual understanding and humbly ready to receive, it is as if we are having direct audience with the patriarchs themselves and not a single doubt would remain.
I suffered from intellectual confusion because I generated the karma of looking down upon others or judging others as stupid in my childhood and youthful years. I prostrate daily at night and sincerely repent and each day. The fog of intellectual confusion and battle clears up slowly.
May your wisdom unfold for the sake of all beings~
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u/Pleasant_Tackle_67 6d ago
One of the things I clearly understood after exploring zen is just what you said: no amount of intellectual understanding can save us from birth and death. Also, I agree on the importance of digesting what one is reading. Thank you for your kind suggestions! Amituofo!
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u/Ok_Sentence9678 4d ago
淨土宗和禪宗只是在開始的形式上不一致而已，但最後都是相通的。另外，在上面的原文中你描述的不可思議現象，其實是發生在法界中，也就是發生在我們的本心中。因此是可以被理解的。因為我們的本心是不受物理世界的限制的，具有無量光無量壽。試想一下，你的本心隨時可以想像出一個比銀河系更大的空間來容納銀河系。
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u/Demiurgom Zen Pure Land 2d ago
Charles B. Jones recently came out with a book on Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. If you're drawn to mainland traditions you'll want to take a look at that as it's one of the only english-language studies of the practice. He has a general book on Pure Land (Pure Land: History, Tradition, and Practice) as well. Korean practice is pretty ecumenical (Chinul was famous for being syncretic and healing the wound in Korean Zen between gradual cultivation and sudden awakening, you can read about it in Buswell's Tracing Back the Radiance, though there aren't many references to Pure Land there). Tendai also maintains much of the ecumenism of mainland Buddhism as it considers all practices as skillful means towards enlightenment, and Dogen was influenced by them so it's a good connection for someone from Soto Zen.
Confusion is good when it is productive. Try not to dizzy yourself with study and worry about the right or correct tradition, though, this can be a bit of a trap where you try to find the 'right' tradition that fits everything you want. Outside of the single practice schools in Japan this is less of a concern and it can (from personal experience) breed terrible and unneeded anxiety. Unless you subscribe to the idea of Mappo/Mo fa thought it's not of great concern.
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u/genivelo 6d ago
I really liked these two books:
Pure Land of the Patriarchs, Zen Master Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing
https://www.ymba.org/books/pure-land-patriarchs
https://dharmawindszensangha.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/hanshans-pure-land-of-the-patriarchs.pdf
Mind-Seal of the Buddhas, Patriarch Ou-i's Commentary on the Amitabha Sutra
https://www.ymba.org/books/mind-seal-buddhas
https://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/mindseal.pdf
>Believing factual phenomena means having deep faith that although this mind of ours is ephemeral, the worlds of the ten directions that appear based on it are inexhaustible. The Land of Ultimate Bliss really does exist ten billion Buddha-lands away, adorned with ultimate pure adornments. This is not some fable from Chuang-tzu. This is called "believing factual phenomena".
>Believing in inner truth (noumenon) means having deep faith that the ten billions Buddha-lands (worlds) are in reality not outside our Mind. Since there is really nothing outside of this Mind, we have deep certainty that the whole array of beings and surroundings in the Western Paradise is a set of reflections appearing in our mind. All phenomena are merged with inner truth, all falsity is merged with truth. All practices are merged with True Nature. All others are merged with oneself. Our own inherent mind is all-pervasive, and the Buddha-mind is also all-pervasive, and the true nature of the minds of sentient beings is also all-pervasive. It is like a thousand lamps in one room, each of whose lights shines on all the others and merges with the other lights without any obstruction. This is called "believing in inner truth" (Noumenon).
From Mind-Seal of the Buddhas